Adios Boise, Hello Issaquah

After the most wonderful week in Hawaii (check out last post), Dellas and I came home and had 3 days to finish packing and cleaning before we made our way to the Great Northwest on Thursday the 12th. As we were hopping into vehicles to head out, I walked past the moving van and saw this view:

Oakley ridin' shotgun with Dad

 Absolutely hilarious. I show this pic to Del and said, "Honey, this is what you look like driving down the road, just fyi." haha I got a kick out of it. Less than an hour into the trip I received a text message with this pic:

Del said Oakley sat RIGHT next to him the entire way. Often laying his head down on his shoulder until they'd hit a bump or until Del would intentionally hit the brakes to wake up his passenger.

We made the 8.5 hr drive, well more like 9 for Dellas hehe, to Olympia and stayed at Mom and Dad Vance's place for a night. On Friday morning, we loaded back up and drove the remaining hr to Issaquah. By Sunday evening we were about 75% unpacked and set up but with me having an extra day off on Monday, I was able to put some finishing touches on the place.

Living Room, as seen from the door to the backyard

Living and Dining rooms (and a piece of the kitchen, far left) as seen from the stairs

Now, here's where my book starts...Dellas started work bright and early last Monday morning (the 16th) and I started Tuesday. Late Tuesday afternoon it started snowing and didn't stop much for about 24 hrs. We awoke Wednesday with about 4-6 inches (not a ton but Seattle isn't known for being prepared for snow) and the entire Western side of the state was closing down. I went to work but my bank closed at 3pm before things got worse and because all of our customers were headed home instead of the Bank haha. Thursday morning we woke up with still the same amount of snow, but anything that had semi-melted had turned to ice and we were better off skating to work than driving. When Dellas headed in at 6:30am he called and told me to call work and say I'd be late in hopes it'd clear up or just stay home cuz there was freezing rain and the roads were horrible. I debated back and forth, but before I could get ready for work we lost power at about 7:30am so my boss said to stay put. (They ended up closing at 3pm again anyway)
Oakley and I hung out by our fireplace most of the day (thank goodness the fireplace, stove and water heater are gas!) and listened to the trees crack and break or fall all around us. I ventured out to let him play with a neighbor dog and as my neighbor and I talked we watched a huge branch crack and fall down about 20yards from us. Before calling it quits outside I snapped a few pics.

Ice and snow weighed down all the plants

Looking down our street on Thursday, after a plow came thru

Why they call it an "ice storm" freezing rain coats EVERYTHING

Broken branch behind our back fence

It started warming up on Friday so, even though our power was still off, we trudged thru the massive amounts of slush and both went to work. After meeting for dinner after work, we came home to power!! For about 15 mins....haha. So right after starting some laundry and the dishwasher we were back in the dark until midnight.

SO! After a total of 39 hrs in the dark, we're back in business. We got our internet hooked up yesterday and ran lots of errands. Today we're watching the wind blow and just glad it waited until the ice melted off the trees.

Welcome to Seattle! I guess... ;-)

Aloha Hawaii!

As I've mentioned in previous postings, the Vance family took an amazing Hawaiian vacation January 1-8. We arrived at The Dolphin House on New Years day and were welcomed by this:

and more importantly, this:

Our first full day was a lot of the above picture, at least for myself, my sister Julie, and my nephews. We weren't needed for the Costco/rental car errands so we got to relax in the sun. We definitely got the better deal!

Tuesday was the most amazing day ever! My parents booked a charter boat for just the 10 of us to take us out and find some wild spinner dolphins to swim with! Only about a 1/2 hr into the trip we found our pod of dolphins and started following them.

Dolphins come into shore in the morning to sleep, so the hope is to follow them until they find a place to sleep then you can jump in and swim all you want with them. Our dolphins were on a mission though. We played leap-frog with them for a couple of hours; getting just ahead of them for us to jump in w/our snorkel gear and have them swim right through us on up the coast. Then back in the boat to get back in front of them. Since the dolphins didn't seem to want to settle down, our boat captains decided to take us over to Captain Cook, one of the more popular snorkeling areas. On our way we came upon a couple of humpback whales!

Caught the tail as it went back in

Captured the full body breach!

We saw 2 different sets of humpbacks on our way to Captain Cooks which was incredible. We finished up the boat trip with some easy, gorgeous snorkeling and headed in.

