Bikes...a new way to see the city!

Davis got back in town around 10pm last night which was around the same time the fashion show ended in Tukwila (which is 5 miles from the airport) so it worked out nicely. The fashion show was great, there were some amazing creations! After picking up Davis, we went to Taco Bell which was the first time I had eaten meat in 2 & 1/2 weeks. It was delicious!

We slept in this morning, did some laundry, and then headed out to get bikes! YAY! I had been wanting one since last Christmas! We went to a bike shop in Capital Hill and bought 2 Bianchi bikes. We hopped on them and rode them home illegally (without helmets). Of course, we decided to see if we could get helmets cheaper online.

Enjoy!

One of the evening gowns....my favorite!

Dave is home...us at the airport

Beast enjoying Dave's dirties

Beast using the computer...he's a smartie

All the protein bars Dave brought home

Us on our new bikes although you can't see the bikes.

Davis and his bike!

Wonderful Stories...Lessons Learned

We/I had our first delivery service today (of groceries). Back Story: So in Seattle you can grocery shop online and they will deliver them to your door...yeah, i know that is awesome! Anyway, if you know anything about me, you know that I am the most detailed grocery shopper ever. I check price per pound on everything. So I am shopping online for muffin mix and I find the normal packages that makes 6 muffins, little did I know they are like $4/lb because they are light. So I decide to keep looking and I find a 2.5lb box of muffin mix which is awesome because it is only like $1.50/lb. So tonight I go to make my first batch of muffins and come to find out the reason the box weighs 2.5lbs is because it comes with real blueberries in a can in the box so needless to say I didn't really find a deal on muffin mix! But I did experience my first grocery delivery service which was great for the most part (it came with 1 cracked egg, but I went ahead & fix it so I still will have enjoyed all 12).

Tomorrow Davis comes home and I am going to the Seattle School of Fashion's fashion show until he gets here (I am excited about this as fashion is my true love not accounting)!

Two Days Until I'm Back In Seattle

Well, I'm almost finished with training here in Scottsdale. Tomorrow we have about half a day of class, then we have presentations for the rest of the day. And Friday I'm thinking is going to be more of a wrap-up day. We actually finish at 3:00pm on Friday, but my flight does not leave Phoenix airport until 6:55pm. If all goes as planned, I'll be landing in Seattle about 10pm.

One cool bit of exciting news is that Cindy and I might get to be on an episode of HGTV's "Hidden Potential". Back when we were in Knoxville and had free cable, our TV would generally stay on HGTV. When we got to Seattle, Cindy went online and applied to be on a couple of their TV shows. Well just the other day I got a phone call from a guy with Hidden Potential who said he was forwarding me step two of the application process and that they are sending a scouting crew to Seattle in mid-September to check the finalists out. According to what they think of our round two application, we could be having a camera crew come check out our apartment for the final round.

For those of you who haven't seen the show, Cindy and I would basically give them a number for our total budget for a home. Instead of them taking us around to see homes that cost around our max budget, they take us to houses that are well below our budget and spend the remaining budget completely customizing renovations on the inside of the home. So in the end you get a home for exactly what you wanted to spend AND it is completely customized how you like it. Its pretty cool. I'm not really getting my hopes up yet, I just thought it was something cool and I wanted to share it with everyone.

And to end...a funny picture:

Milk - $2.70

Dad wanted a picture of our $2.70 milk so here it is. This is our milk! While I am posting pictures, I decided to post some of Beast. The first picture is what he does all day which is lay in the hammock on the couch or lay in my lap. The other pictures are of him playing with his new Seattle toy Crabby, the lobster. Yes, it is as big as him. He enjoys Crabby when he actually gets up which is about 10 minutes a day. It is hard to be Beast. I took a part of the CPA test yesterday and felt good about it so I am treating myself tomorrow to Cotton Candy! yum!! Davis comes home in 3 days...yay! The apartment looks soo much different. I have painted, hung the hammock, hung some pictures, printed some pictures for the refrigerator, and cleaned. Although we still have 2 couches! Enjoy! Hopefully we should have something to talk about after this weekend and have some more good pictures of Seattle.

It's Davis.....From Scottsdale!

Hey everyone, I know that Cindy already posted today too, but I thought that I would go ahead and post an update from myself tonight since I had not really posted anything in a while.

