Living at the mall and other updates...

We've now been here in our new place for three weeks today, and we've been enjoying it much more than we expected. For those of you we haven't been good about updating about our situation here, I'll give you a little rundown...

My massage license went through just a few days after we got here, so we had just enough time to pull the household into some semblance of order before I started work on August 11th. Adjusting to my new commute time wasn't difficult in the least - it literally took me two minutes to get from our front door to the front door of the Massage Envy across the street (Some days it takes me a few minutes longer than that if the elevator or traffic light make me wait).

My boss told me to expect to be booked only about 50% for the first two weeks, but it's been more like 80-90%, and I just finished my second week. They keep me very busy and I love working there. I'm scheduled from 2-10pm Tuesday-Friday and 12-8pm on Saturdays. This schedule is about as different from our Utah schedule as we could get (the whole getting up at 4:30 in the morning thing REALLY wasn't my cup of tea, let me tell you!), but it's working well for us. Tom and I both are getting better sleep than we have in years!

Mid-day during the week we can be found at the gym downstairs enjoying the facilities and getting out our wiggles. They have really nice equipment as well as a hearty supply of freshly laundered towels and cold, filtered water. I've only accidentally stolen a towel once... but I took it back the next day. It really does feel like we live at a hotel! The pool should be finished any day now - just in time for it to close for the season, if we were still in Utah.

It's strange to be virtually living at the mall. We've walked around the shops here taking care of business and just checking things out, and it's certainly a different experience. There are always people around to observe and interesting things to see. We walked over to Lake Washington for the first time this past Monday as a day off treat. We kicked ourselves after we realized we had forgotten to bring the camera. It was a really nice day, and we felt grateful to be living here in such a beautiful place.

We got our new cell phone numbers this past week. If you would like those numbers or our new mailing address, just email me at amysgunn@gmail.com and I'd be happy to give them to you.

-Amy

Getting Comfortable 8/5/09

Well, the place is finally starting to look like a home. Our efforts at unpacking have turned the crushing mountain of boxes into inconvenient little islands of them.

Meanwhile, Amy and I have been loving where we live. I've told Amy we better plan on buying our own place next time we move. This brand new apartment is spoiling us, and I don't think we'll be able to rent another place again.

We've had the chance to try a few of the touted amenities. They have these great carts in the parking garage to help you get cargo from your car to your front door. Check it out!



The pool isn't open, but they're clearly working on it.



The gym is great! All the equipment works, the towels are fresh and plentiful, the water is cool and clean, and the sanitary wipes keep the whole experience from being disgusting.

The free Starbucks coffee is good, I'm sure, if the hot chocolate is any indication.



We rented a video from the leasing office the other day; a movie called Radio. Their selection was decent, but we're glad they're rotating it. The bottom line is we got to watch something we didn't own, and all it cost us was a trip down the hall.


Speaking of trips down the hall, taking out the garbage is a cinch. The room in the photo below is about ten feet down the hall from our front door.


I finally got my very own key fob for the elevators, making an incident like the other night less likely. The weather has finally cooled considerably, and Amy and I took a refreshing stroll last night to pick up a few things up at Target. It really is amazing how close everything is. The reality of our new pedestrian arrangement is still setting in.

The courtyard our place looks out on is very nice. Ours is the first apartment on the second floor on the building on the right. See, there's our fountain on the porch.


After much travail and struggle with Qwest tech support, I finally got the Internet up and running, which means I'm returning to work tomorrow.

Amy's received word today that everything is coming together for her massage license, so she should be working before the end of the month. What a relief!

All the puzzle pieces of our new lives here are falling into place, and the picture taking shape is looking better every day.

-Tom

Controlled Access 8/3/09

Living in a big building is certainly a new and interesting adventure. As we were moving in, my cousin Dave said the long empty hallways lined with doors reminded him of a Stanley Kubrik picture. My adventures getting lost (and worse) have made me feel like I'm in a bizarre movie myself.

The leasing office has a rotating library of DVDs which residents can check out. Not sure if the office had closed yet, I went over that way to look into it. I had to get in an elevator to get up to the office, but I soon found myself virtually trapped inside it. The office being closed, the elevator wouldn't take me up there. With access to residential areas being controlled, I couldn't get off the elevator either. I could only go down to the parking level, which was also controlled and kept me from getting to our car, or the elevator that would take me to our floor.

The parking area I ended up in has a keypad by the elevator that allows you to call a resident you're visiting to unlock elevator. The number it calls is actually my cell phone number . . . which was locked in the car.

I soon found myself outside the building, locked out, with no recourse but to ask a stranger for the use of their cell phone. I found a security guard on patrol. I explained my predicament, and borrowed his phone. It took several panicked tries, but I finally reached Amy, who has the only entry fob. She came out and rescued me.

On the bright side, we now know just how tough it is to get into this place if you don't belong here, or even if you do. Compared to our place in Midvale, it's sure a nice change, as long as I can avoid getting locked out again.

-Tom

A Moving Adventure 8/2/09

We're here!

That sentence sums up nicely how glad we are to finally have our move over with. We've been dreaming of living here in the Pacific Northwest almost since we were first married, and this last weekend, that slice of our dreams finally came true.

It felt like it would never happen. With so many hassles with Amy's massage license (which still aren't resolved), and so many other concerns and obstacles that got in our way, the whole thing sometimes felt like a pipe dream.

