Updates on the Apartment

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We're finally here, but as you'll see, it wasn't as easy as we had hoped. The only family member who seemed to escape unscathed was Cobweb who seemed to just be happy to have a few new places to sleep! But I'm getting ahead of myself.... here's how it went...

Well the biggest part of the move sure felt like it was packing boxes and boxes and boxes. We had picked what we belived to be the best mover we had interviewed. We had picked an apartment and Dan's job was anxiously waiting his Sales Logix expertise as soon as we could get there. All that left was packing boxes and boxes.

By the time we were on our last day in the apartment, I was ready to never see another box again! I got to the point that I couldn't even take a break and look at a box, so this was my standard pose while resting on the only piece of living room furniture we still had access to.... Dan's chair. I didn't think the chair was very comfortable, but I didn't yet know how much I'd miss having any kind of chair to sit on for the next few days, but again.. I'm ahead of myself. :-)

Our movers didn't arrive at 8am as promised because they said we didn't confirm. I don't know who I was supposed to talk to, but I called twice on Monday to be sure we were ready. Where I come from, we call that "Confirmation". Go figure. But the movers did arrive that afternoon and loaded all our things onto their truck. We got onto the road about 5:30pm and somehow managed to miss terrible traffic on our way out of town.

We got as far as Redding before we started to be too tired to drive our cars. We figured that Red Bluff, CA was going to be the minimum distance that we'd have to drive to stay on schedule, but I thought it was going to take a lot more than that. I managed to push us as far as Redding, well short of my Oregon goal, but we were entirely too tired to keep going. We had called and were told that the motel had plenty of downstairs rooms available so we drove on up to find only upstairs units way away from the cars and the stairs and us with all kinds of stuff to remove from our cars - computers, coolers, tv's suitcases, bikes, the cat, our clothes, etc, etc etc. Dan did most of the heavy lifting up the stairs and we left a lot of non-valuable things (blankets, plants, bike rack, etc) in the car. Even with as much as we left in the car, the hotel room was packed full but Cobweb was happy to be out of the car and able to explore around and spend time with Dan.

The next morning we hit the road refreshed although I wasn't looking forward to driving through all that heat without air conditioning. I was hoping we could take some breaks throughout the day and not have to push too hard to make it all the way. In the morning, I managed to get this great picture of Dan driving his truck with all of our stuff in the back as we approached Mt. Shasta. I think it's one of my favorite pictures from the move.

We stopped for lunch having only made it as far as Rogue River, OR and decided that we'd never make it all the way to Silverdale before the office closed at 5pm. We called the apartment manager to let him know we would be arriving to do the move in on August 2nd and called and made a reservation for a downstairs room (!) in Centralia, WA. I figured that we'd be there around 7pm. It would be a long day of driving, but certainly doable.

We ended up switching cars a little bit south of Portland because Cobweb and I needed some time in the airconditioning. Dan was a real trooper driving my little Geo the rest of the way to Centralia. I was able to cool down enough and relax and help him to unload our cars into the hotel room that night.

August 2nd we did arrive at the apartment around noon. We moved in what few things we had brought in the car (Why did it look like so much in the car and so much in the hotel room, but so little in the big, empty apartment?) and went to get lunch and take care of things like getting our drivers license, etc. The apartment looked so empty without our furniture!

Dan even got to paper his first shelves. What a treat! At least that's what I was trying to convince him. :-) Dan was able to bring his camping chair, but I got the pile of pillows and sleeping bags in the living room. Certainly no substitute for a chair! :-( We had hoped to bring my office chair with us, but on moving day it was obvious that there was no way that we would be able to get it to fit into the back of the truck. Oh well, it was only a few days.
	One of the things we were able to enjoy in the empty apartment was our amazing view out the living room window/sliding glass door. As near as we can tell, that's The Brothers in the Olympic mountains. One close up photo with clouds and one through the screen door without clouds.

On Monday, August 6th the movers finally arrived. Dan's work was kind enough to let him stay home so that I wouldn't have to do the delivery by myself. I can't even begin to tell you how nice it was to see my bedroom go from < -- This               to                       This -- > Ahhh!! And at last I got a chair!!!!

That was the good news. The bad news was that now our house was full of boxes all waiting to be unpacked! :-)

But we took care of that and have finally gotten the last of the boxes out of the house. We've ordered a new sofa that should be delivered in another week or two. I'll add photos of the new couch and the rest of the apartment once it arrives.

I spend my days trying to get caught up around here and exploring around the complex and Kitsap Peninsula. here are some pictures of where our apartment is located. We're on the first floor, but we actually have to go downstairs a little bit to get here. The bedroom and office windows are at ground level, but I like it.

Dan is settling in at work and is enjoying not having a long commute in his car. He is parking a few blocks from the ferry station and riding his bike down onto the ferry in the morning and then a few blocks past the old Kingdome and SafeCo Field to the current office location. He likes having the ferry ride time to read the paper in the morning and to read his book in the afternoon.

Well, I guess that's it for now. I'll be sure to post more pictures and updates here when we have something new to report!