If you've been keeping up then you know that last week I was in San Francisco for orientation, and now for this week and the next I'm in Scottsdale, AZ for job training. I've got to say, it has been pretty cool so far. The people here are really cool, I just hate that Cindy cannot be here with me. =(

Right now, as weird as it is for me to say, I have just about as many (if not more) friends from San Francisco as I do friends from Seattle. From Seattle I have met Marco, Beatrice, and Annie who all started work the same day as I did, and I got to meet Carlos and Wes (who have been working for a couple of months already) this week in Scottsdale. I got to know the San Francisco office people pretty well last week while the four of us from Seattle were there and now they are here in Scottsdale with us too. It kind of sucks that I'm becoming friends with them and then really won't get to see them much again. Although, I am going to try and talk a few of them into coming up and going snowboarding this winter with us.

Scottsdale has been hot. Looking at the forecast for the next two weeks, there isn't a single day that won't be below 100 degrees. However, its not really too big of an issue since Deloitte has us up in the Scottsdale Resort and Conference Center so all of our meetings and events are right here. So....we do not have to venture out into the sun too much.

Speaking of, we are trying to get a group together to go tubing this Sunday since we actually have that whole day off. That would be neat if we can talk the whole crew into going. We'll see...

Well, its getting late and I have another big day of Audit/ERS training bright and early in the morning. Thanks for reading!

A New Post

I just figured I would post because it has been a little while since we have posted. There is not much new going on...Davis left for Scottsdale on Sunday for training. Meanwhile Beast and I have pretty much stayed indoors due to the CPA exam. It has rained almost every day since Davis has been gone so it has not been all that bad to have to stay indoors. I have been studying and painting. Painting is my breaks from studying. Since we don't have cable there is pretty much nothing else to do inside besides paint, eat, and surf the web (which I do a lot of).

I found milk at the drug store 3 blocks away for $2.70 and was pretty excited about it.

Davis has met several new friends, but I will let him tell you all about his experience in the corporate world of accounting.

I don't have any pictures for you this time, but maybe after I take this part of the CPA I will go outside again and take more pictures. I am hoping to be able to sit for this part next Friday that way I will be done with it by the time Davis gets home. We are planning on going and getting bikes next weekend so then we will have all kinds of pictures!

Until next time....Have a wonderful day!

Oh the city views!

So I took Beast for a walk today down by the water and took a couple of pictures. I also went up to our rooftop deck and took some so that everyone can pretend they are here with us. It is absolutely gorgeous!

A little bit of other news:
Mandy had her tonsils taken out :(
The twins can pull themselves onto the couch
Jonas feel into the trash can....i wish i could have seen that one
Dave loved his 1st day, but not so much the 2nd...lol (apparently lunch time got quite a bit smaller on the 2nd day) and he had to take an accounting test (now he knows a little bit about how I feel)
I am studying once again for the CPA!

So much fun! Oh yeah, and it costs $50 to get a 5lb yorkie groomed here!

Pictures!

The ports...looking off our rooftop

Queen Anne looking off our rooftop

The four seasons they are building right beside us

Another view of the water

The ports looking off the pier

A view from the pier

The aquarium from the pier

See if you can find our building....the four seasons is the building in the left so we are 2 buildings over...the shorter lighter one!

Life without a husband

As most of you know Davis is gone to San Fran for orientation this week :( That means I am in this big city alone with Beast. We are missing him, but it has been a good time for me to clean and get the apartment straightened up.

The night before Davis left we went to Typhoon to eat which is seriously like 10 feet from our place. We love that!

Since he has left I have finished sewing curtains for the bedroom, put pictures on our digital frame, painted our towel rack, and cleaned the sofa. I plan to finish cleaning the entire apartment, get Beast a grooming appointment, and begin studying for the CPA while he is gone.

Here are some new pictures. Oh yeah, we bought a table and couldn't fit it into the car so I sat in the back seat holding it while we drove it home. Good times!

Dave leaving

Our city

Cruise ships

Getting our table home

outside Typhoon

Typhoon

Typhoon

My curry

No Hard Feelings

So...from the comments on our very first post (Life Changes & Lifestyle Changes), it seems that we may have offended/hurt the feelings of a couple of our readers. This is definitely not what we meant to do by any means. I think if we explain ourselves further maybe everyone can understand a little better...

