This past weekend we had the chance to go back to Idaho for a few days to see our families.  We got over there on Thursday night, and got to see my dad and sister for a minute before it was time to head to sleep.  On Friday we all hung out a little bit and then went to dinner as a whole family to celebrate Tim's graduation.  Saturday Morning we all got up and headed to Tim's graduation ceremony.  Due to the fact the Kibbie Dome is currently going under some remodeling, they had it out on the practice lawn.  The weather forecast was rain, lightening and hail.  Fortunately, the wind was very blustery and the clouds rolled past, but there was no rain or any other precipitation.  Here are some pictures of the day.    

 

 Tim walking in the procession to where all the graduating was going to happen.

 A view of the stage.... we had to sit on the grass since they did not plan this event very well. 

 Tim looking at the camera before his name gets called

 Receiving his diploma, he is finally done with college.

 As you can tell he was really thrilled

 Proud Mama and of course the graduate

 All the siblings, the last time we will all be together until at least Christmas

 The Parents proud to have two done with college

 And the whole family, minus my husband, but he's kinda an add on.

 Tim and his long time friend Jared showing their awesome new diploma cases....

 It was really good to get to see the family for a couple days.  Especially since my parents and sister are going to Texas here in a couple days, and my brother will be moving to Portland Maine at the end of the summer.   And also at the end of the summer my sister will be moving to the Czech Republic for a study abroad, so it was really the last time we were all going to be together for sure. 

After we finished up in Moscow, we headed up to Coeur d'Alene, where we stopped off at the Pataky's house to see the new pond they have been working on.  We took a little walk around the property, and saw all their new projects.  After that we headed into town where we got to spend some nice time visiting my grandparents and got to see their new house.  Finally we finished off the trip with lunch with Corey's parents and their friends Rob and Liz.  All in all it was a very nice trip.  But let me tell you I am happy to be back in the city.  Tomorrow is Norwegian Independence day, and so Laura and myself will be headed to Ballard to join in the festivities.  Until next time....

New Place

Alright.... yeah I know I was supposed to update this.... And finally I am getting around to it.  Soooo.... April 1st we finally moved into our new apartment, which is absolutely amazing!  We have so much space and it is wonderful.  Beyond that, I had been having quite a few problems with our previous landlady (in fact she still owes me a lot of money) and it has been amazing how great our new property management has been.  Since this was a new construction there have been quite a few problems, and so we have been able to bring these issues to the management's attention, and they have been there within a day or two to have it fixed.... as opposed to the other place calling for weeks and never getting a response.  Corey and I are both grateful for the amazing management team..... of all my apartment renting I've never had a property manager be as nice or helpful... So that is absolutely great.  So here are a few pictures of the new place all put together. 

 So here we are looking from the kitchen into the living room.... When I first looked at the place I did not think that we would be able to fit all our living room in there... but it fits perfectly.... On another note, if you saw our old apartment, that just tells you how much bigger this new place is, cause it was sooo tight in there. 

 And our little dining room.... well it's kinda big considering how much free space there is between it and the living room.  And just a little glance at our two porches... we have one that would be great for a little patio set... and one that well, is just plain long, about 20'x4'

 Just looking back at the kitchen from the living room.... you can really see how much space we have!!  And of course my favorite part of the apartment.... the KITCHEN!! It is really nice to have a kitchen that more than one person can be in at a time, and beyond that we have granite countertops.... but really I just love how big it is, I have never seen an apartment with a kitchen of this size!!

 Laura's lovely painting hanging out in the living room

 Alright, so we have the master bedroom... which is giant.  this is looking from the hallway (which has our closet and bathroom off it. 

 and then looking back the other direction.... I am pretty sure that the bedroom+bathroom+closet=the size of our old apartment.... alright, so maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I would still say that this place is about 2.5 times the size of our old place.  And we have another decent sized bedroom and bathroom for Laura... as well as a laundry room with some great storage.  It is absolutely awesome!! We were truly lucky to find this place... the building was rented out in 4 days of it being posted online, and we just so happened to get one of the places.

 And the middle of the bedroom... just to connect the previous two pictures

 Looking from the bedroom back out to the living room.... It gives you a bit of perspective of how big it actually is. 

