New House and a Merry Christmas!

Hello everyone! So much has happened since we last wrote! We had a great Halloween, carving a pumpkin at my parents and dressing up the dogs! Then, we had a huge Thanksgiving feast at my parents' house with friends from church. I made a pumpkin cheesecake and it was great!

We are now settled in our new rental house, in Millbrae. It was a lot of work moving in, especially because we painted 4 of the rooms and moved in on a Saturday and we still both have full-time jobs. But, the house is looking a little better now...especially because we put up Christmas decorations!

Our house is located in Millbrae, only about 15 minutes from San Francisco and right next to a great freeway without any traffic. We are only 20 minutes from my parent's house in Redwood City. Our house is 2 stories and GREEN. Yes, light green. I never thought I would live in a green house, but that's okay. The neighborhood is really nice and we can see all the city lights below us. We have 2 bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs, that is really like a basement room, for Kevin's office. We also were able to get some new furniture...a dining room table and a bedroom set! It looks great and we love it. We also have a huge backyard for our dogs and they have so much fun running outside and barking at the neighbor dogs. We would love any of you to come visit when you are in the Bay Area!

Another great thing that has happened lately is that we were able to go visit Kevin at work (Lucasfilm). It is soooo cool there. His boss, Rob, LOVES him and seemed to be so glad that Kevin came along at the right time. We know it was God's work...but Rob kept saying it was "fortuatous". Kevin works on the Presidio in San Francisco, and it is great there. The cafeteria is amazing, with huge windows overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, the Exploratorium and the city. The food is also great...they have their own sushi chef and so much more! Kevin would love to take any of you for a tour of Lucasfilm if you can visit us! (but you have to sign a confidentiality agreement and wear a badge... hehe..).

We also got to get dressed up and go to the Lucasfilm Christmas Party...a Winter Wonderland Carnival! It was amazing. It was downtown San Fran., and lots of people were dressed in tuxes and really nice dresses. There was tons of good food to eat, like cotton candy, snowcones, hot cocoa, desserts, salads, and much more. There were carnival games everywhere, and they were all free. We got to play as much as we wanted, and we won stuffed animals as prices, just like at a real carnival! It was GREAT and so much fun. There was a live band and an ice bar too. We walked right by George Lucas, and he was wearing jeans and a tee-shirt. He's laid back, I guess.

So, now it is Christmas season! We have been able to do some really fun things, such as: take my parents to the Top of the Mark restaurant in San Fran, for the Magical Holiday Tea (and parking was 50$ !!!!), go to the Charles Dicken's Christmas Fair, where we watched dancing and ate great food, and went to Tahoe with Kevin's Family. In Tahoe, we did some great things, like ice skating while it was snowing at Northstar Resort, making our own candle at a candleshop, going skiing on the day after Christmas, and even having drinks around a fire in 20 degree weather. Now we are at home and about ready to drive to San Diego for New Year's! We are staying in a house in Point Loma with my dad's side of the family. We are going to see baby Kate, our niece too, and she is 3 months old now!! So, we are very excited and so blessed!

Oh yeah...and we bought our plane tickets to go to Italy, Austria, and Switzerland this summer! We will be going from June 13-27th. We want to have one more big trip before we "settle" down and have kids. I hope all of you are doing well. God has blessed us beyond measure and we would love to see you if you have time to visit us!

Our New Niece, Kate!

Hello everyone!

This weekend was amazing. I am now an Aunt and Kevin is now an Uncle! Katerina Suzanne Wright (Kate) was actually born September 30th, weighing 6 pounds, 5 ounces and being 18 inches long. It was a c-section birth, and Missy is doing great. Still healing, but she is walking around and looking almost like she never had a baby! Her water aactually broke the morning they went in for the c-section, so we are so thankful to God that he knew what he was doing. She was breech and it would have been a hard labor. Fortunately, the c-section went perfectly!

We were able to visit her in San Diego this weekend. She was only 3 days old when we saw her. Let me tell you: my first thought when I saw her in the crib was "Oh my goodness...she is TINY!" She was sooo cute and adorable! She has the cutest little nose (Missy's nose) and Joel and my lips and dark hair. By the time we were there, she had lost some weight, as babies normally do, and she only weighed in the 5 pound range. I told Kevin that she was half our dachshund's weight (Petey)! She was so small, but so very perfect...long feet and toes, perfect little eyelashes, and her eyes can already follow an object back and forth!

Most of the weekend, we just spent time gazing at little Kate. It is sort of hypnotizing watching an adorable new baby...like watching a fire or ocean waves. She sure does have strong lungs! Poor Joel and Missy have not gotten much sleep, having to get up every 2 hours to feed her. Also, because she lost a little too much weight, we had to try to feed her extra by using a syringe and feeding her through a small tube after breast feeding. This actually helped a lot! She gained a whole pound in ONE day! We were all very happy. One of her main issues is falling asleep while she is eating. We kept having to put wet washcloths on her skin and peeling her clothes all off her so she would stay awake and get enough food. But she is doing wonderfully now.

So, on her 6th day of life, Joel had her dressed in an oversized Chargers tee-shirt, looking very supportive as the game blasted in the background. Joel is definitely going to make a tom-boy out of her. But he can't take away the fact that she looks like a perfect little pixie and all the boys are going to chasing after her someday. Hehe...he told all the guys in high school to stay away from me...I wonder what he will do with poor Kate! Probably bring out the shotgun. :)

God has greatly blessed our family and we are so happy. We would appreciate your prayers for this little girl, as she grows into a wonderful person and hopefully chooses to trust in Jesus at a young age.

One other note of update: Kevin will probably have a full-time job at Lucasfilm sometime this next week!!! Full benefits and his earnings are definitely not too shabby (Good thing, since we live in the Bay Area now...so expensive here!). My mom and I are going tomorrow to take a look at a 3 bedroom house for rent in Millbrae, which is closer to SF. Hopefully we will like it and move in soon! God is so good to us! --Rachel

Our Hawaii Trip this Summer!

Hello everyone.

I just wanted to let you guys know about our trip to Kauai that we had this summer. We stayed on the Northern part of the island of Kauai, which is very green and beautiful. We stayed in house called Bamboo Hale, in the jungle. We had a river running right by the house, and all night we could hear the water running, because there were only
screens on the windows...no glass! It was very peaceful. It was my first time in Hawaii. My parents, and Joel and Missy came with us.

So, what did we do the whole time? Well, we went to many different beaches and went snorkeling (it was my first time). We didn't see any turtles, but my dad and Kevin went on a Napali Coast Tour and Kevin got to swim with a turtle. I was jealous. We also went on a kayaking trip on the Wailua River, and hiked to a secret waterfall, where we went swimming. That was probably the highlight of the trip for me.


We also got to go to a luau at the Sheraton and Kevin ended up being called up to the stage to dance with a hula girl. He also had to hula in front of the whole crowd. It was funny....hehe.
So, we had a great time. Although I did get the stomach flu and got my first bee sting on the beach, on the 4th of July, it was a great trip!

-RP

One Month Down...

As of today Rachel and I have been in the Bay Area for exactly one month! For anybody who doesn't already know, we moved up to the Bay Area from San Diego and are currently living at Rachel's parents in Redwood City.

It's been a busy first month! After a grueling 10 hour drive, in a 24 ft rental truck, with a speed limiter set at 60 mph, we arrived on July 23rd at around 11pm. The next few days we spent unloading and arranging all our stuff. Fortunately Rachel's parents (Jon and Martha) have a large garage and have graciously allowed us to pack everything we're not using in there.

Over the last few weeks we've done a lot of activities

We took the dogs to the beach.


We went to the SF Zoo where I rented and used a wheelchair...I have a new respect for people who have to always use one! (I twisted my ankle a couple days before at the beach)


We went to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and rode 75 cent rides.


We went to a Giants game where they beat the Dodgers.


For Rachel's birthday we spent several days doing the 49 mile drive around San Francisco.


And we went to the Renasaince Fair in Golden Gate Park, with FULL CONTACT JOUSTING!



In case you're wondering how we have so much free time...we moved up here without jobs. However, Rachel had been applying for school counselor jobs and I planned on doing freelance video editing.

On the Wednesday we drove up, Rachel had a phone interview. On Thursday and Friday she had two more interviews in San Francisco. By Friday night she had a job!! We were only here TWO days! She just started this week at a middle school in the Sunset district of San Francisco - AP Giannini (and no I don't know the right way to pronounce it).

I was fortunate to get a couple contacts up here before I left San Diego. In particular, I sat in on the interview for someone applying to my old job. Turned out he had moved down to San Diego form the Bay Area. He ended up referring me to a couple of his old clients. One of which I've gotten work from for a couple days a week. Another I might be doing work for in the future. I've also met with several other companies, most of which are interested in giving me work. In fact one in particular is hiring me all next week and potentially for the next month...by the way that company happens to be Lucasfilm! Somehow I was able to get my resume and info passed along through an old co-worker, to a friend of his at Lucasfilm, who forwarded it on to the guy who interviewed me. In fact, there is the potential of a full-time position opening up there for me in the future if everything goes well! If that (and of course Rachel's job as well) is not an answer to prayer then I don't know what is!

-KP