New blog!!

check it out.

www.thespohns.wordpress.com

We're Back!

Wow... what an eventful few weeks it has been. Flying to New York, planning a wedding, visiting with family, getting married, flying to Maui (6 hour time difference from NY), taking in the beautiful sights, sounds, feel, tastes and smells of Hawaii, flying back home, Emma changed her name..and back to work. We are both happy and sad that it is all over. We will remember all of it, forever. Thank you so much to everyone for all of your support, help, and generosity. We have so many pictures, mostly on facebook so far and we will show you all the wedding pictures when Monica has finished with them. But here are some pictures from our trip to Maui.

Sunrise on top of Haleakala (a big volcano)




On the Beach






Snorkeling and Snuba Diving






Road Trips (Hana and Northwest Maui)

One more week!!

After almost an entire year of planning...the time has come! We have been graciously showered with gifts and love in the past two months and can't wait to give everyone hugs and kisses in person. Jason and I decided to go to Puyallup Fair today for one last "date" before becoming a married couple. Enjoy! See you all soon! xo

Emma's Birthday

I can't believe it's been a year since Emma's 25th birthday. Time has flown by so quickly. This year we celebrated by just having a couple of people over and making dinner, no elaborate suprise this time. Emma's request was to have home-made pizza, which is her favorite, and peanut butter ice cream from Bluebird (in Capital Hill). She's not a big cake eater, but considering it was her birthday and we were having a few people over, I made a cake too. Just a chocolate cake, no fancy cake sculpture this year. Earlier that day we had our new table delivered. We love it! I can't wait to throw dinner/poker parties now! We also bought a desk for the office, since we didn't have one yet.

15 Minutes of Fame

As you can see, this is a short post. We are super busy working on our new home, decorating, organizing, and upgrading. A little over a week ago, we were chosen to be on the http://www.redfin.com/ homepage. Redfin is the real estate company we used to purchase our home. For the next few months, we will be featured on their homepage. We also just received our redfin commission rebate so this weekend we are going to be shopping for some furniture, wish us luck.

Our New Home

We're finally HOME! After countless discussions, Jason and I decided to buy a home together in November!! We ended up buying a newly constructed home in South Seattle. South Seattle is extremely diverse and is home to most of the social service agencies in the city. We are two blocks from the new light rail (similar to a subway/train) that takes you from the airport to downtown Seattle. We are close to Columbia City which turns out to have amazing shops, coffee and little eateries. Seward Park is a beautiful park less than 10 minutes away... Our neighbors have welcomed us with cookies and hello's which has been such a blessing! It's always hard to lay roots in a new place... being welcomed makes it that much easier! As for our home...we couldn't be more blessed... Jason and I rolled up our sleeves last Friday and moved everything out of our Capitol Hill Apartment (with the help of my Mom, Jan). Last Saturday, friends and family lent hours of their time to help us move things out of Jason's storage unit in Everett to our new home. Thank you all for your support and strong muscles... couldn't have done it without you! We love our view of Mt. Rainier from the bedrooms! Jason loves that we are away from the noisy city streets in our own little "suburbia" and that his "Fairlady" sports car has a two car garage to sleep in each night!!! As for me, I LOVE not having to go to a laundromat! I have a washer/dryer in a room all to myself! Lastly, soaking in a tub frequently has helped the bruises and sore muscles heal quickly! So far... Jason's cooked lots of yummy stir fry on his gas stove! Family and friends have showered us with yummy treats, flowers and plants. Needless to say, there are still some boxes that need to be unpacked... but we are home and couldn't be happier. The question is... who will be our first guest(s)?

Christmas 2009 (In Michigan)

This Christmas, Jason and I flew to Michigan to celebrate the holidays. We had such an amazing time! We first celebrated with Jason's Dad, Cecile and Jason's four sisters! Yes, four! Kara, her husband Joel, and their two boys Aidan and Theo. Melanie and her husband Bebo, Megan, Christina and little baby Harleigh. We played games, ate a yummy Vietnamese noodle dish (Cecile...YUM!), laughed, slept in and got to know one another. Santa visited us all! It was super fun to be able to hold Harleigh and to hang out with Aidan and Theo...I love little ones! Then Jason and I went and celebrated Christmas with Jason's Mom, Cindy! When I first met Jason I was in awe... what an amazing man... my next thought was... who is his mother? She too, must be amazing to have raised such a well rounded and loving man. I was right! We also celebrated with Tanya (Jason's cousin) and her brood; Jared, Reily and Hannah... what an awesome time! We went to a museum in Grand Rapids for "A Night at the Museum." I was able to learn more about Michigan, which was great because I didn't even know where Michigan was before I met Jason... Cindy also took Jason and I out for a great Indian dinner to celebrate our engagement. Let me not forget, Josephine... Cindy's pug! I felt so welcome and at home with everyone. I can't thank you enough for welcoming me in to your home and also in to your family. Jason is, in part, the man he is today because of all of you. I am so blessed to be sharing my life with him-I look forward to the opportunity to get to know all of you better. Lots o' love-Emma

