Moving South...23 Blocks

So yesterday we moved. I might say that it was one of our smoothest moves. I'm not sure if this is because we have now officially moved (if you count anything after graduating from Wesleyan) 7 times in the past 6 years. Yikers.

We had helpers (thank you helpers), and they were fantastic. Tom made me move two couches with him before any strong people arrived. That was painful, but I did it with minimal complaining. Then the ladies and I filled our cars with the random stuff and the men carried heavy things.

Now I'd say - 24 hours later (ok maybe 28 hours to be exact) we are about 85% moved in. I think we have just been SOOO ready to settle into something that we were way too excited to unpack the kitchen and all the other stuff that we have only 1/2 unpacked until now.

We have a wood burning stove which is ridiculously exciting for Tom. He had a cord of wood (4 ft by 4ft by 8 ft) delivered today and stacked it all while I was cleaning the old house. Now he is attempting our first fire. It sounds nice, but I don't think it is burning correctly b/c Tom has not left it, and it was orange two second ago, and now I see nothing. The question is, when Tom goes away in 2 weeks will I be able to make a fire by myself????

In other moving news - not sure if it is stress related or not, but Harper has now thrown up his food three days in a row. Always at a different time, never with much warning. And you know how dogs normally make that weird seasick sound where their stomach heaves? His has NOT done that. He will just look at you, go to the door, and then bleh - puke. He is eating and drinking and running. So I am not taking him to the vet because I know they will ask those questions, and when everything is normal they will not know what to say. I think it's stress or maybe too much cat poop eating, or something else gross.

Ok so the new house is cozy and cute. It's got two nice bedrooms. One bedroom has another little office off of it. The kitchen is cute - slightly awkward at times, but cute nonetheless with a little eating nook and built in table. Fun sparkly chandelier in the dining room. The neighborhood is already super friendly. We have been invited to borrow anything (eggs, sugar etc) from our next door neighbors. The next next next door neighbor has two sons, and one of them (in 7th grade) came over to help Tom stack wood. His mom apparently said she would buy us bagels next time they get them. Nice. The upstairs family seems nice too. We are a hop - skip - and jump from a soccer field at Woodland Park which until we get arrested or fined will be very nice for fetching Harper.

So Happy Days right now. This is by far the most relaxed I have felt since perhaps our honeymoon.
Oh yeah and I forgot to say that off of our porch (if you lean right), but more safely from our sidewalk you have a view of the ocean and the Olympics. Sweet!

Trip Cross Country Day 10

Day 10-

We actually managed to sleep somewhat late. I don't think we got out of the tent until 9 something. Harper could have slept all day. We made some oatmeal with necatarine and then commenced cleaning up our spot. The Canadian girls came down and petted Harper for a bit and then we were on our way. We drove the rest of the road (like 10 minutes) just to make sure we didn't miss anything (we didn't). Then we turned around and headed back on the same road.

We hit insane fog. You could not see more than 20 feet ahead of you. Honestly we had no clue there was even a car in front of us. It was sort of scary - especially when you factor in the fact that there was a giant CLIFF on the other side of the road. We made it to the Logan Pass and went into the visitor's center to see if there was anything interesting (those of you who know me know that I hate museums....so Tom had to drag me out of the car). There was not much of anything except a LOT of people trying to get out of the rain/mist/fog.

We drove the rest of the way and thank god the fog lifted after the pass. We did not see any more bears or anything. Oh that's not true. On our little jog west to see the rest of the road we saw a huge bird of some sort and then a fox or coyote in the field. Ok so we almost finished the road and we stopped for a picnic of cheese and avocado sandwiches. We also bought giant hot chocolates for way too much money.

We took a picture with the Glacier National Park sign and then we were OUT. We weren't sure where we were heading exactly but we knew it was toward Seattle. I drove for a while through Kalispell and weird small "highways" where the wind was so strong it was hard to go the 70-75 speed limit. I think I stopped right before we got on I-90. We wanted to try these so called huckleberries that everyone was talking about in Montana. They were basically like blueberries - Tom got a milkshake and I don't think I would have known the difference. We ate some french fries and continued on the road.

At this point, thanks to the GPS, we saw that our estimated arrival time in Seattle was about 10pm that evening. That basically meant that we were not going to stop until we got there. Tom drove a while and then we gave Harper some dinner at a rest stop and I drove some more. When it got dark (I swear I'm just suddenly blind on the road when it gets dark. Thanks mom for passing that gene along), Tom took over driving. We hit some construction and going over Snoqualmie Pass it got rainy and sort of gross. We made it though and sort of floated across the bridge into Seattle. We made it very easily to our house and after fumbling about trying to find the hidden key, we were in. It was so odd to have all of our stuff there. My first reaction was, "Who the hell put their junk in our house?" and then I realized it was OUR junk.

Without thinking we started a teeny bit of unpacking, but then I nixed that. We headed out with Harper who at this point had been in the car for about 12 hours. We walked up and down Greenwood Ave (basically outside our door) and checked out bars and stores and whatnot. We figured out that the Phinney Farmer's Market was the next day, and we got a nice feel for the neighborhood.

I think we might have done more unpacking, but then finally we went to sleep on our mattress on the floor. The stupid box spring can't make it up the stairs! It reminds me of when Harper broke his leg and we needed it low to the ground so he wouldn't jump.