While Ruth was away with the ladies, I (Tom) wen to the MLS Cup that was being hosted here in Seattle.  The game was amazing.  Real Salt Lake beat the LA Galaxy in penalty kicks after a tied over time.  Beckham played well, so did Landon Donavan and Beckerman.  However, Donavan's shank during the penalty kick over time proved to be the fateful blow by which LA lost. 

The Seattle soccer fans are by far the best in the country.  They came out by the thousands to support the game and make it all that more exciting.

Thank you also to Jonathan for the free ticket.  :)

I got a few sweet pictures and for the first time uploaded some video as seen below.

Ruth spent the weekend with the women of Grace Seattle at a lodge about an hour outside of Seattle.  As the pictures evidence, there was a lot of snow.  She had a wonderful time snow shoeing around and spending some quality time with the ladies.

I have not posted on here in a long time.  I apologize to all (8 of you) who read this little blog of ours. 

A lot has happened since we moved up here to the great state of (rainy) Washington.  It of course has rained a ton.  These past two weeks, in particular, have been especially yucky.  Cold, wet and rainy.  One of the things I've been surprised by, however, is that a rainy day here doesn't mean it will rain all day long.  While this is often the case, many days consist of rain in the morning, a good 5-6 hours of no rain, and then rain at night.  Thus it isn't as bad as it could be.  We've been told in all of this that going outside and being active is the key to surviving the wet winter months.

This weekend Ruth heads out of town to go on a winter retreat with the ladies of Grace Seattle.  I will be home by myself living the bachelor life for a few days.  More than likely I will have an inability to feed, bathe and clothe myself.  I will probably stay up late every night with a Doritos high.  And on Sunday night I will be heading to the MLS Cup being played here in Seattle!  (A friend has given me an extra ticket that he has.)  If I remember to take photos, I'll post them next week.

Other news:  We've signed a lease on an apartment!  This means we will hopefully be moving in within the next week or two.  We are super excited.  It is a small basement apartment, extremely well built and well taken care of.  Our landlord is a kind lady who is also a pretty well known photographer (without her consent, I won't post her name here).  It is also about a mile away from the church office.  This will be great to give our lives a some rhythm and routine.   

Ruth has applied for about 150 different jobs of various levels of interest.  Most recently she has been offered a job at a law firm in town to function within their support staff.  It is a good job, in a quality firm, with kind and generous lawyers (not meant to be an oxymoron).  This weekend we will be praying through whether or not she should take it.

We've flown across the country to see my cousin Lauren get married to Andrew.  It was extremely nice to see family, both immediate and extended.  The flight, however, was a bear.  Thank you Dad Galpin for helping us do that.  We are greatly appreciative.

I think that is all for now.  Please keep us in your prayers and do not hesitate to call and/or email.  We would love to hear from you.  Below are some random photos from the last few weeks.  And again, I will try to do a better job taking more pictures and posting them on here.