We made it!

My house looked like this about a week ago. Now... it looks about the same (in a new state). Alright, really it looks better, but only in places. I keep reminding myself that unpacking takes just as long as packing does. What an ordeal! But first: backtracking a little...

Everyone knows that Josh got a job in Washington but had been commuting home to Bend on the weekends (except my friend Sandra, now you know). That was starting to take its toll on my children's attitude, my patience, and our gas budget. So we made the plan to sell the house and move up to WA as a family.

If only I had a crystal ball to predict the future with. If I had known that the real estate market was going to take such a dive I would have sold the house ages ago rather than remodeled it. Oh well, live and learn. So after our realtor advised us NOT to sell we started to look for renters. The third people who seriously looked at it are the ones who ended up renting it, but they did take awhile to get back to us. I was really starting to get nervous about what we were going to do when they called.

Once our house was rented out, we made the trek to find our own place to rent in Washington. The place we are in now was meant to be for some silly reasons, not everyone may know. First of all, the other three houses we had looked out were SCARY. One was on the edge of a cliff, one was a mobile home in a very scary area, and the other one was so far off the beaten path I don't know if I ever would have found my way home. This house was listed on Craigslist with a street name, but no address. My sweet Mother In Law (who made the 5.5 hour trek with me) thought we should plug in the street and try to find the house that matched the picture. We drove down this cute road and at the end of the cul-de-sac found our match. There were people outside loading things up, so we didn't stop but decided to call on the house later. As we stopped at the end of the street to reprogram the GPS a man walked up and asked if we had been looking for houses just then. We said yes, and he told us that he owned the house we had done a "drive by" on and invited us down to take a look. SURE!

We thought the house was pretty great. Smaller than what we had, but a great yard, tons of storage and on the end of a cul-de-sac. Plus the owners were amazing! So we told them we would get back to them the next day after we looked at some other places and let them know.

Fast forward to the next day. We wake up and eat a yummy breakfast in the hotel then hit the road. About ten minutes into the trip Hannah starts complaining about not feeling very well. About ten minutes after that she screams at us to stop the car so she can be sick. Let me publicly tell the world how much I LOVE MY MOTHER IN LAW! Poor Hannah threw her guts up in a Walmart sack that my MIL was holding. Then when that started leaking she threw up all over Nana's quilt (sorry Nana). We were on the freeway as this is occurring with nowhere to get off. The next exit just happened to be for the town we had looked at the day before. So we pull off as fast as possible, take Hannah to a Walmart for new clothes and call Josh.

His words were: "Why go look in the other town if you don't have to? I say we go with the house from yesterday, I trust your judgement" Praying I wasn't passing up on something better I called Karen (our new landlord) and we made an offer. So now... Here we are!

I have been here for a total of four days now. I have definitely found things I do and don't like...

Most of all I miss my friends! I miss the stability of knowing everything about where I was. But on the other hand, I do kind of like the adventure of a new place. Today we actually took the day off from unpacking and had a family adventure. We took the foot ferry over to a town called Bremerton (about a ten minute ferry ride). Isn't it a cute little ferry? Wait until I post a picture of the BIG ferry over to Seattle. I can't tell you the size, it has to be seen to be believed. But we started with this little cutie... Admiral Jack.

Bremerton is the town where the shipyard is located. Apparently the shipyard is the biggest employer in the Peninsula (where I am located). It was fun to see all the boats, and we had a blast at the fountains we found. Can't you tell?

These thing were amazing. It took me about half an hour, but I finally figured out (with the help of a sign) that the fountains are shaped like the top part of a submarine coming out of water. There were about five fountains in a row that looked like this and they took turns spouting HUGE bubbles. It was fun to see, and judging from my kids response, more fun to be in.



After the fountains we headed over the the free naval museum. It was actually a lot of fun, Hannah enjoyed the fact that there was a section to dress up in.

After our little adventure it was time to head home for the day. Boxes, boxes and more boxes. At least the kids rooms are all done. I have made a little progress!

Alright, enough typing. I should be unpacking, but I wanted to update you all on what was going on with us. I promise to update again in the next day of so, feel free to check back. Until then... goodnight from Port Orchard Washington.