OK, so it's been awhile. Rob & Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma visited us recently and tried to use our site to catch them up beforehand — to no avail. We have finally been shamed into writing a small news update. Our general laziness is not helped by the fact that our uploading abilities have been (temporarily?) hindered by problems logging in to topcities, the free web-hosting service we use. Hey, you get what you pay for.

To recap the highlights since our Christmas letter:

• New Year's trip to Massachusetts with lots of time spent with Alex (see earlier photos here)
• a 3-week trip to England! We spent a week and a half in London and a week and a half in Cornwall, right on the cliffs that line the coast. We couldn't bring our digital camera for the compatibility and security issues, so we have gobs of photos to scan in....
• a visit by Steve's parents. We did Seattle for two days, seeing the Japanese Garden at the Arboretum and taking the Underground Tour in Pioneer Square, and then they kidnapped us and took us on a 2-day excursion around the Olympic Peninsula, from beach to rain forest to mountaintop!
• several plays, including Pride & Prejudice by Book-It, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle at the Seattle Children's Theatre, and Shadowlands at Taproot
• the Langley Murder Mystery Weekend again, on Whidbey Island, where once more we did not solve the murder but enjoyed our time wandering through the town!
• a Tulip Festival, where we accidentally hijacked a friend from church and kept her from the Easter feast since the traffic was so astounding — we decided to enjoy skipping through the tulips and had our own little feast at a Japanese restaurant instead! As a reward for our perfidy, Jennifer gave us the carrot cake she had made for the potluck. Lesson not learned!
• Wine at the Shoreline, a wine tasting on Whidbey Island, where we got a mite tipsy since we hadn't eaten any grains that day! Oops. We hit the buffet table and loaded up on snack mix.
• culture (it's good for you): Frye Museum for the David Horsey cartoon exhibit; the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, where we were very careful not to break anything; Bellevue Botanical Garden
• Bumbershoot Arts Festival in Seattle Center, where we enjoyed an Asian-American political comedy troupe, listened to Ursula Hegi read from her new novel, and viewed the Best of the Fest — a selection of 1 Reel Film standouts
• classes — ceramics, Teaching Adults Successfully, and West African drumming for Steve; British Footpaths, ballet, watercolor, and acting for Amanda
• films galore, including the Seattle International Film Festival and many free movie screenings, especially after we joined the Warren Report — this Seattle guy named Warren really likes movies and arranges screenings for members of his group!