Dreamliner Takes Flight

Today was a big day for me. As most of you know, I work for Boeing. Most of you probably don't know what I do there. I am a structural engineer or a stress engineer, depending on your lingo. I am responsible for the analysis of the pylon to wing structure for the 787 propulsion program. In the simplest terms, my job is to make sure, through detailed analysis and testing, that the engines stay attached to the wings during flight and can safely break away from the plane in case of a crash. I have been working on this for over three years now. After 2 years of delays, the 787 finally took it's maiden voyage today. Thousands of Boeing employees watched this event from the flight line. I was one of them. In a year, airlines will begin receiving 787's for their fleets and some of you may get to fly on one. Hopefully I will get to fly on it this year to support flight testing activites.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi6q54Fd308 - CNN Video From the Paine Field Tower

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GqB0Jp5ESk - Boeing Employee Video from the Flight Line

So much has happened..

We are doing great, couldn't be happier. But the last couple of months have been extremely busy and we've made some pretty big life changes. As you know, we are engaged but we haven't picked a date yet. We have narrowed it down to the august-september 2010 timeframe. We have decided it will be in NY, where most of Emma's family is. Lastly, we know it's going to cost us a bit of money, though we are going to keep costs down as much as we can. In addition to that, we planned on buying a house next year too. So, we decided it would be in our best interests to save money by renting out my condo and living together in Emma's apartment while we looked for a house through Redfin. Our goal was to find one and buy it before the "First-Time Homebuyers Tax Credit" ended, since Emma qualifies as long as we buy before we are married. Well, long story short, we are buying a new construction house in Seattle. It will be finished on February 26th and we are super excited!

I moved out of my condo the week before Thanksgiving and moved in with Emma after putting most of my stuff in storage for the next few months. The move went quickly because I had some buddies from Boeing help out. Everything was moved from my condo (and those who know me know I have a ton of stuff) and into the truck and from the truck into storage in under 2 hours. That was a record breaker. Then Emma and I spent the rest of the day cleaning the condo and making good will trips. We spent the next few days turning Emma's apartment into "our apartment". My renters are moved in and loving their new place. I miss the sunrise cascade view and the kitchen the most but our new home will more than make up for those things. Less than 3 months to go!

After successfully negotiating for our home, we had to start picking out finishes, upgrades and options to make it "ours". This week we finished that process, chosing everything from the carpet to the color of the grout. We decided to put in wood floors ourselves because it would be so much cheaper than having our builder do it. Other than that, we left some smaller projects to complete that will save us some money. Suprisingly we had no problem coming to agreement on the finishing decisions. Emma and I liked the same stuff for the most part. Now we wait...

Last week our agent set us up with a photo shoot through redfin. We aren't sure if we will be the next cover models of their website but in the mean time, we got professional pictures of us for free. Actually, we were paid to do them. So without further ado... pictures.

Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend

I knew I couldn't propose to Emma in a traditional or predictable way. She is way too special and she would know what I was going to say before it came out of my mouth. So I decided to do something a little different. Christa, one of our close friends, had been traveling in Africa for the last few weeks and came home on thursday night. We all went out and chatted and had ice cream together. The next day I decided to take off work and spend the day with Emma and Christa, just hanging out. We ended up at Emma's house and Christa suggested that Emma show her the anniversary DVD I made for her a month ago, since Christa hadn't been around to see it yet. I went into the kitchen to make a margarita for the girls. They enjoyed the DVD and had a lot of laughs and nice things to say about it. When it got to the "end"... or at least what used to be the end of the DVD there was a lot of new stuff that Emma had never seen before. I'll leave it up to your imagination.. or you could watch the DVD for yourself.

I attached it to the blog. If you have a cable modem you should be able to play it quickly. It is split into two parts because it was a little too long to put on youtube in one piece. We are also sending out copies to family so they can be a part of our lives, even though they live so far away.

Emma was in shock, it took her a long time to even stop looking at the TV. I got down on one knee and proposed to her. She lovingly accepted. It took awhile for her to even look at the ring, she was just so happy. Christa and I were in tears, but Emma was just in shock. Christa took some pictures of us right after this happened. Emma was still shy about showing the ring, she's not a material girl (but it is exactly what she wanted... a one of a kind symbol of our love for eachother).

Pumpkin Carving

Emma organized a wonderful fall harvest party for BPP. There were tons of people there, live music, food, and activities. Everyone had a great time. It was a lot of work and she is glad that it is done. She recruited me to run the pumpkin carving station, one of the many activities that were available for families to do. So I decided to carve Emma. I was told to post these pictures, they are the only ones we have of that day.

Mount Pilchuck

On a whim we decided to climb mount pilchuck which is a mountain visible from my condo in Everett. We woke up and had a hearty breakfast and took off towards the hills... the cascade mountain range that is. The climb was cool but sunny. The views were spectacular, mountains all around us. We spent some time at the top, relaxing in the sun and then made our way down the rock. Next on our 'to climb' list is the slightly taller Mount Si.