Fall Colors

Steve is already living out of our new house in Spokane - complete with an air mattress, a blanket, a towel, a beanbag chair and his laptop...what more does one need really? LOL.

Yesterday he took our dog Killer for a walk in the park across the street. He called to tell me how beautiful the trees look right now, and then sent me some photos to prove it! These three photos of our house were taken from the park across the street. AWESOME:


I am SO jealous! When I look at these pictures, I want to be over there NOW. But alas, I have work commitments for the next four weeks. Ugh. I suppose by the time I get over there (after Thanksgiving) the lovely colors will be gone and it will be snow season. Oh well. In the meantime I am still trying to get our place in Seattle rented. We signed a 14-month lease in April, so we need to find someone to take over as of Dec. 1. We've shown it to several folks who seemed very interested, but the landlord is being very picky...someone was supposed to come by tonight and stood me up. In the meantime, I have to keep the place in super clean "show" ready condition, which is really annoying -especially when people don't have the courtesy to show up! Aaargh.

Again? Seriously?

Where have I been? I know…not much blogging going on lately. The adoption wait continues (of course). But in the meantime, some crazy things have been going on which I must fill you in on…

About three months ago, Steve was offered a terrific job over in Spokane, WA (about four hours east of Seattle). At the time, we didn’t really consider it, because we JUST got to Seattle in March – and moving AGAIN was not high on our list of priorities…

For those who have been following my blog since the very beginning, you guys know that I have moved three times just since I started the China adoption process! I am so SICK of moving. One of key decisions in making the move to Seattle last spring was that my family is here, and I was offered the opportunity to work in communications for an adoption agency – so moving again was not really something we were considering at all – until…

They started “woo’ing” us…BIG TIME. Flying us back and forth to visit Spokane, buying us meals at fancy restaurants, increasing the salary and benefits they were willing to provide…and finally - us seeing the (much) lower cost of living over there, and realizing that we could actually AFFORD for me to stay home with Lia (when she arrives) and not work 40 hours/week. Some very attractive incentives indeed!

So – long story short – we were “woo’d”. We are moving. Again. Luckily we had never completely unpacked the house from our move in the spring, so it won’t be a huge hassle to do it again. And the company Steve is going to be working for will pay to pack and move us, so there is little preparation we have to do. I am a little bit bummed that I will be further from my family again, but four hours away isn’t too bad (when compared with the 22 hours it was to Denver!) The biggest bummer is that Steve starts over there next week. But I am committed fulltime to my job in Seattle until Thanksgiving. So we will be doing the “long distance” thing for a few weeks.

On the bright side, it looks like my employer is going to allow me to telecommute 20 hrs/week from Spokane and continue managing their marketing and advertising campaigns. So I am excited about that! Once again, I’m glad I didn’t throw down the money to update my adoption homestudy with our last move. At this point, I am just going to wait until I am a lot closer to referral to take that step.

In the meantime, here is a pic of the adorable little house we will be renting in Spokane (for $500 less per month than our house in Seattle!) It sits right across the street from a city park. How cool is that? It will be a VERY different environment than living a ½ mile from the runway at SeaTac Airport – that’s for sure!

For Everyone Waiting...

This YouTube video was posted by a family waiting to bring home their baby from Ethiopia...very sweet!

18 months...Wishing for Lia

Super-incredibly FAST is the general order of the Universe, Julie.

And just knowing this about the "general order" makes stuff happen super-incredibly FAST.

One sense of self is on its way,

Love, The Universe

Two Years

Tonight Steve and I celebrated two years since we met. Why does time seem to fly in some ways, and then D-R-A-G in others (i.e. adoption)?

Life is so strange.

I talked to an past professional acquaintance of mine (from Denver) today. I asked him how things were going...and he said, "every day when I wake up and I'm alive and my wife and kids are alive, and it is a great day!" And I know he was serious, because when I met this person at Children's Hospital - he wasn't sure his child WOULD be alive at the end of the day (happy to report his child is doing well now...) But hearing statements like that really put life - and all it's challenges - into perspective.

I haven't blogged much lately. Not because there's not a lot going on...quite the opposite...but because I'm trying to find a way to wrap my head around everything that's going on.

Back to the posting at hand... Steve and I went out to McCormick & Schmick's Harborside (on Lake Union) for dinner tonight. It was awesome. I had the Northwest Salmon and Halibut saute - complete with blackberries, raspberries, asparagus and wild mushrooms. Steve had the sea scallops...delicious! We are both trying to eat healthier, so we skipped dessert (even though the options looked amazing).

Catching up from the past week

Not a lot of exciting news to report this week. I'm work a lot and trying hard not to let it take over my life right now. Steve and I took a brief trip over to Spokane this weekend. It's a quick, 40-minute flight from Seattle. We spent one night over there and then came back to Seattle last night. With my past work experience in government affairs, I was intrigued to see Republican candidate for Governor of Washington, Dino Rossi checking in for our flight on Friday night. I was REALLY hoping he would get seated next to me so I could ask him some questions, but alas, he was seated in First Class (shocker!) Darn - I could've had some fun with that...

So anyway - a few pix from Spokane - first, a VERY cool piece of art/playground equipment they have installed at their downtown's Riverfront Park (the handle of the wagon is a slide - cool!):


We had lunch at the resort on Lake Coeur D'Alene (about 30 miles east of Spokane in Idaho). It was a beautiful 75 degree autumn day, and the lake was sparkling. On the way back into Washington, we checked out the Liberty Lake area, and saw these three deer hanging out in someone's front lawn, under their apple tree munching on fallen apples. Almost a cliche eastern Washington photo - but so beautiful!


...and back to LAST weekend's trip to the coast. I posted all the gorgeous sunset and beach photos last week. So here are some of the silly ones I also took along the way. First of all, I was absolutely giddy to see this picture collage at the mall in Aberdeen. Apparently, Tom Cruise visited Aberdeen in May of 2006 for the opening of one of the Mission Impossible movies. Unsure what the connection was, but they STILL have an entire wall dedicated to the occasion. LOL - I love stuff like this:

Clearly, it was (and still is) one of the biggest things to happen in Aberdeen in recent years...probably since Nirvana went big in the 90s (Kurt Cobain was from Aberdeen)...


We also found it funny that a Mexican restaurant in Aberdeen was willing to SELL their handmade, paper drink menus to any willing patron for the super value price of $5.00:



One last thing - for those of you who remember, my dad had a heart attack back in January of this year...today he walked in a 5k breast cancer event at Alki Beach, supporting my sister, Tracy. Check out Tracy's blog for more info and photos - GO DAD!

Vacation Pix

We had a terrific trip to Washington's "Cranberry Coast". It's hard to be back. Lots of stories to tell, but little energy to tell them - so for now, some pix from the past four days: