official washingtonians

Well today we got our Washington state drivers' licenses, and we got our new plates last weekend. That makes us more or less official here.

We still can't get over how green it is. I was walking through the nature trails this morning to get the mail, and I noticed what looked like a grove of baby pine trees. There were one to two hundred of them, all about waist-high.



We're also almost totally set up at home. Most of our books are still all boxed up in a closet, but everything else is unpacked. I'm really enjoying having my own office in the apartment. It's pretty cozy in here with all my tech books, Jill the rat, and a futon, but I really like it.



Last week I got an offer to work at Hypertext Solutions, a small software development shop downtown. They made me a great offer, and the work looks pretty exciting. Mostly I've gotten pretty burned out from working at home for over two years now, and I really feel like it would be good to be in an environment with more daily human contact. They seem to be pretty big on pair programming, so that will be a big change.

Last weekend we had Alisha's parents up here. We got to show them around the area; it was really great to have them around. The photo above is of the building downtown to which we took them where I'm going to be working. It's in an area called Pioneer Square which seems really nice. (The only reservation I have about it is that it's in the Buttnick building.) Still, very nice.



And here's my home office. You'll note the crucial map for world domination. One step at a time...

bigger, bigger, and bigger...

My clothes don't fit anymore. It's weird. As we were unpacking, I was sorting my clothes into piles. Pile One: Don't fit. Pile Two: Should fit. Pile Three: I just bought these, so they better fit for a long while. Unfortunately too many in Pile Two end up in Pile One.

Maybe you've guessed it by now. WE ARE EXPECTING! Yes, Phil and Alisha are going to be parents hopefully in the middle of December. I'm fully past my first trimester and the clothes that used to be baggy on me are no longer. I find myself placing my hand on my belly like other pregnant women do and then think, "Oh no, I'm acting like them!" I suppose it isn't a bad thing, but even though it's starting to become obvious that I'm showing, I still sometimes have this nagging feeling that I'm not pregnant and it's time to go on a serious diet.

The day that we found out was quite an event in itself. As our faithful readers will know, we just returned from Indonesia for the month of April. Well, it was exciting to learn that I was pregnant the morning of our departure for Asia. I had a very strong suspicion that I might be, so off I went to the supermarket to get a pregnancy test. We were to leave at 7pm that evening so I wanted to make sure that I could get prenatal vitamins and other necessities (if there were any) before we left. Well, come to find out that my inklings were correct. I showed Phil my positive pregnancy test, and he was pretty surprised and happy. Later, I asked him what his first thought was, and he confided that he wondered if we could still go to Indonesia! Note: All of this happened while we were at my parents' house.

My morning sickness, thankfully, has been quite mild. I did have a difficult time with eating some of the Indonesia dishes, and I'm still don't often have an appetite for meat. I was blessed with a lot of time to sleep in Indonesia. I would often finish working at the school at 2pm and Phil would work until 5pm. This gave me a great scheduled time to nap. We also got to tell Phil's parents that we were pregnant in person. Before the pregnancy, I don't think that we would have thought that this would be possible since we don't get to see them that often, but as it worked out, we told them before we told my parents (only by about a week though). We gave Barb a selendang (and Indonesian sling for carrying babies in) to signify the event and Dave guessed what it was before she did. I got to tell my parents that they were going to be grandparents on Mother's Day. My mom was pretty excited. She's waited for this a long time.

Anyway, at this point, I'm still looking for a doctor. I'm interested in having our child in a birth center, and I'm going to be checking one out next week. I haven't been seeing the doctor/midwife as much as I should be right now, but I hope to remedy that soon. We don't know the gender of our child yet, but some of our friends have already christened him/her as "Xazinaty." (They all got to pick one letter). The name won't stick after he/she is born, but we have some other cool names picked out.

wander no longer

Everything around us screams "Washington." The mountains, the air, the people, even the license plates are constant reminders that we aren't in California anymore. And so far, we are really enjoying it. Of course, we continue to miss our friends and family that we have left behind, but we hope to keep in contact with you all! (Let us know if the comments section if you need our phone numbers or addresses.)

Packing up went pretty smoothly, although we would have been completely lost without Dustin's direction and Luke's help. (Thanks guys!) We got all of our stuff moved out of our storage unit in La Habra, into the Budget truck, then down to Orange to fill up part of an ABF trailer. And all of this in approximately 4 hours. It was good to see it all tucked away, but it feels odd saying good-bye to all your stuff even though you know (or at least hope) you'll see it on the other side.

After a few more days of staying with my parents, we flew up to Seattle. Aunt Diane picked us up from the airport, and we stayed with her and Uncle Troy until our stuff was to arrive a few days later on the following Monday. It was fun to hang out with them for a while. We even got to go browsing at Bellevue Square. We have been so thankful for the help that they've given us in this transition.



On Monday, the 25th, we moved in. Phil's cousin, Josh, helped us out with our moving which was an incredible blessing. It was crazy to see all the boxes again, and even crazier opening them all up after not having seen anything inside since the beginning of April! It took a few days though for us to feel really connected with our apartment. We were lacking our Internet and most furniture - both of which we received on Thursday. Our couches are so comfy. I think I fell asleep on one of them within a few hours after their delivery.

Besides unpacking and shopping for all our necessities, we've been busy with looking for jobs. Phil applied for a few jobs on Craig's List a couple of days after our arrival, and one of the jobs asked to interview him. He interviewed with them on both Thursday and Friday, and received a job offer today! We are so incredibly excited for him. I've also had a couple of interviews, and I've turned down one offer. It's sometimes difficult for me to figure out what kind of job I'm looking for right now as my life will be changing dramatically in about six months (more on that in a different post).

We are still looking for a church. We visited a church in Lynnwood that is affiliated with Uncle Troy and Aunt Diane's church in Tacoma, and we really liked it. We still want to look at what else is up here, but I wouldn't be surprised if we stayed there.

We also are looking forward to my parents' coming up at the end of this next week. They want to see our place and see all the places that I'm sure we will continue to talk about. They are also bringing up a few of our things that we either forgot at their house or we couldn't bring up otherwise (our rat!). We can't wait to see them.