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Hello All,
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Nathan and Becky

Promised Pictures

So Nathan and I went on our whale watching trip this past weekend. The weather was cilly and gray, but we had a great time hanging out on the boat. We left from home at 5:30 AM and arrived in Seattle at 7:00, around 7:45 our boat pulled out of the harbor and started a three hour journey to the San Juan Islands. After we arrived at the Islands we stayed on the boat for a two hour whale watching trip. We did get to see some whales, but they were not very enthusiastic so we only got pictures of their backs.

After the whale watching trip we were dropped off at the Islands for two hours before our shipped left to go back home. While we were hanging out I snapped some pictures of the harbor. All-in-all we had a great time!

Another Birthday

This week another two of my favorite people are celebrating their birthdays.

First off my wonderful brother-in-law Bradley (Jackie's husband) turned 24.

The second person is a little bit nearer and dearer to my heart. My wonderful, handsome husband will be celebrating his 22nd birthday July 29. This weekend we'll be celebrating by going on a one day cruise to the San Juan Islands and going whale watching. I'm pretty excited as neither of us have gone whale watching before, but both of us have really wanted to. I've been told we are pretty much guaranteed to see some whales as pods of Orcas live off the coast of the San Juan Islands. We also get about two hours of free time to explore the Islands alone as well during the day so that will be pretty exciting as well. I'll post lots of pictures when we get back.

As to other exciting things going on, Nathan and I painted our living room, dining room and kitchen over the last two weeks. We also attended the McCord Airforce Base Air Show this last weekend along with about 100,000 people. We met Bo, Jeanne, Stacey, and Chad and his wife at the air show as well. It was so nice to reconnect with old friends from home. The Harris' also came over last night to our home to check it out and take pictures to take back to my Mom (I've heard these photos will be held for ransom seeing how my Mom wants very badly to be out here visiting).

Anyway, the air show was awesome, we saw all kinds of planes flying around and we got watch the Thunderbirds preform as well. Nathan and I had such a great time we almost forgave the sun for roasting us like a frying pan would bacon. Chad showed us the plane he flies (C-17) and we got to look around it a little. It's pretty sweet and HUGE, if the wings were removed a C-130 would fit inside the C-17.

All-in-all we have been enjoying the beautiful summer weather and having a great time. Jackie and Brad will be coming out in September so we are busy making plans and trying to get the house ready for them to be comfortable. I can not wait to see my sister (and her belly with my little niece or nephew inside) and Bradley too of course. :-)

I'll post pictures of the house soon.

Birthdays and Adventures

I celebrated my 24th Birthday last weekend. It was so nice to receive cards from all my brothers and sisters, they are so sweet and have such random things to tell. Daniel is learning new jumps on his dirt bike, Emily sent me a picture of her in silly sunglasses that made me just bust out laughing, and she told me about how she volunteers at a horse farm for handicapped children. She's a cool lil Sis. Chris thinks he has a future as an interior decorator (thankfully I think he'll grow out of that one...I hope) as he moved his and Daniel's entire room around after it was painted. I guess he did a really good job from what I hear. Jackie graduated from Christ Hospital with her RN and of course there is that little fact she's having a baby too.

Tom and Connie called and left me a message with the most depressing birthday song anyone has ever sung to me. Made me glad to be alive...NOT! It was so depressing it was absolutely hysterical. Then they sent me an e-card with an opera singer singing happy birthday...I really don't know which one was worse, but they made me laugh. Thanks guys!

My beloved friend Belinda sent me a birthday box filled with little goodies and sarcastic notes. She also sent me a very fitting card. It read: Ok, ok since today is your birthday the world can revolve around you...but tomorrow it goes back to revolving around me. HAHA! It was awesome. Thanks Girl.

All-in-all I had a wonderful birthday. Nathan was on duty but he managed to get out of it by standing the first watch of the day. Once he got home we headed up to Hanesville, WA to a beach called Point No Point about an hour away. We walked the beach, saw a lighthouse, and just dilly dallied around for a few hours enjoying the fact that we were together. After we left we went out for dinner then joined up with one of his friends and we went to a rodeo.

As to the adventures: Nathan and I have come to the conclusion we are accident prone and we need to STOP leaving the house. Last week while we were running to the store to grab some pizza shells we were rear-ended by a lady who failed to stop behind us. We now have to have our bumper replaced on the brand new car we just bought and the lady's insurance company is saying they won't do anything about it. $1500 damage was done to the car plus the value just fell as well since it was involved in an accident. Now we get the joy of fighting with insurance. Good thing is this time around no one was hurt and the car is still drivable. God is so good, He kept us safe once again and thankfully He did not allow nightmares to start up again from the first accident just a few weeks ago. I know He has a plan for everything so neither Nathan or I are complaining.

Oh, one piece of good news: We finally found a Church. We have to drive almost an hour one way to get there as it's past Tacoma, but it's a good Bible believing, holiness Church. We are so grateful to have finally found something after two months of searching. Again, God is good.

A Washington Summer

I think summer has finally arrived here in Washington. Amazingly enough it has not rained in almost a week (I need some wood to knock on)! When the days are sunny and hitting 65 - 70 degrees out things can't get much more beautiful. Yesterday as I was driving to work you could see the Mountains and their snow-capped peaks. Usually they are covered in clouds, but every now and then they peek out and I am awe struck at just how beautiful the area is. One of these days I'm going to pull over and take a snap-shot of the ranges on my way to work.

As the days are getting warmer you can actually start smelling the ocean and the sea salt in the air. It's not like the east coast's humid air, instead it's a faint but unmistakable smell of ocean. The other day Nathan and I went up to Port Defiance near Tacoma and explored a park, while there we were able to see a whale out in the bay just swimming around and spouting water. It was the coolest thing ever! Both of us were like little kids at the petting zoo. I called my brothers and sister and Nate jumped out to take a picture and the smile on his face like that of a little boy who had just been given the world's largest lolly-pop.

Things are calming down as both Nathan and I are getting used to life and our routines. I'm beginning to learn my way around town, but even then I can never seem to find Wal-Mart. I was out and about the other day and I knew it was near here on a road "somewhere" but I just couldn't find "that one road" no matter how hard I tried. Other than never remembering where Wal-Mart is I'm doing really well with the area...considering...

Anyway, hope everyone is doing well.

Fast Cars and Guns...

...that's the way I like it. So finally after a long, hard search and some major bumps along the way Nathan and I have a car. Gas prices hit $4.45 a gallon here in Washington so the SUV was not very economical anymore. Instead I know drive a 2005 BMW 525i and I absolutely love it! This baby can go almost two weeks on one tank of gas...which is very, very nice. Nathan had the windows almost blacked out which means it now looks like a gangsta car...but it looks so cool. Unfortuneately since the tint is well over the legal limit if either of us drive the car faster than the limit we could be a target for police harassment. Oh well, it's well worth the risk. No one cars until you do something stupid, so we're making sure no one does. :-)
The other new news is my husband bought me an early birthday present. I am now the proud owner of a Springfield XD .40 subcompact. We are still having problems with someone playing around the house and Nathan did not feel comfortable leaving me home alone without some form of protection. I went down to the Sheriff's office today and turned in my application, got fingerprinted, and walked out the door 20 minutes later with my Conceal Carry License. Since someone thinks it's funny to keep messing with us, I have a little bit of insurance they won't be messing with me when I'm alone. We keep finding little things around the house indicating someone has been here, and this morning Nathan found stuff out in the bushes when he left for work. Nothing was there when we went to bed. We are both getting very tired of being messed with. We have someone coming to give us a quote on a security system tomorrow. It makes me nervous knowing someone is watching not only the house but both of us as well and we don't have a clue as to who or why. Please pray for God's continued protection. In a few weeks we should be getting neighbors as four of the houses on our street have sold. Hopefully this will help as we won't be the only ones living on our street anymore and traffic will start picking up at all hours of the day. God has been good to us and I have no doubt He will continue to protect us.

Another day in the life of the Downers...

Boy oh boy am I ready for life to get back to normal. Things have been so crazy with the wedding, moving across country, totaling a car, buying an SUV to get out to WA, trading in the SUV since gas soared to $4.30 a gallon, finding a car we wanted and drove it for a week only to return it when things didn't work out, to finding another car that worked for us.

The minor things that have been going on would include me locking myself out of the SUV while Nathan was on duty and not coming home till the next day. The very next week I went home from work to find my keys would no longer unlock the dead-bolt on our front door. After fiddling with it for about 20 mins. I tracked down my husband who was on duty again (and not coming home till the next night) and had to swap out keys and I took his garage door opener too. I went back home to find his keys would not work either... I'm seeing a pattern of me having bad luck with keys on duty days. This needs to stop!

Several days later...
Nathan got off work early and went home to find that someone had been in our house. Mind you our keys still would not work, so someone had a key that would. This person came in, didn't take anything but left several lights on in the house and left the front door unlocked when they left. Now why would someone want to do that?? We have a theory...

The theory is: Several months ago we thought about having a security system put on the house. Nathan called Brinks Security and had someone come out and give him a quote. After we talked about the quoted price we decided to wait for a few months and the salesman got very upset with Nathan and went off on him telling him we would be sorry. Two weeks ago this salesman called Nate back and asked how things were going and if we had changed our minds about the system and how much he would like to earn our business. Nathan ignored the call. Two days later our front door keys would not work. The guy called back, again asking how things were going and if he could earn our business...again the call was ignored. Monday rolled around and that's the day Nathan came home early to find the house unlocked and lights on. We think he came over to the house, messed the locks us so he could get in, called us and we didn't do anything, so he came back just to mess with our heads and prove he could get in hoping we would freak out and give him our business since "someone had been in our house."

Needless to say, instead we changed the locks to the house, called the police to make a report of the incident, and told them our suspicions. The police told us to call Brinks and let them know we do not want this guy contacting us anymore. Now if this guy calls back we can get him on harassment. I think I'm going to go ahead and get my conceal to carry license and a nice little sup-compact .40 to keep with me, especially if this guy goes crazy on us and I'm home alone one night a week. If he knows our schedule enough to get into the house while we're not home, who knows what else he knows about us.

I can not wait for all the excitement to calm down so life can get back to normal routine!