 So we decided on a very nice Seattle day to take Ernie on a walk to Ballard.... so we walked down to the Ballard Locks and showed Laura the locks then headed into Ballard to grab a bite to eat at KISS cafe... a nice little place that allows dogs to come in and hang out. 

 In Laura's attempt to see all the sights of Seattle, we took her to see the troll that lives under the Aurora bridge...

 He apparently doesn't like VW's... then again, I may not be the biggest fan of them anymore since I had my Jetta. 

Hanging out with the troll.... he did not eat any of us, so we were very relieved. 

 Last week Corey's parents came to visit us for the evening last week.  We had a nice dinner down in the market, and enjoyed the view of the sound.  It was a great time!!

And finally... Laura received notification this week that she was chosen to paint a mural on the side of our apartment building.  Since it a new construction there are so many codes that they have to adhere to... So we have planter boxes on our porches for "vegetation" and there has to be so much "public art" on the building.  So she, as well as two other artists submitted their design proposals, and Laura got it!!  She is very excited about the opportunity.  Not only is this her first commissioned piece of art, it will be visible to soooo many people.  We are all super excited for her and can't wait to see the final piece!

We will be heading back to Idaho for Timmy's graduation in May, so we hope to see as many people as possible, but we will probably not get to see everyone.  Especially since my parents and siblings are moving so far away, I want to be able to see as much of them as I can.... Hope to see you all soon!!!

Updating the Boring

Well, I said I was going to try to update this more often, so that's what I am doing, although it may not be the most exciting thing you are going to read. 

We have started to clean out our apartment, and get rid of things we don't need..... There has been quite a bit of trash.  I went through our "Medicine Cupboard" and we had collected a lot of random stuff over the years.  Since we each moved a lot around Moscow during college, things just got shoved in boxes, and we never paid much attention to what was in there... turns out there was a nice big paper bag full of vitamins and other random medications that were expired.... some by just a few months, but a lot of the stuff that was mine, expired in ohhh....2006-2008.   I never was very good at remembering to take my vitamins.... and now I suppose I am also good at forgetting that I even own vitamins, for about 5+ years.... OOOPS!!

Other than that cleaning has been quite uneventful, we were able to sell the shell to Corey's old computer, his old monitors that we weren't using, as well as some other electronic stuff we had laying around.  We were also able to clean out our closet enough to actually be able to close the door again so that was good.  We really can't wait to move out of our little apartment (though it has done us very well).  We are so looking forward to the nice big kitchen, the dishwasher, washer and dryer in unit!! Actually that might be what we are most looking forward to.... we are sick of the little kitchen and trying to do all the dishes by hand.  Anyways, we are working on getting ready to move, and really can't wait to move in!! 

We are also excited about the fact that we are having Laura move in, it will be great to have another friend from home in Seattle!  It will also be nice to have her artwork hanging all over our apartment....

Otherwise nothing really has been going on here, just been working alot.  Spring breaks have started to hit all over the Northwest, so we are seeing an influx of tourists which should continue on through the summer, peaking in June or July.  Corey and I are currently working opposite schedules, so we don't have much time off together, but we are enjoying what time off we have.   The weather has been teasing us with sunshine and nice temperatures the past couple of weeks, only to come along and rain.  It's supposed to rain the next week or so, but then clear up for summer.... I don't know how I feel about the sun coming out again, as I love the rain..... but work gets busier with more sun, so I guess I have to like it.

We are hoping to make it to Idaho here soon.... I feel like after we get settled into the new place we might be able to take a weekend to come visit!

Getting Back into the Blog Thing....

So after not touching this thing for a couple of years, I have decided to get back into the blog thing.... I figure since we now live quite a distances from most of our family, and my family is moving farther away, this would be a good way to keep everyone updated on what is going on in our life.  And I am gonna try my hardest to keep this thing updated on a regular basis.... no promises though.

Well I suppose I should catch everyone up on the past couple months, I think any farther back and it would be a little overwhelming.  Since Corey and I have moved to Seattle, we have been working, and enjoying the city life.  Due to our work schedules we weren't able to make it back to Idaho for Christmas, but our mother's were kind enough to mail us our gifts.  So we spent a relaxing Christmas day together, opening presents and eating some good food. 

 Just after we woke up, we were getting ready to open our presents.... we figured we would take pictures to show our families.... kinda forgot to actually send them, I guess it's better late than never.

