We've found out that we had it cushy when Steve had his nice, salaried Bible League job. Now we actually have to work for a living, but get paid less. Hmm...

Amanda works her fingers to the bone brushing kitties. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it. You can see that I have on my intent work face.

Still, we're doing fine. Our cat-sitting business, SeattleCat.com, is doing really well. We've built up our client base and are enjoying our days of hanging out with cats. People like to know how Luna is taking our new business of being with other cats all day. We just tell her, "No, baby, all those other cats mean nothing to us. You know that's just for the money. We still love you the most, baby." But seriously, we really haven't noticed any change in her behavior or her schedule of meeping or spazzing out and running around the apartment. All is well.

Our online sales have taken off, mostly Steve's. He sells rare and new DVDs, so we spend the time we're not cat sitting wrapping 40 packages a day and listing new items, and our little studio apartment has turned into a warehouse. If you can shove the door open, you can sidle past shelves of inventory and stacks of unpacked boxes...and be astonished that two people and a cat can fit in there, much less call it home. Our new plan for the summer is to get rid of 50% of our non-inventory shtuff and put everything on shelves. Shelves, shelves everywhere! We got big metal ones from Wal-Mart, dang it, and we're not afraid to use them. I'm not saying it will ever be pretty, but it will be off the floor.

I have proof that there really was a baby there for awhile. We miss you, Robin.

We were thinking of moving up to a one-bedroom at some point, but that was because I was pregnant. In early February, we found out we were expecting our first little kidlet in the fall and were very happy, for a couple months. At 10 weeks, I lost the baby, for who knows what reason. It was a very sad and crappy time. Even now, it seems I haven't fully recovered physically, so we're just hoping and praying and waiting, some days patiently, some days not so. We'd love your prayers, too, as we continue to heal and grieve.

Birthdays make me hungry. Rrarrr...

It was during those early miscarriage days that I turned 30, which was also hard to swallow (see picture). Now Steve & I are officially not to be trusted. We wear khakis and drive a minivan and think subdivisions are so nice.

Despite the sorrows and annoyances, we've managed to have some fun this year so far. We took a trip to London in March, stopping by Pembroke on the way back to visit the Caldwells.

[Note to selves: Do not ever fly to London from Seattle through Boston again. Yes, it was a cheaper flight and it was fun to see the 'rents and Ethan & Bailey & Hanna, but 2 days of flying & sitting in airports is 2 too many days. Oof.

Mmm...English breakfasts at the hostel are a good enough reason alone to go to London.

Talk about jet lag.]

London was a whirlwind — we couldn't take off more than a week and a half because we had to hire substitute cat sitters to take over our business while we were gone. And with all the travel time, we had only about 4 days total in London, so we packed them. Mostly with food. But also with walks through the parks, walking tours of the Marylebone neighborhood and of Harry Potter sights (guess which

The whole point of traveling to England is to eat. Here we enjoy an impromptu picnic outside St. Paul's Cathedral. Feed the Steve, tuppence a bag...

one was mostly English tourists and which was mostly Americans), a trip out to Henry VIII's palace (we kept our heads — whew!), a Scottish ballet, and a Japanese drumming performance. More details when we get some pictures uploaded.

Brother Jon St. André and his fellow Franciscan Brother Nathan came out to visit us in May, braving our apartment to sleep on the floor. They let us tag along with them all over Seattle, from Seattle Center to downtown by the waterfront to a ferry over to Bainbridge. It was fun to see the city again after being stuck in our service area for quite awhile.

Have you ever seen a monk hula hoop? Now you have. Brother Jon St. André visited in May.

We even got to witness a knife fight on the bus, which is the sort of excitement we try to give all our visitors.

We were so inspired by the fun time with Jon & Nathan that we decided to plan our own day trip when we had a light cat-sitting day. So in late May we drove off to Whidbey Island, over Deception Pass and then taking the ferry back.

We so rarely do fun things now (time & money are in short supply) that we must remember to document them. Here's Steve on our day trip to Whidbey Island in May.

We hiked down below the bridge at Deception Pass, picnicked on the beach at the state park, photographed the surf and the gulls, tried to fly a kite, and watched the sun set. (We're not real early birds.)

We continue to attend Quest Church, although not as much during the summer since the 5 p.m. service has been temporarily dropped. I know 9 & 11 a.m. sound like times a person could be up and about, but we have morning cat sittings to fit in as well as being lazy and all. At any rate, we still lead a c.group. This year is unique in that we're continuing through the summer, whereas usually they all take a break.

Doesn't it look like Steve's flying a kite? The magic of photography. We were actually crash-landing a kite, repeatedly. Who says kites are child's play?

We're in Psalms now in our Rhythm track reading (one chapter a day), so if you need to know anything about praying for God to smite your enemies, come to me. Other than leading a c.group, we've dropped other commitments in an effort to simplify our lives and find some more balance between work and play.

My new album cover. I took this picture myself, but don't you think it's hard to tell? (I look so contemplative, rather than incurably vain.)

Steve's no longer doing design work, I'm no longer on the worship team, and we've officially stepped down from our role as coordinators of all the c.groups.

Other than that, we're just enjoying the summer, wearing sandals and eating Rainier cherries and going to a local fruit stand every couple days for fresh produce. Veggies...mmm....

We also celebrated our 8th anniversary on June 6, so we made it past the 7-year itch! Hooray for us! And we're still super cute (see below) and super in love. We don't know what the future holds — we had considered hiring more cat sitters, but after going through the payroll and tax-filing process for the substitutes for our

Steve & Amanda on Whidbey Island, May 2006. Now this one you can tell we took ourselves.

March trip, we realize it's a heck of a lot of work for little return, and besides, do we really want to be moguls of a cat-sitting empire anyway? We're trying to figure out ways to fit in things we really want to do, such as write and sleep, and we're planning and wondering what our future will be like, particularly if we ever manage to reproduce successfully. Still, even though it's been kind of crazy working for a living, it's been a lot of fun working with the person we most want to be with, and we look forward to more of the same.