Life is returning to normal

Apparently I didn't take any pictures this week, but there is this one, single one. I made bagel bread and some fresh wheat bread yesterday. First time in a few months that I've baked bread. This signals that I'm getting into my groove again. Life is normalizing and I'm slowly checking off the hundred things you have to do when you move, so that is good. There's still more to do, but life is coming back together, and that's good. 

Happy birthday to us!

Spencer and I celebrated our birthdays yesterday and it was lovely. We had a party for him with our cousins on Saturday and yesterday we went to a really cool park and did a fun hike, played with some friends, and a great new friend of mine brought us dinner. Bill and I were chatting and this is the third fourth time since we got married that a major life event happened just weeks or days near my birthday, and it definitely makes it hard to do some huge celebration, but we did the best we could. Twice we've moved across the country right before it, once Spencer was born on my birthday, and once I had a kidney stone the week of my anniversary and birthday. It just seems to be the season for big things in our family.

We've had a great week. We've already made good new friends. People are so nice.

 A friend gave Chloe and Genevieve some dressups, including this UW outfit. Chloe loves it, the traitor. Ha!

 We had a Monster's University themed party and did a mini Scare Games. It was entertaining.

 A baby in a bucket!

 We went to this cool park yesterday at a nearby state park that is just like our park back in Pendleton, SC. It was awesome.

 And then we hiked down to Lake Washington, and it was a great hike and beautiful views. My kids so wanted to get in the water and i was like dude, it's 40 degrees! They didn't care, lol.

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We made it

It's been another ten days and everything has fallen into place so beautifully. Last I wrote we were hanging out in Utah with family, enjoying that but also itching to find a house and get the ball rolling to get on to Seattle. Well, we did it! I felt so blessed through the whole process, so I want to write some of the things that went so right for us through this process.

This was perhaps the worst time of year to move as far as getting a house goes. Businesses were closed for the holidays, there weren't but a handful of decent houses to rent even being advertised. We scoured Zillow and Realtor.com for days looking for something and were so disappointed with the options. They all included a super long commute in to downtown Seattle for Bill, or they were really old and not well kept up, or just way too expensive for our current budget. I found a couple options and sent my wonderful brother and sister-in-law over to check them out, and lo and behold, the very next morning the house we ultimately got popped up on the market. It's only nine miles from Bill's work, six miles from our family, seven miles from the temple, just across Lake Washington from downtown Seattle, with good schools. We put an application in sight unseen so we could get the ball rolling and make sure we grabbed it, as we were concernd there would be competition. The application process dragged on for like five days since it was over New Years, and we just worried the entire time. But then suddenly on January 2nd I got an email that our application had been approved and it was like the heavens had opened for us. It was glorious. We left the very next day and drove up to Yakima, only to be stopped the next morning by Snoqualmie Pass being closed by weather and accidents. But we found an alternative route and made it here later that day. We're all moved in now, the kids are in school, Bill is at work, our house is mostly unpacked, and I'm still just marveling at how it all worked out.

Not a month ago we were more stressed than I've ever been. Bill was interviewing for jobs, which was going great. He was getting multiple offers. That is a huge blessing. He interviews well and everyone loved him. But then we got the offers and they were just not very good. We couldn't afford to live on them and they were in the southeast, super far away from our family. Then this Seattle option came through and it felt like such a wildcard. My friend from grad school hooked us up with a friend of his that worked up here to get Bill an interview at MKA. No one even knew each other, but that's networking for you. It was awesome. We got the offer, it all worked out, and we moved. It was a total rush.

So blessing #1. There wasn't an ounce of bad weather the entire three days we travelled from South Carolina to Utah. It snowed six inches the next afternoon in Herriman and was snowy our entire time there.

Blessing #2: it snowed and my kids got to play in it all they wanted. We haven't had any real snow beyond an inch or two in all the years in South Carolina

Blessing #3: We got some temporary financial help to get us through the expenses of moving from both sides of our family. We just have wonderful family members and organizations and they have helped make this doable.

Blessing #4: We got to see tons of family in Utah at Christmas. It's also been years for that and it was good for my soul.

Blessing #5: We just happened to be in Utah the very week my good friend from South Carolina's daughter got married and we were able to attend her reception and see some dear friends again before we moved so far away from them.

Blessing #6: This one wasn't quite how I had hoped, but I got to see my best friend from childhood for just a minute that same night as the reception. We ended up being just a mile from her house. I would have loved to spend hours together, but we'll do that some other time. It was so good to see her and her husband and their newest baby for just a minute.

Blessing #7: Our kids were total troopers on the drive. We blazed through 2,100 miles in three days. Then again we did 750 miles in one day going up to Seattle from Utah. Our kids rocked it.