 The awesome dress I got from Bobbi!! Love it!!

 Yay for Mario Kart..... It occupies way too much of my time.... Always has been one of my favorite games!

 The lovely scarf from my mommy.

 Pretty sure that was not what the belt was meant for..... but whatever...

 Courtney got me a pretty wine glass

 Awesome movie and sweater..... Corey wears it a lot.... thanks mom!

 And of course more scarves for me.... which I love!  Oh, and Alice in Wonderland!! One of my favorite movies!

 Thumbs up for the red shirt....

 Pretty Sweater....

 Ernie's new fashionable collar....

 Corey got me a lovely jewelry box.... which is already full....

A couple days after Christmas we hung out with Jason and Tiana and went down to the water for a bit, granted I see this every day, but I don't really take pictures. 

 And of course we have to get a picture of us with the "dinosaurs"  The huge red cranes which I call my dinosaurs is my favorite view from Seattle.  I love looking out at the shipping yards.

January didn't bring a whole lot, just some work and hanging out.  Laura came to visit us at the beginning of February to help celebrate my birthday... and since her birthday was a couple weeks before we had a joint birthday dinner. 

 Laura and I got some lunch on my birthday at Chinooks, we enjoyed ourselves while we watched Corey work....

 For dinner the three of us went to Purple Cafe and Wine Bar, one of our favorite places to eat.  They have an excellent tasting menu where we sampled many dishes.  We got a couple wonderful cheeses, a beef carpaccio, ceviche, among many other wonderful tasting items.  We really enjoyed all of the food as usual.

 And of course it is a wine bar, so we shared a great bottle of wine.... I had never heard of this wine, but man was it delicious!!

 The central focal piece of the wine bar.... if you can't tell they have quite the extensive collection. 

 Checking out the wine pillar....

 They brought us a couple of birthday desserts, a red velvet cake with the most amazing cream cheese frosting, a little creme brulee, and finally some little chocolate covered caramels, they were all wonderful. 

While Laura was visiting, she finally decided to take the plunge, and move to Seattle.  She has been working and trying to find a way to get over here for nearly a year.  Finally she decided to move in with Corey and I and get over here!  After she left I started looking for new apartments to move into with two bedrooms.  After looking around at a good number of places, I was getting very discouraged, as there was nothing that was what we were actually looking for in our price range.  And also in the neighborhoods that we wanted to live in.  Finally a couple of weeks ago I came across from a great apartment, two bedrooms, two baths, two porches, two covered garage spaces, internet and cable included, Laundry room with washer/dryer... It is beautiful.  So we turned in our application to move in to that apartment and were approved, so In April we will be moving into a new building, and even better it is just down the street from where we currently live, so the move itself will be easy.  We are all very excited about this new place, as the building is brand new, they are still putting finishing touches on it, and it won't be ready for anyone to move into until the beginning of March, so we will be the first people in this place.  Here are a few pictures of the new place.... none of us can wait to move in. 

 The living room/dining room looking from the kitchen towards the front door.... you can see porch #1 to the right.

 Looking out at porch #1... we do have a little bit of a view of magnolia.

 Porch #2, Nothing special, but it runs along the side of the apartment, pretty cool. 

 Standing back by the front door looking back across the living/dining room.  Porch #1 is just out of view on the left of the picture.  Look at that kitchen!! I am so excited for the Big Kitchen!!

 Granite countertops, dishwasher (we sure have missed having that), it is really an amazing kitchen!!

 Laura's Bedroom, pretty good sized, and she'll have her own bathroom just across the hall.

 Master Bedroom looking from the door to the left.... wait for it....

 and looking the other direction from the back wall.... it a very large bedroom, which is great!! There is a nice walk in closet on the left as well as an adjoining bath.....

 Master Bathroom.... The other bathroom looks almost exactly the same.....

 And a blurry view of the kitchen.... still super excited that we found such a great place!
Even better is the fact we will no longer have to save our quarters for the laundry, and it's an actual laundry room so there is some storage too. 

That's really all the updating I am going to do for now.... But since I started typing this little thing, it started snowing, and it looks as though it is going to stick this time.  All the surrounding areas have gotten quite a bit of snow, but we were lucky that Seattle proper was missed.... I guess our luck could only last so long.  We will see if this is gonna be Snopocoalypse 2011.