How I know I live in the PNW

1.  I made coffee in the tea pot after my French press broke. 

2.  I am wearing this outfit. 

It will be warm with a raincoat and it will keep my feet dry. 

3. I go stuff in the damp that I never would in GA. 

Although, I forget to put my kids in boots.  A mistake I hope not to make it again. 

4. Cold is relative. I have been keeping heat at 66. And I am now used to it.  When I go other places where the heat is higher, it feels too hot. 

5.  I get to mail in my vote!  

Seattle Bucket List

Believe it or not, I actually have some "fashion" posts coming up, but right now I want to talk about Bucket Lists.  Normally, I think that Bucket lists are kinda lame.  But since we moved to Seattle and I bought a travel guide for Seattle, I've been thinking that maybe creating one would be interesting.  

This list is not complete.

Space Needle (Competed Jan 4, 2014)

Aquarium (Completed Dec   28, 2013)

Pike Market (Completed Aug 2014)

Woodland Park Zoo (Completed July 2015)

Watch Salmon run (Completed April 2014)

Go Whale Watching

Alki Beach

Discovery Park  (Completed Feb 22, 2014)

Gas Works Park (Completed July 2015)

Seaward Park

EMP  (Completed September 2015)

Botanical Gardens (there are two.  One is in Seattle and one is in Bellevue)

Seattle Art Museum

Frye Museum

Science Center (Completed June 2015)

Children's Museum

Olympic Art Garden

Native American  museum

Asian Art Museum

Pioneer Square gallery

A show at one of the early venues Nirvana played at

Kurt Cobain pilgrimage

Visit Jimi Hendrix's grave

Eat Geoduck

Visit the first Starbucks. ( Completed July 2014)

Major sporting event

Wander around Fremont and find: the troll, Lenin, the rocket, and other street art.

Visit Mt. Rainer, the Olympic Mountains, and the North Cascades.  (not in the same trip though).

There are some things I'd like to add: like find the good restaurant, the main road race for the city and participate, and some of the other pop culture stuff, find a really awesome coffee place, and shop the more interesting boutiques.  These ones are more nebulous but when I figure out what the are I'd like to do them.   

Shoulda/Woulda/Coulda

I have never moved across country before this move, and for whatever reason I did not research it.  Part of it was a certain amount of naivety on my part and part of it was that it completely didn't occur to me that it was something I should have researched.  

So here's my list of things that I should have done:

1.  I wish we had sold/donated all of our stuff as if we were going to be living in a ridiculously small 2 bed room apartment.  I did clean out (diaper) several boxes of toys and got rid of quite a bit of baby stuff, but it still won't be enough.  The garage stuff now has no where to go and there really isn't much of a need for it either.  I knew that we should have sold the weight stuff, but I guess I was hoping that there would be garage here, and at least at the places we've looked garages are a rarity.  I do realize that if we had gone farther into the suburbs, we would have garages, but the commute would have been too long.

2. I over-packed.  I should have limited everything that the kids and Ib  would need to two suitcases.  Instead we had three big suitcases and several carry-ons.  It was a bit silly.


3. Speaking of the plane trip: I should have had one carry-on for the kids total.  I had to much stuff and it was difficult to keep up with it.  And they were happy with one toy and they did a great job of sleeping on the plane.  

4.  I should have shipped the cats separately from us.  My dad was keeping them and I'm sure that the cats would have been fine going as cargo once we got settled into our permanent address.  With extra cost of a larger rental car and the annoyance of carrying them through the airport, I would have spent the same amount of money just to ship them.  It's been nice having them here, but the majority of the time outside cat is starting to lose her mind with being cooped up inside the apartment. 

5.  I would have done better at finding property to look at.  Overall, I did okay, but I feel that the pretty unicorn of cheap and big enough is still out there.  

Some Pictures

We've been to a lot of parks. 

We've also been looking at a few different houses for a permanent place to live.  This part has been both fun and frustrating.  Fun because I love looking at different houses and trying to picture me, my family, and all of our stuff in one.  However, it has been frustrating because we have a lot of stuff and houses in our preferred commute zone and school level are much smaller than we are used to.  In hindsight, I wish that we had sold/donated almost all of our furniture and stuff back in Atlanta.  We have found at least three candidates that are really good and two that would be adequate if the first three don't work out.  We have put an application in on two of the three and will hopefully hear back in a few days.  The Seattle rental market is tough/tight and it's really tight since winter is not when sane people move.  Hopefully, we'll be in a place for a longer term than just a year.