Blessing #8: We stopped in Yakima even though it was only 135 miles from our destination. If we had been up in the pass that night I'm sure we would have been one of the multiple accidents we discovered the next day.

Blessing #9: We went over White Pass instead and it wasn't a bit snowy, just wet. It took longer, but we made it completely safe and it wasn't scary at all.

Blessing #10: We gave our new ward a whopping 12 hours' notice that we needed help moving in and 20 fine folks showed up at our door. The move in took no time at all.

Blessing #11: It was completely dry when we moved everything in, so my carpets didn't get pounded with dirt. Compare that to when we moved out, where it rained solid for two days.

Blessing #12: We also got a ton of help from friends to move us out of South Carolina, and as a result were able to get on the road the Friday night before Christmas so that we made it to Utah at 10:45PM on Christmas Eve.

Blessing #13: We live a block away from the bus stop that Bill hops on to go downtown and it only takes him 30 minutes to ride in each morning.

Blessing #14: We have a great ward and a great new school.

Blessing #15: My brother and sister-in-law let us crash at their house the night we arrived with no advance warning because we got there too late to get our house keys. Bless them and we are so excited to live nearby and spend oodles of time together.

Blessing #16: My 2006 van trekked all the way across the country with not a single problem. It's running strong still.

There were other things too, but the best way I can describe it is everything was darker than it had ever been a month ago regarding our future and now the door has swung so wide open that it hit us on the way around just to make sure we took this road. I don't really know why Kirland is where we needed to be, but I do feel like we got helped to get here in innumerable ways and I'm really grateful for how it turned out. It's been nigh unto miraculous how well things have worked out, and it's just so good to settle in and start this newest life phase.

Two weeks of time and half a country covered

When I last posted two weeks ago everything was on hold. Bill was interviewing at a firm in Seattle that I felt was a total impossibility, we had received several not very good job offers that would have been hard to live on in cities we weren't in love with. I was at a really low point because hello, this job hunting process is incredibly stressful! And now two weeks later everything has changed. Bill flew out to Seattle two Sundays ago. He interviewed for six hours on Monday and met just about everyone he could imagine at this company. He flew home on Tuesday and before he landed in Greenville he had an offer letter in his email. It was a great offer, particularly compared to the others! It was comprehensive and thoughtful. It addressed parts of the total package that the other firms hadn't even thought of and when we asked about they had been chintzy in their offers. Basically it's a dream come true. We're at a sort of weird place in our career where we're just starting out but we have a big family, so whatever we picked was going to feel tight, but we feel so great about moving to Seattle. The firm is fabulous. Everyone who knows them has great things to say, which is very gratifying. It's nice to know we're going to a great place to work.

Seattle is awesome. Bill's sister and family lives there. We've never lived near family and I'm so excited about that. The outdoor stuff there is a wonderland for us. The schools are good. The location is beautiful. It also happens to be incredibly expensive and housing is jaw droppingly pricey. Haha! Nine percent sales tax. It's going to be an adjustment for sure. But after looking at every possibility in housing available at the time, one opened up that we jumped on and have an application in at that is only nine miles from work, six miles from Bill's sister, and closer than we had possibly hoped to live. We were looking at houses with commutes of over an hour each way or parts of the city that were pretty sketchy feeling. But this location is great. So hopefully we'll have it secured in a day or two once the screening process goes through.

When the offer came in and we decided to accept I threw out the idea of hey, there's nothing keeping us in South Carolina, what if we did something totally crazy and wrapped up things there, packed up, and moved in time to get to Utah in time for Christmas. This was December 19th at the time. The next week was insane. My sister and her family came to visit. It poured the entire time she was there, so we did approximately two things while they were there. We went to Bill's lab, where my nieces and nephews had a great time experiencing the wind tunnel, and we packed up my house and then the truck. Not quite the vacation they expected, but I loved seeing them and was so grateful for their help! I said goodbye to everyone I possibly could at church because hello, we love South Carolina and our friends of the last six years. I still have this giant hole in my heart for all my friends there. And then on Friday night the 21st we got on the road. We drove all of 30 minutes that first night, at like 9:30 PM, lol, just to get on the road and out of our house. And then we blazed trails for three full days. We had the most amazing weather the entire time. I couldn't believe it. Not a speck of weather hit us. We rolled into Salt Lake at 10:45 PM on Christmas Eve. Ha! We did it!

