Saturday, July 10, 2010
Pictures from the last year-ish
It's been quite awhile! I'll just do a photo-montage with explanations of the last couple months of our crazy little lives!
Where to start...
The move from Portland to our little Boise apartment. Very little. Quaint. Good for newlyweds. :) But oh my there were a few things that weren't good for even newlyweds. Like the pint-sized washer and dryer. Or the pint-sized oven that burned everything we attempted to cook. Or that time our neighbor's pit bull ran into our apartment at 10:00 at night when Nate turned to grab a bag of trash to take down to the dumpster. But like all places you live in, this one grew on us too. It was our first Boise home together, where we both accepted Boise jobs, where Nate got his Idaho bar exam results, and hey the cable was free when we signed the lease....Can't complain there!
This is us, post-move. In 24 hours, we drove from Boise to Portland, picked up a UHaul, packed our 3 story townhouse into the UHaul, drove the car and UHaul back to Boise and unpacked the UHaul into our 3rd & 4th floor apartment.
The view from that apartment was a good one :)
Moving on....we went to Lake Tahoe for the first time ever for a wedding where Nate was the Best Man. It's a pretty place! We went to a casino on the Nevada side of the lake, which was just an interesting experience for me. I could not handle the emotional rollercoaster of instantly loosing/gaining money! Which was pretty sad considering we only played the penny slots...
And then Christmas rolled around. Apparently we must have been in the Christmas spirit because we put the tree up around mid-November. The funny thing about our tree is when we bought it in 2008, it was actually 3 different pieces of 3 different trees all boxed together (Made in China). So....it makes us laugh to get out of the box because they're different colors with different colored lights and different shapes. We have a unique tree I suppose. And Nate was rocking out with one of the pieces during the pre-assembling process.
I bond with my cars. I called my last car "Steve" - a Subaru, named while I was driving to Portland and it started smoking and I was all frazzled and lost in the city during rush hour. In December, we traded Steve in for a a new Subaru. It was kinda a bummer - this was the car title before I handed it over!
In January, we moved into a little rental house after we almost bought a house. We decided after all our moving, we would rent for awhile longer until we're sure we're staying put!
The same weekend we moved out to Idaho, my sister and her family moved out to Idaho Falls! So, there was quite a lot of this going on in the past year with our neices and nephew.
And then the day after Nate's birthday, they had another baby boy and asked us to be the Godparents!
We also decided in 2010 we wanted to try to take at least 1 trip a month. So, we went to McCall for 3 or 4 days and stayed in Nate's family timeshare for the Winter Carnival!
We also went to LA/Disney Land!
And headed to the Sun Valley Inn for our 1 year anniversary :)
Lots of trips to Idaho Falls.
And in May, we took my frequent flyer miles all the way to Kauai for 8 days! More on that and this awesome summer the next post.
Where to start...
The move from Portland to our little Boise apartment. Very little. Quaint. Good for newlyweds. :) But oh my there were a few things that weren't good for even newlyweds. Like the pint-sized washer and dryer. Or the pint-sized oven that burned everything we attempted to cook. Or that time our neighbor's pit bull ran into our apartment at 10:00 at night when Nate turned to grab a bag of trash to take down to the dumpster. But like all places you live in, this one grew on us too. It was our first Boise home together, where we both accepted Boise jobs, where Nate got his Idaho bar exam results, and hey the cable was free when we signed the lease....Can't complain there!
This is us, post-move. In 24 hours, we drove from Boise to Portland, picked up a UHaul, packed our 3 story townhouse into the UHaul, drove the car and UHaul back to Boise and unpacked the UHaul into our 3rd & 4th floor apartment.
The view from that apartment was a good one :)Moving on....we went to Lake Tahoe for the first time ever for a wedding where Nate was the Best Man. It's a pretty place! We went to a casino on the Nevada side of the lake, which was just an interesting experience for me. I could not handle the emotional rollercoaster of instantly loosing/gaining money! Which was pretty sad considering we only played the penny slots...
And then Christmas rolled around. Apparently we must have been in the Christmas spirit because we put the tree up around mid-November. The funny thing about our tree is when we bought it in 2008, it was actually 3 different pieces of 3 different trees all boxed together (Made in China). So....it makes us laugh to get out of the box because they're different colors with different colored lights and different shapes. We have a unique tree I suppose. And Nate was rocking out with one of the pieces during the pre-assembling process.
I bond with my cars. I called my last car "Steve" - a Subaru, named while I was driving to Portland and it started smoking and I was all frazzled and lost in the city during rush hour. In December, we traded Steve in for a a new Subaru. It was kinda a bummer - this was the car title before I handed it over!
In January, we moved into a little rental house after we almost bought a house. We decided after all our moving, we would rent for awhile longer until we're sure we're staying put!
The same weekend we moved out to Idaho, my sister and her family moved out to Idaho Falls! So, there was quite a lot of this going on in the past year with our neices and nephew.
And then the day after Nate's birthday, they had another baby boy and asked us to be the Godparents!
We also decided in 2010 we wanted to try to take at least 1 trip a month. So, we went to McCall for 3 or 4 days and stayed in Nate's family timeshare for the Winter Carnival!
We also went to LA/Disney Land!
And headed to the Sun Valley Inn for our 1 year anniversary :)
Lots of trips to Idaho Falls.
And in May, we took my frequent flyer miles all the way to Kauai for 8 days! More on that and this awesome summer the next post.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Deja Vu
In looking back at my previous posts (and because I don't post often, there aren't many to look at) I've realized the majority of them are about moving, packing, unpacking and new places. CRAZY ENOUGH we've moved again. Just from an apartment to a house, but it involved packing and boxes and deep cleaning and all that crappy stuff moving involves, but this time, and for the first time EVER, it involved a beautiful thing: Our move involved m-o-v-e-r-s. Glorious movers. We were only moving across town, but we were going from a 3rd floor apartment (with a 4th floor loft) to a house, and considering that this made our 10th move in 2 or 3 years, we decided to give ourselves the gift of hired movers. We will NEVER go back to moving couches, beds, dressers, tables, desks, bikes, mattresses, a ridiculous amount of clothes, and a full kitchen with just the two of us ever again.
Hopefully.
So, long story short, we're finally in a house with a yard, a two-car garage, a couple bedrooms, a sidewalk, a driveway, a regular sized dishwasher, a regular sized washing machine and dryer, a regular sized oven, a SINGLE MAILBOX, and no flight (or 4 flights) of stairs leading to our home. Carrying groceries from the car to the house has never been so fun. It really can't get any better than that!
Pictures to come.
In other news, we've been enjoying Boise's awesome weather. After living in rainy Portland for a few years, I don't believe we will take the sun for granted again! Although, we do miss quite a few things about that rainy city...
And we are sooooo looking forward to the first summer in forever that we can have fun together! Last summer, Nate spent about 12 hours a day studying for the Idaho Bar Exam. The summer before that, he spent the same amount of time studying for the Oregon Bar Exam. The summer before that, he was still in Law School. The summers before that, we were just friends :) So, summer 2010 will be a good one!! Woohoo!
I can't promise, but I hope, hope, hope and pray that this is the last "moving" post for . . . a long while . . .
Sunday, December 6, 2009
We moved - again!
What has remained the same in the last 8 months or so? Both of our companies dissolved in the same week - which happened to be the week of our wedding. Nate's last day was 2 days before the wedding and I got the news via email on the way back from our honeymoon (on the plane before takeoff from Arizona - after about 24 hours of traveling - thank goodness for Blackberry technology, eh?). So, when we got off the plane in Boise, we were coming back to one thing: a 7-8 hour drive back to Portland, but not much else.
We did the drive. Made it home. And spent the next 2 months on our laptops, seated across from each other, applying to jobs about 8 - 9 hours a day. The brightside was the fact that not many newlyweds get to spend so much dang time together - 24/7 in fact - and considered that a blessing in itself. Our jobs had been so busy, and I'd been traveling almost weekly, so it was a lot of fun seeing each other so much. Nate got a little temporary job in the middle of that 2 months doing document review, but amazingly enough, one day at about 4:45, he was working away at his desk when the manager stood up and told everyone that the company was no longer in business. That made 3 dissolved companies and 3 lost jobs within about 2 months. Little rough, but I’ve never been more thankful for Nate – what a hard working, dedicated and level headed man! With a sense of humor that doesn’t quit.
I did temporary jobs here & there, working at some pretty funny places like a shoe company and an ATM machine dispatcher office thingy. Eventually, Nate got a call asking him to start work in Boise on Thursday. That was on a Monday. We rejoiced, popped a bottle of $2.84 champagne, packed bags and drove to Boise. My parents let us stay with them until we knew the job would work out for sure. Nate spent the next 8 weeks or so working and studying for the Idaho Bar Exam. And we spent another month after that waiting for the results – which were good – and he became an official attorney….again. Now he’s licensed in Idaho & Oregon. He was offered on full time at the firm in October, bringing our 6 ½ months of insanity to a close. Somewhere in there, we terminated our lease at our favorite little town home on the Portland waterfront and moved into an apartment surrounded by BSU college students in Boise. I also got a job here in Boise, which is marvelous.
Our hearts have always remained here in Boise and we are thrilled to be back.
And let me tell you – nothing is taken for granted anymore. Six or so months of uncertainty is eye-opening. Everything that we used to complain about before we lost our jobs seems petty and it has been a humbling lesson. We are so fortunate, in so many ways. And happier than ever. It’s a reminder of how fast everything can vanish right out from under you, which has made us thankful for everything we do have. A hard but priceless lesson that I hope stays with us forever.
"Tough times are there so you can have a good time later on -- and really appreciate it." -Annonymous
We did the drive. Made it home. And spent the next 2 months on our laptops, seated across from each other, applying to jobs about 8 - 9 hours a day. The brightside was the fact that not many newlyweds get to spend so much dang time together - 24/7 in fact - and considered that a blessing in itself. Our jobs had been so busy, and I'd been traveling almost weekly, so it was a lot of fun seeing each other so much. Nate got a little temporary job in the middle of that 2 months doing document review, but amazingly enough, one day at about 4:45, he was working away at his desk when the manager stood up and told everyone that the company was no longer in business. That made 3 dissolved companies and 3 lost jobs within about 2 months. Little rough, but I’ve never been more thankful for Nate – what a hard working, dedicated and level headed man! With a sense of humor that doesn’t quit.
"My night has become a sunny dawn because of you!"
--Ibn Abbad
--Ibn Abbad
I did temporary jobs here & there, working at some pretty funny places like a shoe company and an ATM machine dispatcher office thingy. Eventually, Nate got a call asking him to start work in Boise on Thursday. That was on a Monday. We rejoiced, popped a bottle of $2.84 champagne, packed bags and drove to Boise. My parents let us stay with them until we knew the job would work out for sure. Nate spent the next 8 weeks or so working and studying for the Idaho Bar Exam. And we spent another month after that waiting for the results – which were good – and he became an official attorney….again. Now he’s licensed in Idaho & Oregon. He was offered on full time at the firm in October, bringing our 6 ½ months of insanity to a close. Somewhere in there, we terminated our lease at our favorite little town home on the Portland waterfront and moved into an apartment surrounded by BSU college students in Boise. I also got a job here in Boise, which is marvelous.
Our hearts have always remained here in Boise and we are thrilled to be back.
"Home is where the heart is."
And let me tell you – nothing is taken for granted anymore. Six or so months of uncertainty is eye-opening. Everything that we used to complain about before we lost our jobs seems petty and it has been a humbling lesson. We are so fortunate, in so many ways. And happier than ever. It’s a reminder of how fast everything can vanish right out from under you, which has made us thankful for everything we do have. A hard but priceless lesson that I hope stays with us forever.
"What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise." - Oscar Wildes
So, in the end, we're grateful for the lessons and came out the other end with some awesome stories to share with our future kids! Now, into the Christmas season we go: happy, healthy, doing just fine, and looking forward to a new year.
ps- The last move brings our count up fo 9 moves between the two of us in 2 years. Hopefully only one more move into a house in 2010 - then we're staying put.
ps- The last move brings our count up fo 9 moves between the two of us in 2 years. Hopefully only one more move into a house in 2010 - then we're staying put.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Our townhome
As requested - here are some pics of our place. It's a little 3-story townhome across the street from the Willamette River in Portland by the Tom McCall Waterfront and marina. We love it! We can walk everywhere downtown and there's a free streetcar across the street when we don't feel like walking. Now that the weather is getting better, it's even more fun down here.
Jamaica Mon!
The sweet Jamaican view from our room :)
I don't think it could have been a better honeymoon. One night, we were lying in a hammock with the perfect view of a sweet reggae band to our right and the ocean view to our left with a plate of chocolate strawberries and two sweet pina coladas . . . we only got out of the hammock to dance. I'm pretty sure that was heaven, right there.We spent the week sailing, kayaking on the ocean, floating around in pools, and taking naps on the beach. Minus the "hostage situation" in the airport that stopped us from landing in Montego Bay right away and the bad news that I lost my job on the way back, it was a perfect week! The Sandals resort we stayed at was about 2 hours from the airport, so we got to see a bit of the island on the way there and back. It is a whole different world over there. The workers at the resort were so happy and did their work singing and smiling. The tour guide on the bus said,
"Welcome to Jamaica. This is a no-problem island. You're on a no-problem bus. I am a no-problem guide. And you are gonna be no-problem people."
Everything is "noooo-problem, mon" - and that "no-problem" feeling is contagious! By day two, I'm pretty sure the only words we were saying were "No problem, mon" and "More sunscreen, please."
We love you, Jamaica! Hope to see you again soon.
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