So much for our gypsy blood. For the first time in our lives — after moving around a lot growing up and making temporary homes in college and Indiana — we now have the luxury of looking ahead an indefinite number of years and making long-term investments in our church and community. Seattle has become a great place to begin sending down roots.

We've become significantly plugged into our church, Quest. We lead a small community group on Tuesday nights and serve as coordinators for all the c.groups. Steve helped direct the church in a daily Bible-reading effort (we finished the whole New Testament and start the Old in January!), and Amanda plays keyboards on the worship team and has finally started to sing again.

We have also been blessed this year with deepening friendships, and have been intentional about opening up our studio apartment for dinner and conversation on a more regular basis. Our Kmart folding table transforms our living area into a dining room in one easy step! One significant event in getting connected was collaborating on the first-ever Q Arts Festival in the spring, which let us share some of our writing, music, cooking, clothing, and art, as well as learn about others' creative passions. Of course, we were exhausted at the end of the two weeks but feeling very artsy nonetheless!

We have also been investing ourselves in Seattle and the life of our community. This year we took part in a community co-op to fund a local farm and were treated to a huge box of fresh produce each week, making for creativity in the kitchen as we strived to determine just what kohlrabi and garlic scapes were and how one would eat such things. We adopted a bus stop near us that we keep clean; the task compels us to walk regularly for local errands, and the reward of free bus passes encourages us to take public transportation when we go downtown. And we've done that a lot: We've been developing traditions and history with the city by making second- or third-time outings to Shakespeare in the Park, the Langley Murder Mystery Weekend, the Bumbershoot arts festival, An Improvised Christmas Carol, and an outdoor Aimee Mann concert at the zoo. We made return visits to favorite theaters to watch plays like Pride & Prejudice, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and Shadowlands, and made first-time treks to the tulip festival, a wine-tasting event on Whidbey Island, and several delightful museums and gardens. Fortunately, Seattle's weather allows for year-round outings, so we can fit it all in!

We continue to be excited by the wide variety of adult-education classes available. Steve decorated our apartment with his artistic ceramics creations, and a cheesemaking class has graced our refrigerator with homemade feta. Amanda has continued improving her technique in ballet (her natural grace cannot be improved upon), and her classes in walking British footpaths and beginning watercolor gave her, respectively, useful information and a new activity for our three-week trip to England in the early summer. Our snorkeling and ice-skating classes were not as successful, due to our tendency to choke and/or bleed, but at least we gave it the old non-credit-college try.

Of course, friends, family, and the rest of the world beckon, and we have not spent the entire year in our Northwestern cocoon. We flew to Massachusetts early in the year for a wonderful visit with our niece, Alex, as well as other assorted Caldwell relatives. In June, we spent a relaxing three weeks in England, dividing our time between the groovy urban life of London and the pastoral splendor of coastal Cornwall. We had lots of time to write, paint, practice photography, and eat local cuisine (pub grub and clotted cream!) as we wandered parks, neighborhoods, and shops in the city and then the cliffsides and ancient ruins of the coast. Back home, we enjoyed visits from Steve's parents, who took us around the rainforests, mountains, and beaches of the Olympic Penninsula, and from his sister, Sharon, who enjoyed local pleasures with us like our favorite restaurants and walks.

Inside the apartment — where we actually spend most of our time — life is much the same. We spend our days plugging away at our writing and graphic design, sharing the same desk so we can be near each other. Steve's boss from the Bible League visits from time to time, and this year the two of them wrote a Bible study centered on cooking and hospitality. Luna the cat enjoys having stay-at-home humans, especially since the weather has turned colder. She has upped her affection quotient, the better to use us as heat sources. In our spare time, Amanda has been home-recording songs she's written over the years, and Steve writes about the spiritual life in a monthly column for Catapult Magazine online. You can read and listen to our work on our personal websites: www.SteveLansingh.com and www.AmandaCaldwell.com. And speaking of websites with our names in the address (you can never have too many), www.SteveandAmanda.com is fully updated with extensive photo galleries that take you further into events that we could only briefly mention here. We invite you to visit the site — or visit us in Seattle and become a part of it!

May God give you a joyful Christmas and a wonderful 2005!