ID to WA

I haven't yet figured out how to make the blog look the way I want it to, but I thought I'd go ahead and post a little bit about our new adventure anyway.  About 6 weeks ago, Ben got a call from one of his Aflac friends in Washington who used to work in Idaho wondering if Ben would be interested in joining the team here.  While a move was not something we were planning on for a couple more years, Seattle had always been a place we said we would like to live and the opportunities for furthering Ben's career were really tempting.  We spent a lot of time praying, went to the temple, and made the long drive up here on a weekend with Stuart to check things out.  The conclusion we came to was that it was probably going to be a rough start and a major change for our family, but we felt it was the right thing to do.  Four weeks after that initial phone call, we drove our gianormous U-Haul up in front of a tiny 3 bedroom condo.

Two weeks later it's starting to feel more like home.  Our condo has enough bedroom space, but the actually living space is so much smaller than what we'd gotten used to in Pocatello.  The only space for the kids to play with their toys is in the living room.  I don't know why this seems weird to me because growing up we always had our toys scattered over the living room floor, but it kind of drives me crazy. I think it's because there's no outdoor play space so unless we go somewhere in the car, we're confined to the living room all day.  Thankfully we plan to only be here for 5-6 months.  The condo is being short sold (that sounds funny) so we are able to rent it month to month for a REALLY good price.  Then in early spring we'll find a nice house to rent.

When we got here, everyone told us we were just catching the last couple days of summer and it was going to rain for the next nine months.  A bit of Idaho summer must have followed up here though because it's been nice up until this last weekend.  We made good use of the warm weather by hitting several cool parks around the area.

We decided to get the touristy stuff done the first day and go down to the wharf  and Pike's Place Market.  Julia loved the fish and chips she shared with daddy, but Andrew and I stuck with our chicken and hamburger.  Julia was really sad that we didn't ride the ferris wheel, but it was just too expensive to stomach.

It's still weird that there are 3 of them! This park is pretty close to us.  We still have to drive.  It's right by a wetland.  You can walk all around the bog and down to a little pond on a board walk.  The kids and I saw a snake and fuzzy caterpillar and a ton of dragon flies. 

We had planned to go to this little beach on Lake Washington, but it was a little drizzly in the morning so we thought we'd just let the kids play in the sand.  Well, the sun came out and Julia and Andrew ended up getting soaked wading in the water.  

This is where our new ward's play group was supposed to be.  We got there an hour and a half late because of Stu's nap and nobody from our ward was there.  We met some nice families from another ward who were also having playgroup there.  

So all in all we are doing well.  I had a hard time the first week really missing family and my friends in our Chubbuck ward.  Our new ward has really welcomed us in.  What a blessing to belong to a church with consistent doctrine and teaching no matter where you go in the world.  It's like instant family.