Two Weeks Ago

.... was moving week. Jacob took the entire week off.

On Monday, July 29th, we went to the aquarium. We needed some distraction from the mess at the house.

Thought I'd throw in a couple of pictures of the not so nice areas of downtown Seattle ... you know every city and town has them. If I'm not mistaken, this construction has been going on from when we moved here back in November.

Like any other big city ... you will see quite a bit of transients {not pictured} sleeping along sidewalks or in alleys. Suspicious looking people, scary looking people, and some mentally disturbed folks that one occasionally sees talking to themselves. These people don't scare me. I'm always watching my surroundings and never let my guard down.

Jacob was having a hard time paying for his parking ticket so he let a guy go to see if he was able to purchase his and the guy did ... embarrassing! He was finally able to purchase his own ... after almost ten minutes.

We've always been the touristy type of people ... even in our own city. I've got the camera hanging on my neck, we point at cool things and sometimes even pose for a picture. We've known people who rarely go out. My daughters friend has lived in WA her whole life and has yet to visit places in Seattle that we've already visited in our eight months of living here. I just don't get it. And a lot of these places we go to are free or have a minimal charge. I guess I'm just a great researcher, ha!

As I get older I'm finding that heights kind of freak me out. Like the ferris wheel back there, also known as the Seattle Great Wheel ... I don't think I could ever go on it. I would probably have an anxiety attack. I hear it's about $15 to ride it and each basket has its own a/c unit. Maybe one day I will. It would have to be under very special circumstances though.

So here we are walking to the aquarium thinking since it's Monday that it wouldn't be as crowded as it tends to be during the weekends. Boy, were we wrong! Yeah, I guess I sort of forgot that it's still summer and that kids are still on vacation so there were several group of kids and a lot of other folks around.

Right at this moment and after taking this picture of Riley and as I was putting my hair behind my ears I felt my left earring about to fall off. I was SO happy I had the earring but the backing had fallen off and I was not able to find it. I felt weird all day not having both earrings on. First time this happened since buying my earrings about six years ago.

We sat and colored with Riley. We noticed all the paintings of sea creatures that were hung up. They were all pretty cool.

The seal exhibit was his favorite. He would run along side it and whenever the seal would swim down  and out of sight he would say "where it go?"

I love seeing the water. The Puget Sound has so many pretty areas from where to enjoy it. It's so romantic. So relaxing. It's just wonderful!

This is a nervous smile. For whatever reason Riley was afraid of this bird statue.

This was our last outing before the real stressful whirlwind of events would begin and what developed during the middle of our stay at the hotel was the beginning of a much stressful week that we never saw coming.

*****

The entire week before the move I wasn't getting good sleep. I wasn't worried about the move but I guess just thinking about it and everything we needed to get done was causing me to have insomnia. I told myself that I would go to bed early on Monday night, the night before loading. Well, I went to bed before 10:00 pm {which is early for me} but couldn't go to sleep until close to 1:00 am. Then Jacobs darn alarm goes off at 3:00 am. I couldn't go back to sleep after that. So I finally decided to get out of bed just before 5:00 and get ready. My left vein on my temple was super visible and I was dreading I would get a headache because that's what tends to happen when I can see that pesky little vein. I made sure to make myself some strong dunkin coffee.

So I had to drive Jacob to the u-haul place. We left the house at 6:45 am. I was so tired ... this was something I didn't want to do but we had no choice and since we moved during the week we didn't dare ask anyone for help. That's ok. We're a team and we stick together through thick and thin.

The movers got to the house around 8:00 am. It was hard not to stress about my furniture and belongings. I wanted to make sure they treated my things with care but what was more stressful was keeping Riley busy. He kept wanting to go outside when the movers were in and out of the house carrying heavy items. Ugh! Almost pulled my hair. I guess these experiences helps us grow?

So I asked Sydna if she could take him out back and keep him busy. A few minutes passed and I could hear Riley giggling. I looked out and this is what I found them doing.

Riley likes to march. Sydna was being silly for baby brother. Thought that was sweet. We sure are going to miss this large yard. The one at our new place is not as vast.

I had made mexican soup the day before so that's what we had for lunch the next day ... tasted even better. But we had no table, chairs ... nothing, just a plastic container that served as a tiny table. One becomes creative when we're limited with things. It served its purpose though.

The guys were done and left by noon. After we were all done eating we freshened up and got ready to go to our new house to do a walk through.

I'm a very observant person and I made sure to point out the things that needed to be addressed and really didn't stress out about  the small issues ... at least not once we were on the second floor. Given we are not new at being homeowners we know that there's always going to be little things that are a little off and really that doesn't bother us because we will eventually paint rooms and change things as time goes by.

This is the view coming out of the master bedroom. Laundry to the left. Nathans room is the first door on the right, then the bathroom. The double doors is Sydnas bedroom and Rileys bedroom is at the far end.

After we left our new home we went back to the leased house were we spent our last night there. We slept on the floor but glad we had our blankets and pillows. That made things a little better.

The following day we stopped by our new house. I left my only plant, well it's a pine tree, in the front porch. I didn't want to have to care for it while we stayed at the hotel and risking dropping it or making a mess. We also left Jacobs car at the new house. Parked it on the street.

This is all of Jacobs clothes. Sydna was having a hard time zipping up the bag. It's just ridiculous the amount of clothes he packed for four days. My goodness! He's worse than me!!

About to leave the leased house.

We dropped our keys off at the leasing company and we arrived at the hotel around 9:30 pm. Libby was meowing such a deep ugly meow all the way there. She hardly rides in the car so she's not fond of it. We made sure to cover her carrier when we walked inside the hotel. I was worried we would get caught. Thankfully she stopped meowing once we walked inside.

