Spending time in Seattle

This blog post is dedicated to my sister-in-law Naomi, who faithfully reads our blog (she is our only actual blogspot follower), and who reminded me that we haven't blogged in a long time. Today is her birthday. Happy birthday, Naomi!

We decided at the end of April to stay in Seattle through the month of May. This decision had many factors. One was that we have the opportunity to apartment-sit for our friends through May 24. We have a home of our own and a car at our disposal and it has been wonderful to have this extra time and this space to visit with people.

Another factor was that we realized while traveling around the US how much we love Seattle. We would love to buy a house here and have Seattle continue to be our home base, and now is a great time for first-time home buyers to get in on the market. However, we don't have jobs and getting them is the first step toward settling in Seattle. So we decided to use this month to look for work. I've been applying to organizations I want to support, such as the University of Washington, the Pacific Science Center, and other non-profits in Seattle. If I were to get a job offer, we would either significantly revise the rest of our trip or postpone it. And if not, we will continue with our trip as planned, except we will take the bus to Wisconsin in order to get there more speedily, and probably spend a little less time at our destinations between Wisconsin and New York.

Yet another factor is that there is a Magic: the Gathering competition at the end of the month. Brendan wants to get into the competitive Magic playing scene and this is a good opportunity for him to try it out, and possibly win a small chunk of money. We are also making a little money doing odd jobs this month. Tomorrow I'll be babysitting for a friend, Brendan has been substitute-teaching at YTN, and in a couple weeks we'll be doing a one-day computer job for Washington Mutual's transition to Chase.

With the rest of our time, we are enjoying spending time with friends and family. A little over a week ago my sister Amelie, Brendan and I had lunch with Amelie's and my second cousins. I connected with them via Facebook while we were in New Orleans and am so glad we got to meet in person. This trip has shown us how much family we have all around the country. There is something extra special about staying with people you don't know, but with whom you do have a shared history.

On Sunday, May 3rd we followed through on something we'd told one of our hitchhiking rides we would do. Remember our post about an older man who told us all about his nutcracker collection? He mentioned a nutcracker museum in Leavenworth and said the woman who owns it is a collector friend of his and a member of the same nutcracker club. We went to Leavenworth with our friend Nikki, found the museum and met Arlene Wagner the nutcracker collector friend, and saw her amazing collection. There are nutcrackers there from thousands of years ago. And there was Karl.

Meet Karl.

Karl is a trickster.

We spent the rest of that day enjoying Leavenworth, the river that runs through it, and the beautiful day.

Last Friday we went camping on Camano Island with Amelie and several friends. It was the perfect weekend for it. The moon was full on Friday night and so beautiful shining over the Puget Sound, and the weather Saturday was sunny and warm.


On Mother's Day all my siblings and their spouses and offspring and Brendan and I got together and took my parents out for a late lunch at Ivar's in Mukilteo. It overlooks the water and we could watch the ferry to Whidbey coming in and going out.

Mama and Daddy

My sister Jennifer and her son Liam

Jennifer's husband Jeremey, and their kids Erin and David

My brother Aaron and his wife, Naomi

Aaron and Naomi's kids, Juliann and Race

Race and me

Brendan and Amelie, showing off their coloring

It is so wonderful to have more time in Seattle to catch up with people! The first few weeks of April just flew by and were mostly spent hanging out with my parents and family and friends in Everett. It was great to spend time with all of them, but it was hard to get together with friends in Seattle. Staying this extra month has given us the chance to relax into Seattle again and see friends we would otherwise have missed. If you're reading this and you haven't seen us yet, call us! We will definitely be around through May 31st, and possibly longer if something pans out job-wise.