Oh boy Oh boy

Lots and lots has been happening! Ok, nothing like super duper exciting, but it's been a good few days since we posted last. Well, I guess getting a couch was super duper exciting, actually. We really needed that. So, yes, good news, we have furniture now! We could still use a couple more things, but we have all the essentials, and life is quite comfortable now that we have someplace to sit our rears besides the floor. Which is concrete. So big improvement! We also have had our first go at the neighborhood weekly farmer's market, where we can buy our weekly groceries, I think. You can find everything there: milk, eggs, chickens, salmon, veggies galore, berries, ice cream, flowers... Happiness. It was wonderful. And it runs all year, and is literally 3 blocks from our house. So bingo bango, that's exciting. And we saw every kind of dog imaginable, which was fun, too. We even met a "golden doodle" who was awesome, and we want one. But don't worry, parents, won't be getting one any time soon. Sadly.
Today we made the trek over to the University so Brian could get his "Husky card." Let's all note the glory in the fact that Brian continually made fun of the fact that I had a "Phoenix card" at Elon and they couldn't just call it a student I.D. Ha. He had it coming. Sidenote, UW is a pretty big school, and I realize what a tiny school I went to! Oh my. Elon was small. It was wonderful, though. I just feel like I missed out on the big university feel. Anyway, UW was very nice. We liked it a lot.
Anyway, here's what many of you have been on me about: apartment photos. Just go to this link. Enjoy.

New House

Time out.

Hey, guys. Guess what?? Now we have 2 pieces of furniture! A bed and a tv stand! Hoorah! Today was a day filled with big trips to Target and Bed Bath and Beyond. And big thanks to everyone who gave us gift cards for graduation-- we bought $500 worth of stuff for $150! Thanks, all!

Anyway, let's get down to the reason for this post... I want to take a time out in the "we're moving listen to all our changes and goings-on" to get a little real. Today was the first day I really wished I was home. Why would you want to be in the gross sweaty South instead of lovely, cool, Seattle? One of my very best friends is having open heart surgery tomorrow. And I can't be there. My reason for sharing this with all our internet followers is to ask for your thoughts, prayers, positive vibes, whatever to be with my friend tomorrow and during her following weeks and months of recovery. She's strong, she can do it, but I know any positive feelings supporting her will help a whole lot. Thanks guys, have a good one.

Home Sweet Home...

Hello, all! I'm very pleased to tell you that we officially have a home! Hooray! We moved in this morning, and it is just lovely. Granted, we have only one piece of furniture and almost no belongings, but that will soon be fixed! We are in a very cute 681 sq. foot apartment in a very lovely neighborhood. We are right on a park, a block from a library, and two blocks from the main strip that has tons of tasty restaurants, coffee shops, cute stores, etc. We think this will be a very happy place to live.
It was pretty funny as Brian was unpacking his electronics and I was unpacking my Africa stuff... we are quite different in some ways. Alas.
Also, I learned some thing else today... I never want to go back to Wal mart again. No, sir. We braved one today just to spend a gift card, and it's just not going to happen again for me. What a stressful, unorganized experience.
Fun fact: in Seattle it is apparently illegal to not recycle. And that means all paper, plastics, etc. We are hoping to produce very little trash this year and be more green. Here's hoping.
And finally, in our hotel boredom the past few days, we watched the documentary "No Impact Man." If you haven't watched it, you should. It's a very thought-provoking story about a man who decided he and his family would live making no impact on the planet for one year. It made me really think about what I consume and what I carelessly toss into the trash, which in turn affects a lot of people and communities down the road. You should go watch it. That is all!

Tempurpedic Tevyn

Sup, folks? So Katie told y'all about IKEA and all that jazz, but she left out a pretty important part of our days here at this prestigious Days Inn. We went to a store called Mor For Less, or something like that. It is a pretty nice furniture store, and we were greeted at the door by a well dressed employee named Tevyn. He showed us some couches and sent us along on our way, to which we stumbled into the bed section. There was a large display of Tempurpedic beds and pillows, so of course I tried them out. And oh nelly, that is some amazing stuff.  I will now begin piece-wise replacing everything I own with a Temp. version of that item. Only one thing could remove me from this divine sampling; and that was Tevyn ghosting right up next to me and asking if I wanted to buy it. On the spot. So now I had to roll out of this swift-in-a-blanket, and start telling Tevyn to back the mess up, before we threw down. And of course then he tells me we could sit down and work out a financing plan if that was more agreeable to me, but I was definitely gonna toss 3grand on that bed to give him the best commission he has ever seen. So I punched his face in. (In my mind) In actuality, we kinda turned and ran away from him. But of course Tevyn was no stranger to ninjas. He knew the store was a giant labyrinth (it took us like 20 minutes to find an exit while explicitly searching) so he took his hidden passage shortcut and was at the door when we wanted to leave. So Katie and I hid behind some plants (no lies) until he was tractor beaming in on some new customers walking in the door and then we dashed right behind his greasy head and took off out the door. It was insanity.