Thursday {August 1st}
Sydna woke up feeling a bit nauseous. We thought maybe she was hungry. But even after eating breakfast she said she still didn't feel right. We had to drive to the Title Company to sign the closing documents. I remembered this from our first time back in TX ... the long boring process of signing a huge stack of papers. Thankfully the lady went through them pretty quick. We were there for just under an hour. Riley actually did pretty good.

We drove back to the hotel. Sydna had an upset stomach, nausea and the chills and she was tired so she slept. Libby also slept ... right next to her. Jacob and Nathan went swimming and I stayed in the room with Riley and we watched a movie and snacked on fruit.

When Sydna woke up from her nap she said she was feeling a little better. We were all hungry and since our favorite restaurant was merely blocks away we had dinner there.

We hadn't been to the Old Spaghetti Factory since May. I was totally craving some comfort food and their lasagna was just the right dish.
Riley doesn't really like to sit in highchairs when we go to restaurants ... not even in a booster seat so he sat next to daddy and sister.

This whole experience of packing, loading, moving, staying at a hotel was overwhelming for everyone. Thankfully some of us are more patient than others. Jacob is the most patient one. I guess we create a good balance but there was still some tension at times. We all missed our things. We like a structure lifestyle and having a toddler even when things are normal is stressful and chaotic at times. So we were going through a lot of different emotions. Now imagine how a toddler feels. Riley didn't quite know how to express himself. He didn't know what was going on. All he knew was that his little world as he knew it had changed. Everything was different and he didn't have all of his toys, books, etc to play with. So obviously Riley was being way more challenging during this time.
He cried and screamed when we took away the saucer with the extra dressing. We were THAT family with the crying toddler. Now there's a saying that goes: don't ever judge someone until you've walked in their shoes ... or something like that. I like that saying.
Good thing we didn't notice anyone looking at us ... except another toddler that was sitting behind Jacob who too had a tantrum at one point. I'm sure that family understood how we felt, lol.

Once his food came he was fine. He loves pasta so I knew he would be quiet for a little while. Yes, he's feeding himself with two forks. Silly kid.

And among the chaotic times we still got glimpses of sweet loving gestures no matter how short these moments lasted. I like this picture a lot. It's too bad it's so grainy.

Friday {August 2nd}
I guess we all needed some good sleep and glad we all got it. We woke up feeling a little better, refreshed. Sydna still felt a little off with whatever it was she had but good enough to have breakfast.
Let me begin by first saying what a fantastic morning this was. It was cloudy and breezy when we left the hotel. My God, it felt so wonderful outside. Not cold ... but cool. What a great way to start our day! As we drove to the restaurant it began raining. We hadn't seen rain in a while. We had biscuits and gravy. They were delicious! Next time we're going to have to split them up because neither Jacob or myself were able to finish our breakfast.

After breakfast we drove to our new house to do a final walk through. Everything I had pointed out was fixed. Yay! But we had to wait to get our keys until the Title Company received the deed from the County Clerks office. We didn't have to wait long, maybe an hour.
Libby was so ready to get out of her carrier. She kept poking her nose out the little holes and her mouth was open like if she was panting, probably stressed.

As promised, this is the full picture of our house. It's grey with white trim and red accents ... and if you ask me -the prettiest house on the block. Of course I'm biased, lol.

It felt surreal. The house is ours! Such a big responsibility but it feels SO good to be homeowners once again. We all love it. The kids love their rooms. All Riley has been doing is running all over the place.

We had to go to the store to buy some food and it was nice to see that it was still raining.

As I was putting food away and while Jacob unloaded a few boxes from the u-haul Nathan kept Riley busy in what will be Riley's playroom. Not sure when it'll be complete though. Right now I don't have any deadlines about getting things done. My first priority is to finish unpacking. I still have at least fifteen boxes to go through. I just hope that I'm able to park in the garage by November, before it starts to get really cold.

The guys that loaded the u-haul were the same ones that helped us unload. They came by on Saturday, the 3rd. This was another crazy day ... directing them where to put some boxes. Everything went smoothly except one thing. The tv stand we had in the living room I wanted it in my bedroom and the darn thing is so big and heavy that they weren't able to take it upstairs in one piece so Jacob and another guy had to take it apart and take it up in two sections then put it back together. I was afraid it was gonna be messed up but it wasn't. It looks just like new.

Sydna still wasn't feeling that well. She still had an upset stomach. I guess she had the 24 hour stomach bug.

Jacob made chicken & shrimp fettuccine alfredo for our first meal at our new house. It was good. Even bought a bottle of wine. This little guy was already feeling comfortable in his new surroundings. I remember he began crying when Jacob packed his highchair and when we unpacked it he smiled and said "highchair". So cute!
Happy to be eating pasta, again.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to own a home again. 

I'm thankful for everything that I have.

Still nothing is ever perfect and very rarely do we get things exactly the way we want them.

If you know me, and you know me really good you'll know that all these fancy upgrades our house has are not my style. This builders motto is: everything included. Everything in the house came standard what would otherwise be an upgrade with most builders. Most of these upgrades I like but I wish I had had a choice on the counter tops, flooring, and interior paint color, but we didn't have a choice. 

My style is totally the opposite of what my new kitchen looks like. I like simple. I like rustic and distressed. I like the modern country cottage-y look and feel. I don't want to have to worry if something gets scratched or dented. 

I would never have picked sleek spotless wooden floors, or granite countertops, and I would not have picked a cream paint color for the interior. But it is what it is.

So, as time goes by and as soon as we can afford to do so you will see changes in our new home. 

The house is beautiful ... but certain things are just not me and I want our home to exhibit our personalities and the things we like. It'll take some time but it'll be fun turning this house into our home.

For now I'm content with how the house looks. 

We are looking forward to welcoming family that will come to visit in September and during the holidays.