Michele loses things. Having a place for them... helps.

We're hoping to buy a house (next year?). One of our greatest hopes is to have a guest bedroom so that it's easier for friends and family to visit. Right now, we're in a one-bedroom, so we only have one bed.

They can survive the dark Pacific Northwest winter and they're great air cleaners when we get ash in the summer. Our QFC (grocery store) has them with pot and stand for $35 before tax!

Michele has been eyeing this in the Crate and Barrel catalog for two years, but never was quite able to make the splurge :)

Ever since she was a teenager volunteering at a community garden, Michele has been passionate about sustainable development and food production. Today, she volunteers with the Seattle Sierra Club and loves her community-supported-agriculture box, which comes from Helsing Junction Farm, south of Seattle. Please consider chipping in to support environmental charities whose work offsets the climate impact of all our wedding guests' flights!

Mike has supported Room to Read, a leading non-profit focused on girls' education and children's literacy in Asia and Africa, for almost ten years. He and his friends even got to visit one of the Room to Read sites in Nepal! Among other things, Mike loves that Room to Read collects and publishes local stories in local languages, so that children learn to read in their own languages.

A friend accidentally left one of these at our apartment after Thanksgiving, and we fell in love with it.

The current spatula is partially melted. No further comments.

We're hoping we can buy a house next year (!), and we're excited to fill the walls with maps and charts and photos of the Pacific Northwest. Mike has eyes on the AuthaGraph map (it's got accurate proportions), and Michele loves PopChart's infographics of North American wildlife. But big maps are expensive, and each of these cost $120 to buy with a frame.

Michele has a nerve plant, a rubber plant, and three baby jades in need of pots. Not to mention the kalanchoes and pothos.

Michele has a nerve plant, a rubber plant, and three baby jades in need of pots. Not to mention the kalanchoes and pothos.

Michele has a nerve plant, a rubber plant, and three baby jades in need of pots. Not to mention the kalanchoes and pothos.

We have a lot of blankets. We use all of them. We would use one more. And this one is soooo beautiful!

Michele doesn't wear much makeup, but she'd like to get a new concealer, blush, and eyeliner for wedding events.

For the bride :)

Michele really, really likes hardware stores (she got it from her mom).

Mike's favorite animal is an elephant :) Hoping to use this to add a little color in our bathroom.

For the camping gear :)

Michele has a lovely set of knives that she received from family friends for college graduation. She keeps them sharp and expects they'll last another ten years, but we would like to get the knife block off the counter, as space is limited.

Those of you who have followed Michele's adventures with scissors and can lids over the past year (spoiler alert: there was only one ER visit in the middle of a party) will appreciate the need for a SAFE way to cut vegetables. She promises to use the finger-protecting gloves Mike's mom got her to protect herself from the mandoline blade.

We get a farm subscription box from a women-owned farm south of Olympia (Helsing Junction) that also supplies the co-op where Michele's uncle Corey works. This sometimes means an excess of produce taking up limited counter space :)

Mike has had this suitcase in blue for 8 years, and -- after travel to four (!) continents, it is finally falling apart. Now he's hoping to go green (haha. I am funny.)

If we have a second controller maybe Michele will play with me... ha!

Mike's grandma always dreamed of going to Machu Picchu, but she was never able to do so. We are hoping to fulfill her dream with a 4-day trek on the Inca Trail in September. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for both of us, and we would cherish your support in making the memory :)

We want to print a few photos from the wedding and honeymoon onto artlam to hang in the living room of our apartment.

Our current wine glass storage option is precarious :)

Making our kitchen more sustainable by using these instead of cling wrap :)

Making our kitchen more sustainable by eliminating the need for parchment paper :)

There are a lot of old shoeboxes in our drawers :)

Michele has a nerve plant, a rubber plant, and three baby jades in need of pots. Not to mention the kalanchoes and pothos.

Michele has a nerve plant, a rubber plant, and three baby jades in need of pots. Not to mention the kalanchoes and pothos.