Hello friends and family,

Our biggest announcement for the year 2000 is an addition to our small family! In April, we adopted a very large, adult calico cat. Her name is Friday, but we affectionately call her kitty. She's not much for tricks, but she loves to cuddle, especially in Matt's lap, and she enjoys investigating whatever it may be that we are eating. She has made life interesting!

We also have been attending a nearby church, where we met several recently married couples who we have enjoyed getting to know over the last few months. They have been great models for growing our marriage and we have learned a lot from each other, while having fun too.

Work is going well for Matt. He will soon be completing several big projects and is gaining more engineering responsibilities. He also had an interesting car fire in January. Sara is now associate editor for Skin Inc. magazine, the professional skin care trade journal, but her job duties have remained pretty much the same.

In travel news ... we enjoyed an amazing trip to Seattle, WA, in August while visiting a college friend. We got up early the first morning to take a clipper to the San Juan Islands. It was a very cold and windy three-hour ride, but we were able to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the Washington waterways. We spent the day biking across the island to a whale-watching point. Although we needed the rest, we didn't have to wait long before spotting a few orcas in the distance!

The next day we drove just outside the city to hike and visit area waterfalls. At least we were getting our exercise on this trip! After lunch we headed for the ocean. We camped one night a few hundred feet from the Pacific shoreline. Of course, we awoke the next morning to drizzle and clouds, but we hung out by the fire to wait for the sun to peak out enough for us to freeze our butts off in the salty ocean water. We were laughing hysterically once our bodies went numb and enjoyed "riding the waves."

Toward the end of the day we took a drive through the Olympic Mountain range, part of Olympic National Park, to a rustic campground in the mountains, next to a stream and a forest of very tall trees. We played cards next to the fire until dark and Sara ate what was left of the s'mores.

We took a ferry back to Seattle just in time to wash, change and catch a bus downtown for a Mariners/White Sox game. We lucked out ... it was Barry White night!

Our last day was spent downtown to see a view of Seattle from atop the Space Needle and take a walk through Pike's Place Market. We were lucky to have hardly been there before seeing the infamous fish throwers who chanted while tossing seafood orders to each other. Although the day was cut short by the need to catch our flight, we were delighted with a view of Mt. Rainier's tip from the plane. (Well, there is some debate about whether it was Mt. Rainier--either way, it was impressive.) Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture ... Next time!

With Love,