-Swift

AHHHHHHHH!

The title of this post might lead you to believe that we've been doing some super exciting things... However, that is not true. Haha. I guess the "ahhhhhhh" is more out of frustration than excitement. We are, alas, still not in a home, and have been in (very) cheap hotels since we got here. Since it's labor day and super exciting things are going on in Seattle without us, all the hotels there are either a)booked or b)super pricey. So, we've been suburb-hopping in cheap hotels. Oh well. The word on the street is that maybe we'll be moving in tomorrow.
In the past couple of days, though, we have been able to thoroughly explore the land outside the city. Kind of. We at least made it to Ikea, which might be all that really matters. We went yesterday, and let me tell you people, that place is crazy. I had never been to an Ikea. I was overwhelmed with the amount of people on a mission. I mean really, is it necessary to leap in front of me, grab the dresser tag out of my hand and start opening up drawers while I am clearly trying to check out this piece of furniture? It's not like it's the only dresser in the store. It's not like they only have one in stock. It's Ikea for crying out loud, they have a whole warehouse full of dressers! Geez. Anyway, these people were on a mission, not saying "excuse me" and were intent on getting to that dish drying rack first, darn it. At one point, we had two men behind us who were clearly trying to meet up with some people. They contemplated the map for awhile, then we heard one get on the phone and say, "WE ARE STUCK IN IKEA HELL! Oh, there's the kitchens! We'll meet you in kitchens!" It was hilarious.
The good thing about our Ikea experience was that we could reminisce upon the beautiful Ikea scene in the movie 500 Days of Summer (if you haven't seen it, you aren't my friend anymore until you do). And we also actually weren't buying anything. Who would go to Ikea and not buy anything?? Two kids from Tennessee whose car is filled with all of their possessions and who are trying to kill some time before Tuesday, that's who. But now we know what we want from Ikea! And Big Lots. We stopped there, too, and it looks like the jack pot of all jack pots. Hoorah. I never thought I would devote so much time to home goods...
Anyway... It's been nice to be out of the car and just relax a little before moving in and trying to find a job and all that jazz. Hope all is well. We'll continue to keep you posted!

2Day 2Furious

Man, today was a crazy day people. We spent the entire morning at the apartment complex
filling out forms and trying to figure out which place we wanted to rent. That is such a stressful
process. Then we just had to walk around and waste time until they got back to us at like 545 to tell us
they are pretty positive we are going to get the place. So to waste that time, we walked around a botanic garden, and went down to the locks. Those were pretty cool to watch actually. Seeing the water level shift by like 20 feet, and learning how and why it all worked out was quite fun. It was also a gorgeous sunny and 75 all day long (again). We had some lovely Thai food for dinner, and katie consumed a bunch of broccoli in hopes of relieving her bout of traveler's constipation. Well, I somehow became an old man on this trip and have been tired since 9, so I'm going to go to sleep. Ciao.

Brian

First day in the big city

Today was pretty successful!
First of all, we were blessed with a beautiful day weather-wise! Thank goodness. Yesterday's rainy mess had me worried. It was gorgeous. I even saw the Cascades and Mt. Ranier, which yesterday was greatly shielded by the fog. Also, Mom, you'll be happy to hear that sailboating seems pretty big here in Lake Washington and Lake Union. Lots and lots of sailboats.
Today we let ourselves sleep in a little, catch up after the drive, you know? Then we were off to the West (haha, I'm noticing a west-ward trend happening in our lives), where we spent most of the afternoon in a neighborhood called Ballard. We looked at a few apartments there, and even found one we really liked! We might be signing a lease soon, and maybe even in a home by this weekend! Hoorah! It's a cute little neighborhood, right on the water (but I guess most places are here). On the main strip there are tons of coffee shops, restaurants and pubs. There is a grocery store in the bottom floor of the building we might live in. It seems just lovely. So that's that. It was nice to park and just walk around. I'm hoping I won't be driving much.
After we did our Ballard stuff, we took a bus into downtown, where we met up with an Elon friend of mine who has found her way here as well and her boyfriend and a friend of hers from high school who is visiting. We went to Pike Place Market, saw the famous fish throwers and wandered around. And oh my goodness, can we talk about flowers?! There are flowers everywhere. I'm talking a GIANT boquet of dahlias, sunflowers, and other pretty things for $5 or $10! Holy smokes. I'm always going to have fresh flowers at our place. So excited.
All in all, it was a successful first day! Maybe found a place to live, survived driving in city traffic, and confirmed that we do, in fact, know some people in this big ole city.
That's all folks. And seriously, I promise, I'll go work on uploading pictures now. I know you've been waiting anxiously hitting the refresh button hoping they'd be put up.