With faith, determination, and heroic assistance from both sides of the family, we made it.


Amy's packing superpowers combined with the brawny efforts of the Spaulding boys got our rented truck packed tighter than an Italian sausage. The drive was long and lonely as we had to go slow, and Amy had to drive the car behind me in a little convoy. Borrowed walkie-talkies helped keep us together and sane, but it was a long slog.

There's nothing like the feeling of coasting down a hill in one of those trucks with every earthly possession directly behind you, and only a thin layer of inflated vulcanized rubber between you and destruction. Mad, really, but I guess people do it every day.

We had a relaxing stop in Tri-Cities, WA to see our new niece Lorena and visit my sister Abby and her husband. Thanks to my Dad for the hotel points! That was a lifesaver.



When we arrived the next day, my brother John, my mom, and my cousins Dave and Steve all helped immensely. Seattle's been suffering record heat, but everyone pitched in to help anyway with little or no complaint. In fact, Dave and Steve had a ball pushing each other down the hallways on the furniture dolly. Not only did they help with their muscles, they lightened the mood and kept us all laughing.

Thanks to everyone for their kind support, time, and hard work in helping us get here.

-Tom

Goodbye, Utah!

Well, we're finally doing it after eight months of waiting. This Thursday we will be loading up our moving truck and then staying the night at Jeff and Crystal's place in Salt Lake. We will be getting up super early on Friday morning (probably in the neighborhood of 4 or 5 am) and getting on the road from there. We plan on spending the night in the Tri-Cities area on Friday night (eastern Washington). That way we can get cleaned up and - we hope - drop by to see our newest niece on Friday night before we shove off again early Saturday morning and make the rest of the trip to Renton.

Needless to say, we're extremely excited and anxious. We figured we wouldn't know when we were moving for sure until the last minute, but this was closer to the last minute than we thought it would be. We'll be packing a lot of boxes and doing a lot of organizing over the next couple of days, and Tuesday will be my last day working with Life Path.

We will probably be getting new phone numbers this week. We will try to get out an email blast as soon as we know what those numbers are (we already have our new address, but I don't especially want to post it here online where everybody can see - just call me paranoid).

We heard the Spaulding reunion was a big hit this week and were sorry we weren't able to attend. We plan on being there for the next reunion in two years for those of you who have asked.

I want to give a special thanks to my family who have let us stay with them for longer than any of us originally planned, and for all their help in seeing us off this week. I also want to thank Tom's family in advance for planning to help us on the other end. Thanks to all of you who hired me for last minute massages - it was great seeing you again, and every penny helps with a big move like this looming on the horizon.

-Amy

Lorena Maria Kidd - Welcome to the family!

Tom's sister Abby and her husband Jeremy are officially the parents of a new baby girl. We are thrilled to have another niece and look forward to spoiling her rotten once we get up to Washington!

They are planning to name her Lorena Maria Kidd. Although the papers are all signed and sealed, apparently it will be a week and a half before the birth parents can file the petition to terminate rights. Lorena is going to need to stay in the hospital another week or two since she was born so early, but she is doing well.



Both parents are deliriously happy, even if Abby's smile looks a little forced here!

Business and Pleasure

Tom and I made it up to Washington okay on Tuesday night. We had a nice relaxing day yesterday playing games and just hanging out with John and Janet, and I scoped out the area of my first interview while we were out for lunch. We went over to visit Grandma and Grandpa Fawcett at their not-so-new-but-new-to-us home here in Renton. They've lived there for about 3 1/2 years and we've never gone over to see them in their home for one reason or another. We stayed with them for a few hours and had a nice visit.

Today's interview was for the Massage Envy in Renton Landing.



The interview went really well and they offered me a job by the end. I'm extremely impressed with the owner and the way he operates his business - very different than other franchise locations. Whatever happens with my other interviews in Lacey and Woodinville tomorrow, I am thrilled to have a job if I choose to take it. This was a very successful trip, no matter how you look at it.

One of the wonderful things about Renton Landing is that it's an urban community complete with a Target, Fry's Electronics, many restaurants, shops and cell phone stores, banks, and of course the luxury apartments (which are by the way literally right across the street from the Massage Envy there). So we set up an appointment to visit the apartments today after my interview.

To put it lightly, I have NEVER IN MY LIFE seen such a fantastic apartment building. We certainly never thought we would be entertaining the idea of living in such a luxury setting, but the rent is not even that much more than we were paying in Midvale for our dump there. Here are some photos of the apartments - which come with a clubhouse, pool, hot tub with outdoor showers, no less than three or four free wi-fi spots, free coffee, tea and cocoa, a 24-hour workout room with fantastic equipment, etc., etc., etc...


Here's the outside of the building:
This is the floorplan we're looking at. It only has one bedroom, but everything is very open:
This is part of the clubhouse; one of the areas with free wi-fi. What a great place for Tom to do some writing if he has to get out of the apartment!


Another part of the clubhouse, also with free wi-fi. You'll notice the area in the back there is a full kitchen that residents can use, and invite guests as well:


Bedroom/bathroom. All of the walls have two-tone paint, so none of this boring white only stuff. The bathroom has a soaking tub, which is HUGE!


This is the gym, which is open 24-hours:
All of the units have a washer/dryer included in the unit:

I've got two more interviews tomorrow, and I'll post some sort of update afterward.