A PreThanksgiving Update.

My brother Lars and his girlfriend Jenny are trekking up from Portland for Thanksgiving with us. We can't wait! But until then... here are a few shots of what we've been up to. 

Mark and Kooper at the top of a 1/2 mile climb up from the Cowiche Canyon Trail. Just behind them is a vineyard and tasting room.

Here I am at the top looking the opposite direction.

Slowly trodding along... It is a lot harder to go up hill carrying the extra baby weight (and or course, being extra careful not to fall)!

The growing belly. 26 + weeks.

How big will I be at 40 weeks?!?!

Bashful Baby Boy Swanson! Our new Washington doctor wanted to do their own ultrasound- so here are the shots from the latest photoshoot.

Our new place. We are renting this big, wonderful farm house just about 1/2 mile from our new church. We're settling in well, though you'll see from the pictures that there are still a few boxes and piles around. There are 3 bedrooms plus one nursery-to-be so we really do have plenty of room for guests. Come enjoy our mountain views, yummy apples (those are apple trees ALL around the house) and Yakima Valley wines. Bring your suits- we even have a pool!

We are heading out of Sioux Falls on Thursday afternoon and will arrive at our new address on Sunday evening.
You can find us at:
12303 Nelson Rd.
Yakima, WA 98903.
We'll have PLENTY of space and all are welcome!

It's a boy, and we're thrilled. 

1716 S. 9th Avenue

The house is listed... and SOLD (contingent miscellaneous). Our first day on the market and we received a good offer on our house! We've accepted and now wait for inspections, etc. to be done. We should know in 13 days if we're closing on the 17th of October. 

The times they are a changin':

Mark and I have two HUGE changes to share with those who happen upon our blog.

1) We're expecting a baby! Our first little one is due March 3, 2009. Of course, we're very excited. So far things have been remarkably easy- I haven't been sick at all! I did devote many hours to sleeping during the first trimester however.

I'm feeling energized now and ready for our next announcement...

2) We're moving. Mark has accepted a call as senior pastor at Wiley Heights Covenant Church in Yakima, WA (central Washington). We're getting the house ready to put on the market and hope to be heading west by mid-October. This move is exciting, but it is also sad to leave our church family and friends here in Sioux Falls. We are, however, confident that this is what the Lord is calling us to.

We appreciate prayers for a healthy baby and a smooth move.

Update: Still kickin' it with Mr. Kooper in So Dak.

This first pic is or our house a few weeks ago when the crab apple was in full bloom. It was too pretty to pass up!

 Here are a few shots of my first actual attempt at rosemaling. A few years ago Johanna S and I took it upon ourselves to teach ourselves this traditional Norwegian art/craft. We bought paint, wooden things, brushes and a book. But even with all of that, our rosemaling quickly became our own sort of folk art. We still cherish those first attempts, but this week I took a real class taught by Sunhild Muldbakken.  My forms are still rather rudimentary, but I think I'm going to enjoy this hobby. Watch out at Christmas everyone! The plate project is a design by my teacher and I received a little help with some of the shading on the strokes. The second picture is of a work-in-progress. It is a Megan Swanson original, done without any teacher help.

School's out for summer! One of the blessings of starting school in the middle of August is being done in the middle of May. Ahh.
My folks return from Lesotho in 3 1/2 hours and they'll be staying with us for a little while. It will be great to have them around, and we hope to keep them very busy with projects around the house. The garden is planted and our next step is reseeding where our lawn wasn't exactly successful last year. Pics to come. Perhaps we can entice some of you to come visit.

Just since it is so fun to read the comments from friends, for awhile at least I'm going to try to update this a bit.
Not many new pics since the NM trip.
Here are some pics for our traveling companions to enjoy.
Lunch after church in Albuquerque.

Since we haven't posted since November, I figured we ought to at least sign on and say hello. Life in Sioux Falls, SoDak continues to go well. I'm teaching and we just finished our 3rd quarter of the year. The time has FLOWN by and my school year is done May 19th. Mark is still associate pastoring at church. We've been keeping quite busy with trips here and there between the two of us- we've both been to Chicago within the last year (separately), Boston, Jackson, Mississippi (Mark twice), and New Mexico. Here are a few pics from our time in and around Albuquerque visiting Paul with Mark and Johanna.