first trip to seattle

this week we flew to seattle to look at apartments...and to introduce me to our new home. i've always been intrigued by seattle and i was quite looking forward to checking it out.

direct flight from slc > seattle (score! also featuring direct flights to LAX and ontario for $99/one way, in case you're wondering) and jack was a champ. we landed and it was a beautiful sunny day. headed right up to downtown to eat clam chowder on the pier and visit the world-famous pikes place market [another to-do from sleepless in seattle]. we sampled the most delicious fruit of my life and watched guys throw fish and climbed up 500 stairs.

we look like we could be seattle locals already, right?

we headed over to a gorgeous little park to watch the boats and people and dogs, and so jackal could crawl around a little bit. i spent basically the whole trip trying to figure out my bearings and understand where we were on the map, so it was fun to sit and look out at the islands across the water and see all the trees, houses, skyscrapers etc and try to absorb the fact that this is my new home.

we spent the next few days touring a billion apartments [okay, more like 7] and trying to figure out where we wanted to live. it rained pretty much nonstop for two days and i was starting to reconsider our move -- well, not really, but i WAS wondering if the sun would ever come out again and also pondering the going rate for a good pair of galoshes because i've always wanted them but could never rationalize the purchase until now.

apparently, this is what seattle looks like most of the time:

i call this "gloomy" and b calls it "rainy." he says i should focus on the positive aspects of rain. this is difficult for me after growing up in a place where it rained maybe 2 hours a month.

however, even i cannot argue that all the rain makes for some GORGEOUS scenery. the dirt is spongy, the trees are green, and there are lakes around every corner.

one of the weirdest things for me to get used to were all the TREES! you literally cannot see more than a few feet off the road because there are thick forests of trees everywhere. until now, the only places i'd ever been where there were that many trees were on the east coast and up in the mountains. so this incorrectly led me to believe we were in very rural areas -- but we were NOT. right on the other side of the trees were shopping malls, target, houses, etc. very tricky.

we ended up finding a great apartment in issaquah -- it's just south of lake sammamish, up on cougar mountain. i didn't take any pictures this time around but i will definitely introduce you properly once we move in. i'm pretty proud of myself for making such a big decision in just a few days [in all fairness, we DID go up there three days in a row to scope it out, so i guess i didn't make it THAT quickly] and i'm excited to move in.

the apartment is up on a hill, but only 1.7 miles from target and 4 miles from trader joe's. [OH how excited i am to be living in trader joe's country again!!] it's also less than 20 minutes from brandon's new job -- which is in the exact SAME building as our new paper source, be still my heart! i told him we'll be visiting often -- so it's a great location all around.

i think jack likes seattle too. he's particularly intrigued by all the nature, as evidenced by an outstretched arm and a highly excited "buh! buh!" every time we saw a bird or tree. the poor kiddo did great on the trip, especially considering he had basically zero planned naptimes and spent most of his time in the car seat. he'd conk out on any car ride longer than five minutes.

this trip definitely helped me wrap my head around the move a little better; until now, it sort of felt like we were staying in utah forever and that a potential move was still far away. but now i'm ready. i keep thinking about all the pretty trees and how green everything is and i can't wait to go back. the movers come in just a few weeks and then we're out of here!