Very happy family after the dolphin excursion!

The next day, we woke up with the news that mom had taken a bad fall while hopping over the small retaining wall from our house to the beach. We found out after the trip that she has indeed broken her nose! (She has since had surgery 1 of 2 to repair the damage and is doing well) Poor mom stayed home all of Wednesday to recuperate as best she could. So while she and dad hung back, the rest of us took the cars up the coast in search of awesome beaches. We found one that had a small lagoon but then out a ways was lava rock that broke the waves. Had incredible surf that day!

 We ventured further up the coast to Mahaiula Beach, part of Kekaha Kai State Park which was where we spent most of the day.

My nephews built sand barriers to keep the waves from getting us

On Thursday we took a family trip even further up the coast to Hapuna Beach. It was a pretty windy day and the surf was intense so we didn't last the whole day. We attempted some boogie boarding just long enough for Del to really tweek his neck and me tweek my back. So back in the car we went for a short drive to get a glimpse of the other side of the island - a much wetter, greener side.

 

Hapuna Beach

 The rest of the trip was unplanned. We all did our own things for a couple of days, whether it be swimming, snorkeling, or shopping. Del, my bro-in-law Jake, my nephews and I went out for one last snorkeling trip on Saturday and my goal was to see a sea turtle. And that I did! Within the first 5 mins of the snorkel Jake yelled "turtle!" so we headed for him and saw the small sea turtle gliding along about 10 ft below us. My nephews dived down closer to it and Bret almost got to touch it! It was only about 24 or so inches across, but it was a sea turtle!
We saw a few gorgeous sunsets. Not every night though, so the few we saw we soaked right up.

Sunset from our lanai

Nephew, Bret helping the sun go down

 Towards the end of the trip we went to dinner as a family and got a little dressed up and took lots of pics. Here's just a couple.

Dad with his girls :)

I like him sometimes

Hang loose!

 On the very last morning as everyone was packing things up, Dellas was sitting on the lanai watching the ocean when he saw a coconut fall right of a palm. He went and grabbed it and we decided to try and break into it.

 He picked the best kitchen knife he could find and started hacking away.

Cut off the end

 Once he got the end cut off he dug inside a bit to get to the coconut milk and we all tried a bit. It was good!

Look at Bret's face (one with cup in hand) then look at next pic

 As Del was trying to cut the coconut in half he encountered a problem...the knife handle broke off! Haha he managed to finish the job and we tried a bit of the coconut jelly or the insides but it wasn't as tasty as the milk.

 All-in-all it was an amazing trip!! I have lots more pics on Facebook if you have access. Thank you Mom and Dad Vance for such a fabulous family trip!! We couldn't have asked for a better one!!

Mini-Update

Hey all, just wanted to give a little update while I have a small break in the chaos.
Dellas headed over to Seattle yesterday to take a load of big stuff (trailer, jetski, etc) then spent this morning looking for places for us to live. We were very fortunate and got lucky on the 2nd place! I found a duplex in Issaquah on Craigslist so Dellas took a look and snatched it up!
It's a little dated, but it's 3br, 2.5ba and more importantly has a small back yard for Oak! Issaquah is one of the more expensive areas to live so we were a little worried about what we could find but I think this one will do nicely! I'll post pics later...

On another note, I was offered a job at my current bank's Bellevue branch and will start on January 17th! This allows me to take a week for our Hawaii trip and a week to move but come right back to a job with no lapse in pay or benefits! I only have 2 days left of work in Meridian so the girls are throwing a little going away party tomorrow at work but they won't tell me what all it's going to entail.
It's definitely a time for mixed emotions...getting ready to leave some fabulous friends and a lot of familiarity behind, but so excited to go to Hawaii on Sunday then come back to a place to live!

Things have been coming together nicely for us and we're so thankful. Dellas even said, "it's kinda scary how things are falling into place for us..." haha, not really sure why it's scary but oh well; it makes me feel like this was how everything is supposed to happen for us!

More to come after we relax with our toes in the sand for a week then make the journey over to Issaquah!

Our Fate is Decided

Well, many of you already know what this post is going to say, but I feel it's worth posting anyway! After 4 long months of waiting on pins and needles, Kiewit has decided our fate and are sending us to Bellevue, WA for Dellas to start work on the rebuilding of the 520 floating bridge across Lake Washington (which spans between downtown Seattle and Bellevue.) This job was one of Dellas' first picks so he's pretty excited. I, on the other hand, bypassed the excitement and immediately went into planning mode but didn't have long before family came into town to help us celebrate Del's graduation.