We've had an awesome week here in Utah. I can't say we've done a lot, but being with family is just heavenly. Christmas was wonderful. We've spent time with Bill's parents, his sister and her adorable kids, his other sister and girlfriend, my sister, two brothers, two nieces. We went and saw the lights at Temple Square. We've played in the snow that fell exactly one day after we'd had the most perfect weather driving across the entire country. I feel like I'm gushing, but I can't emphasize enough how wonderful it is to be with family. We loved our South Carolina life, but it was distinctly lacking in family time. And now we've had a week of complete immersion, and it's good for my soul.

I can't wait to get on the road and get our last day and a bit of traveling done and settle into our new life, but this time here in Utah has been good, really good. Here's to all the ways I've felt so blessed through this process, even when it felt like nothing was working out.

Still Waiting

We're still puttering along, interviewing, negotiating, but haven't made any decisions yet on where we're going come January. It's trying on my psyche, but whatever. It is what it is. Life keeps going despite the stress. We are excited for Christmas around here, so that's a bright spot. My sister and her family are coming this week and I can't wait to meet my newest nephew and see all of them. It's been two or three years since I last saw them.

 Got Aaron a new coat today. He modeled it for me. He is so good looking!

 Touched up an old spool holder my friend gave me with a bunch of fabric. Now it's pretty and silver and if I ever have a dedicated sewing spot I'll use it to store my thread.

 It was so warm today we sat outside without jackets on and Chloe played in the dirt. It's been so rainy or cold for weeks and weeks and it finally has dried out in my yard and it's so nice.

 Chloe wanted to snuggle and Aaron wanted in on the party.

 My friend gave Chloe a nightgown she had just made. It is beyond adorable. Chloe loves it. She wears it to bed, which is saying something. My kids aren't big on wearing clothes to bed.

 Chloe's hair is just long enough to put the tiniest ponytail in the back or on top. Or both this day. And bling it out with clips and bows that barely stay in, haha!

 I need to take better pictures of my projects because this frame turned out awesome. It's a distressed white over dark and it really looks cool in person. I did it for a friend of mine.

Still Waiting

We're still waiting on job options to run the course of the hiring process. Sigh...it's such a stressful phase of life. I had hoped this week would be the one where we had a great option that was good for us, but not yet. So in the meantime, we're just chugging along and trying to be prudent. Here's a few pictures from the week.

 Genevieve accidentally dropped an ornament she made in preschool. I super glued it back together. It worked out pretty well!

 I finally got my new reading glasses. We'll see how they help out. It definitely makes staring at the computer feel less painful on my eyes.

 Chloe has been sick the last couple days. She fell asleep on me multiple times, which is not normal.

But she also still had some big smiles to share. 

 It snowed a bit. The kids love it. We're on day two of no school as a result. Ah, the South. Live it up. If we move back out west we'll probably never see a snow day again.

 I took the two oldest to our ward's Christmas party on Friday. Aaron had mouth surgery that morning, so he stayed home with Bill and Chloe wanted to hang out with daddy too.

 Aaron getting his "bonus" tooth removed. It was hard on my heart, but he rocked it and has been completely back to normal for two days. Kids are so resilient, it's amazing.

My annual date nut bread tradition. 

 And a stocking post I'm quite proud of. It turned out just how I wanted.

That's a wrap for the week. I keep hoping next time I post I'll have exciting job news. So here's hoping next week will be the week.

The waiting game

We're in waiting mode this week, hoping for some job offers to come through after lots of interviewing the last few weeks. Hopefully I'll have good things to report in another week.

 I spent a goodly amount of time this week doing this quilt. It was very stress relieving, and job interviewing is stressful, so there you go. I'm not even the one interviewing. Ha!

 Genevieve got a new dress from grandma and some new dangly earrings and it kind of took my breath away to take this picture. She is growing up so fast and she looked so beautiful and so much older yesterday.

 I took her to Claire's to get some earrings for her newly released from the bondage of her first pair of earrings ears. She was enthralled with the mall and all the stores and Claire's in particular. She's never been to a mall, since we don't live close to one. It was a fun trip with her.

 Genevieve discovered the delight of jeans this week. We gave her a pair of Spencer's that he grew out of and she was so suspicious of them and then she put them on and wore them every day since. I got her a couple new pairs yesterday and she loves them. She's been a leggings girl up to this point, but stretchy jeans are her new favorite.

 Bill was doing fast flips for the kids and much to Spencer's dismay he is entirely too tall for them. He's so funny. He doesn't like getting bigger because he hates not being able to do stuff like this anymore.

 Chloe always sleeps like a ghost, her words, as she covers herself with her blankie and goes to sleep that way. It's adorable.

Bill's mom sent us a new Christmas quilt and it is gorgeous. The kids fight over using it because it's so soft and cuddly and wonderful.