January 29^th, 2008

Allie Wallace is one of our interns at the firm. Allie is a long time volunteer at Sacred Heart Shelter. For the last nine months, the firm has joined her in preparing and serving the evening meal to families who live at the shelter for up to three months while they get back on their feet. The shelter affords safe and clean rooms together with nutritious meals and opportunities such as counseling, classes, and career guidance. Our latest meal was served on 1/28/2008. On the left is Allie helping get the meal rolling so it is served on time at 6:00 pm.

We served chili according to Larry's famous "Topeka Firestorm Chili" recipe. We served the chili with rice and a buffet-style arrangement of all of the toppings you could dream of. We had fresh halved tomatoes, green onions, olives, tortilla chips, shredded mozzarella and cheddar cheese, sour cream, and lettuce (as seen in the picture on the right).

The crew for the January service date consisted of Larry, Hamilton, Seth and Allie. On the left, Seth and Hamilton are hard at work preparing the vegetables for the meal. The two are great working with documents, emails, clients but we have encouraged them not to quit their day job to be chefs (they would lose business for sure!).

It felt like a never-ending task of serving food as all of the guests continually came back for more! For dessert, we totally impressed the Sacred Heart residents with the all-famous Costco carrot cake. It was the perfect finale for a grand meal. Larry especially was a fan of the delectable carrot cake as he not only ate his piece of cake, but he also helped himself to Allie's. The residents were very appreciative for our meal and Linville Law Firm was also grateful for the opportunity to serve them.

Saturday, December 15^th, 2007

We closed out 2007 with a bang at the annual Linville Law Firm Christmas party. The big bash was held at The Garage on Capital Hill. Food, fun, pool and bowling were had by all, as indicated by the beautiful smiles of the Bachtel sisters (photo at right).

The night started out with everyone trickling into the venue, ordering some tasty beverages, and devouring the amazing selection of food...mouth-watering burgers, perfectly seasoned fries, and appetizers galore!

Pool and bowling were the main events of the night. Christian showed off his pool shark skills by dominating the tables (photo at left), and competition was hot on the alleys. Sebastian & Dani got things started by wooing Inga, Randy, Alida, Aaron, Stacy & Keith over to the lanes for some cutthroat bowling. Stacy & Keith showed everyone how the Bremertonians do it, by actually scoring over 100. Seth brought along his Georgian (the country, not the state) friend, David "Dato" Datunashvili, who showed up everyone throughout the night with his knack for knocking down pins. Dato was a hit at the party and was accepted by the Linville Law Firm clan with open arms.

Sacred Heart - August 29^th, 2007

Once again, Linville Law Firm prepared a catered dinner event for the

Sacred Heart shelter on Queen Anne Hill. This time, newcomers Bobby, Christian, and Alida joined in for the kitchen duties. With three previous meals under our belts, we decided to get a little creative with the food. This time the menu was crafted by Larry, who wanted to share one of his favorite dishes with the group. Kelly, Alida, Bobby, Seth, Christian, and Larry all gathered in the kitchen to put to test a recipe called "hubabalooza three-cheese chicken". The chicken breasts were pounded flat, tied into rolls, and filled with a mixture of cottage cheese, egg yolk, and parmesan cheese, then set on a bed of fettuccini covered with a homemade marinara sauce. The sauce consisted of tomatoes, green pepper, onions, oregano, salt, pepper, and garlic. The serving dish was surrounded by rustic French bread and topped off with mozzarella gratings.

A fresh fruit salad of watermelon, cantaloupe, red grapes, bananas, and raspberries was separately served in individual bowls.

Then, Costco apple pies and ice cream were served for dessert. It was quite the gourmet meal and the residents nearly rioted when the food was gone.

After all of the residents were served, we sat down with plates of our own and were entertained by Larry's math and spelling bee. The Sacred Heart children gave Larry a run for his money and it looks like he needs to polish his math and spelling skills for future visits.

August 9^th, 2007

Thursday, August 9, 2007, was Jennifer's last day working at Linville Law Firm as a paralegal. She has now spread her wings to fly off to law school and maybe one day she'll return to the nest of Linville Law Firm as an attorney! To celebrate her 2 years at Linville Law Firm PLLC and to celebrate her accomplishment on gaining admission to law school, we decided to throw her a going away party at Tulio's - a great Italian restaurant just

across the street from the new Seattle Public Library building. We closed the office early, took along some crying towels and walked up to Tulio's. After a few rounds of appetizers and refreshments, all the crying towels were forgotten and the party was in full swing. As you can see from the picture on the above left, we had plenty of wine to go around!

We also gave Jennifer some going away presents - a new foam pillow, a candle, and comfy blanket - in order for her to sleep well for those few precious hours during graduate school. Christian (photo at right) was so sad that Jennifer was leaving that he took off that evening to go to the Columbia Gorge, not to return until the following Monday. The picture to the left is Seth and Bobby, two of our attorneys here at Linville Law Firm PLLC. They met in law school at the University of Oregon and became running buddies. How could anyone have foreseen they would have ended up someday in this photo?

June 20^th - June 22^nd, 2007

This year we held our annual firm retreat in Leavenworth, WA. It was an action-packed weekend that included rock climbing and whitewater rafting. In the picture at the left, Sarah is helping Allie get strapped into her rock climbing harness so she can safely scale the mountain. The rock climbing was very challenging and a few of us managed to climb all the way to the top!

Off to the right, is a picture of our whole group before we headed out to battle the chilly rapids of the Wenatchee River. Everyone is still smiling because we're all still warm and dry!

Off to the left is a picture of Joel, Hamilton, Alanna, Sarah, Larry, Jan, and Jennifer paddling hard. Notice how Larry is taking cover behind Sarah. C'mon Larry!

We also enjoyed a scrumptious dinner at Visconti's, an Italian restaurant in the heart of downtown Leavenworth. In the picture on the right, Shawn and his daughter, Isabelle, are anxiously awaiting their meals.

The weekend wouldn't have been complete without a little friendly betting. Off to the left, David and Sage are trying to figure out how to steal the pot in poker.

All in all, it was a great weekend. We can't wait to start planning next year's retreat.

May 12^th, 2007

Since the weather finally started clearing up enough to really be outside, some of us at the firm decided to go on a hike together. We packed our backpacks full of water, snacks and our lunches and met up to start our hike at the base of Granite Mountain. Granite Mountain is off I-90 at exit #47. The mountains' elevation reaches 5,629 feet and it's approximately 4 miles to the top. The picture to the right is the view from one of our breaks.

The picture on the left is of Seth, Allie, Inga and Kelly close to the top. (Larry's not in the picture because he didn't meet us at the Park and Ride where we were scheduled to meet that morning). Because the trail had been damaged from the harsh winter's storms, much of the trail had disappeared. It slowed us down a bit and took some finessing and maneuvering techniques to get through the snow and over the branches, debris and logs. Since the hike to the top wore us all out so much, we camped out there long enough to devour our lunch and catch our breath. Granite Mountain is a great hike. It's got the view, elevation, and is much less traveled than many other trails in the Snoqualmie National Forest.