Now that we have him OFFICIALLY done with college we're starting to put together our plans and line up a place to live. Luckily, I'm familiar enough with the area to help eliminate certain places but it's still nice to have family who is local to help out.
This upcoming week will be spent enjoying time with Dellas' parents (and soon his brother) who are in town until after Christmas, while trying to tie up loose ends in Meridian. My last day at work isn't until the 30th so Dellas' job, from the 27th-31st, is to go to Seattle and scrape up some houses and hopefully pin something down before we head to Hawaii for a week on the 1st. We get back from Hawaii on the 8th and Dellas starts work the 16th. Somewhere in that mesh of activity we'll need to come back to Boise, pack up our house, haul it over, and hopefully unload it into a house! If not, I hope my family will let us crash in on them temporarily!
As for my job, I'm not sure yet. I'm checking into transferring with my current bank but also trying to weigh how long of a commute I want. So we'll see what happens there.

Everything that we've been thinking about and wondering about for the last 6 months is actually starting to happen now! It's a crazy, stressful, exciting, scary time for us but that's life! We'll be keeping everyone updated as things come together. I apologize ahead of time if I'm not the best blog updater over the next month but I promise it'll come!

Oakley's Newest Trick!

This evening I was bored and thought it would be fun to see what new tricks I could teach Oakely. At first I tried "high-five" but realized it was too close to "shake" so then I moved on to "play dead." It was so easy! All I did was push him over a few times, while he was laying down, while saying "play dead." Then I let him try it on his own and he did it! It took a total of maybe 15 mins to get him to not hesitate and/or flail around but now he's pretty good!

I must say, I'm a pretty proud mama, haha, or just easily entertained...

Project Complete

Just thought I'd share the finished product of the path. We brought in fill dirt and planted a few small things, but the fun things are the new raised vegetable garden box (hidden in the background) and the sweet "barriers" Del built. (The mini fences are to keep Oakley on path when screaming around the corner and will easily come out for whoever lives here next who may not have a crazy dog)

I'm very happy with how this turned out! Unfortunately, we don't get to enjoy it tho :-( Del and I looked at each other and said, "why didn't we do this a LONG time ago!?" Oh well, live and learn and hopefully someone else down the road will appreciate it...if not, at least it's less lawn to mow or replace when it gets neglected by tenants :-P

In other news, my mom comes to town tomorrow followed by my dad on Thursday night. The guys will then head up to New Meadows for a weekend of hunting while mom and I have some girl time at home! Looking forward to it!

Checking In

I just realized that it has been over a month since our last update and the reason is two-fold. Partly because we haven't had any drastic news or events to report and also because we've been busy doing this and that.

Since Del's return to Boise we have been busy many of the weekends. Labor Day weekend was camping, then a visit to my Grandma in Twin Falls, ID, and an overnight trip to The Big Nasty Hill Climb in New Plymouth, ID (dirty bikes racing up a steep hill).

Our Labor Day camp site - on the N Fork of the Boise River

Family Photo :)

And if we werent' out of town, we were home getting things done! We took on one last project before calling it quits (kind of) on the house. Our dog has a habit of running back and forth from our back sliding door to the side door into the garage and that poor small area of lawn in between became a mud pit. So to avoid a really messy upcoming winter and future frustration, we found a good deal on Craigslist for a load of pavers. Del got to work, dug out the grass, and laid the pavers!

Del awesome work! As usual...

Since this pic was taken, we've trans-planted that big Sandcherry to the bigger area across the path by the fence and moved a shrub from out front to replace it. We've also bought a few new plants but we aren't sure we want to spend more money on plants we won't be here to take care of in the spring. So it may stay pretty sparse back here. Renters won't mind :-P

Well, I don't think there's much else to report. Del's just forcing himself through this last semester of school while I work. Still no word where we're going with Kiewit, probably not for at least another month :-(
I think time is going to fly though! It's already October and we're fast approaching another busy stretch! Parents coming to visit in a couple wks, then Thanksgiving, then my birthday, then Del's graduation and more family coming to town, then Xmas......all leading up to the big move and our Hawaii trip!! I just hope I can stay sane thru all this....:-P