An Evening at the 5th Avenue Theater

by Jennifer | Feb 6, 2012 | Blog

Last night was amazing!  Tom, Sage and I had been looking forward to it for so long and the night finally came!  (Molly and Ashley had been looking forward to their sleep over at Mrs. Cook’s house too!  Thanks Sarah!!)  We drove up to Seattle and started with dinner at Benihanna.  (Teppan is always my first choice when eating out!)  Sage was so excited.  Their children’s menu was a chef hat.  She joked about cooking her own dinner.

After dinner we headed across the street to the theater to wait in line for the musical.  We were in row N in the middle and could see perfectly! The musical was wonderful (with the exception of one scene right before the intermission.)  Sage had a huge smile on her face throughout most of the musical and Tom and I kept glancing over to watch her reaction to the singing and dancing.  I’m sure we’ll be seeing even more singing and dancing from Sage after last night!  The only thing missing from the night is a picture of Tom . . .

New Position for Tom

by Jennifer | Jan 25, 2012 | Blog

There have been many times in our 16 1/2 years of marriage where we’ve been able to look back on a tough situation and see how God used it to mold and shape us and move us in a different direction.  This is one of those times. 

When Tom broke his back on August 1st, he had only been working for the Lobster Shop for 5 weeks.  There was no way he could stand on the line and run a kitchen, which was the job he was hired for.  By God’s grace, the owners of the restaurant group knew he had other skills that would benefit the company and found other work for him to do as he was recovering (and still is recovering.  Standing up cooking still causes him pain almost immediately.)  They have been very pleased with what he has done over the past 4 months and offered him the position of Food and Beverage Director for the company, which he started on Monday.  The job title basically explains the job – he’ll be overseeing anything that has to do with food and beverage for all 3 restaurants. 

We are excited about this change for Tom and for our family and give all credit to God for this amazing turn of events because of the accident.

So as the months go on, we ask that you continue to pray for Tom’s recovery and that this new position will be a good fit for both him and the company.  We also have not seen any medical bills yet from the accident, but believe that some large ones will be coming.  Please pray for wisdom as they begin to arrive and as we make a plan to pay them off.

What’s up with this crazy weather?

by Jennifer | Jan 20, 2012 | Blog

This has been an interesting week, to say the least. School has been canceled for 4 days and we have been stuck at home! It started off with beautiful snow and lots of fun getting bundled up and playing outside.

Snow playdate with friends from a couple block away

Sledding down our street with neighbors

Yesterday, the snow turned to ice and freezing rain, making trees and tree branches start to fall everywhere! Today it is raining and the snow and ice are starting to melt, but it’s a mess everywhere.

I have never seen ice form around a tree branch. It was beautiful, but it got much thicker than this as the day went on.

Besides some branches in our back yard, this was our only casualty (at least so far.)

Many people are without power and probably will be for a bit as they get things fixed. We have been fortunate to still have power and have been burning through lots of wood in our wood burning stove to stay warm.

Tom has gotten out a few times to the gym in Covington, just a few miles away and said the roads are horrible. He was hoping to work from a Starbucks yesterday and today since it wasn’t possible to drive into work, but it was insane as many people without power were there with their power strips and electronics tying to get them charged. So, he has been home a lot (which has been wonderful). He’s on his way to Tacoma to work as I type this. He left about an hour ago and is still not there. Freeways are closed, power lines and trees are down all over the place. He’s going really slow, but will get there eventually. I can’t imagine many people are eating out today . . .

Happy 4th Birthday Molly!

by Jennifer | Jan 17, 2012 | Blog

Happy New Year

by Jennifer | Jan 3, 2012 | Blog

Well, this will be my last post for our fivetallsmalls2011 blog . . . on to 2012.  The girls and I celebrated New Year’s Eve with lots of food, movies and games.  Tom got home around 10 and was up with Sage and I at midnight.  (Well, Sage was really the only one that made it until midnight, but she did wake us up. We are getting old . . .)  Happy New Year!

Getting ready to eat!

Watching a movie

Celebrating the new year with the east coast.   Cheers!

The Start to the Christmas Season

by Jennifer | Dec 9, 2011 | Blog

This blog entry should have been before the last, but at least it’s still before Christmas. 

Here are the girls taking a break from decorating the day after Thanksgiving enjoying making some fun Christmas cupcakes sent up from Grandma and Alyssa.

We got our tree early this year.  Instead of attempting our annual trek up the mountain for a tree  we drove down the road to our wonderful neighborhood Home Depot, found  a wonderful tree and they even put in on the car for us.  (Definitely a wise choice given our two unsuccessful trips last year and now Tom’s injury in August, which would have left me to cut it down and carry it.  No thank you!)  The girls were so excited to decorate it and didn’t seem to care that it came from a store.

There is definitely some sort of fashion statement going on here with Molly.