First off, we just sold or gave away about 3/4 of everything that we own. Our little bitty apartment in Seattle just does not have enough room to hold everything we wanted to bring. We only have room for the necessities and a couple of other (small) things we enjoy. That is the reason why we initiated the wish lists. It was kind of just a place for Cindy and I to store ideas of things we would want in the future. We did not create them simply because we didn't enjoy or like the gifts we have received from everyone over the years.

After we came up with the idea, we realized that it might be nice to share with other people, just to give them an idea of stuff we wanted. Here is my thinking behind it: sometimes throughout the year I, for one reason or another (birthday, etc), feel like I should get someone a present. However occasionally I am not really close enough to the person to really know what that person particularly wants at this point in his/her life. At this point I would love to have an easy way to find out what he/she wanted instead of simply buying him/her an item that I think he/she would enjoy. Granted sometimes I'm able to hit a grand slam with the random item and the person LOVES it, but 9 times out of 10 if I were to check back a year later they would have no clue where that gift was I gave them. I am hoping that Cindy and I are not the only people who believe this to be true. So that's where we thought that sharing our personal wish lists with everyone might come in handy.

Now, I never wanted to make a big deal out of this. I don't want it to seem like we are asking for gifts. I was simply going to post once about it to let everyone know that it was out there. But after some of the comments, we felt like maybe we should explain ourselves a little more.

The blog is a space for us to express our feelings and ideas. This was an idea that Cindy and I came up with and are going to implement for gifts for each other because of our space limitations. In thinking about doing this for ourselves we realized how useful something like this would to have for everyone we know. It is simply a tool available if you decide to use it.

Our Place....now everyone has virtually visited!

Here are some pictures of our new home. This will allow everyone to feel as if they have visited! I will eventually get some pictures of the city on here. Davis doesn't like to look like a tourist (therefore it is hard to take pictures with/of him in the city). I will get some next week while he isn't with me.

We have been shopping on craigslist for cheap furniture. It is a long and tedious process. It has become our full time jobs since we have arrived. We finally bought a dresser today. He cannot deliver it until next Friday, but it is ours! I think we have also found a desk that is going to work out in our favor. Davis is looking for a TV stand to house his consoles and we are also looking for a sofa. While looking today, Davis found a free monitor so we are going to pick that up shortly so he can access his PC because he just cant quite wait for his projector to arrive. (He is a nerd...BAD)!

Anyway, enjoy the pictures! We miss everyone!Dave and I outside of the library

Beast trying to figure out how to get out of the sheets

Our Kitchen

Bathroom

Living room...go figure only computers

We made it....Seattle is now our home!

After barely sleeping in Olympia because of our excitement that we were ending our long road trip and so close to our new home, we hit the road once more. We only had to drive an hour before we could see the city. It was beautiful and we were super excited to be there. After signing a million papers we received our keys to our new apartment, which is actually much bigger than I think we imagined. We moved our stuff in and then went shopping. We had to buy quite a bit of stuff considering how little we brought.

Since being here we have taken Beast to the market and bought groceries, found a supermarket close to our apartment (although still no Walmart prices), become members of the library, and found the closest Target. We are still trying to organize the apartment and find cheap furniture online.

We love the city and are getting lots of exercise. We went for our first run yesterday in the city (it's neat living here and being able to call someplace home). Considering the first year of being married we didn't really have a home....most things were sent to mom's house and we still lived on campus. (Although we were not going to complain about living on campus because it was FREE!)

Anyway, we have been without internet in our apartment since we have arrived. So we have made use of all wireless internets we have found. We should finally have it in our apartment tomorrow...yay!

As always here are some pictures!

Us in front of the Golden Gate bridge (on a foggy morning)

Climbing the twin peaks in San Fransisco...that's our car at the top of the drivable part

San Fran

Alcatraz

Oregon mtns
The city from a distanceThe cityPower T in Seattle
Excitement

The sound....beautiful!

Malibu, San Fransisco, Half Moon Bay

We drove from LA to Marina del Rey and then up the coast through Venice Beach and Malibu. I loved Venice beach. It was a quaint town with outdoor eateries and coffee shops. The coast was absolutely beautiful....I will post pictures as soon as I take them off my camera. We arrived in another quaint little town that night. It was Half Moon Bay. It was a mile off the beach and about 30 miles south of San Fransisco. We stayed in a Bed & Breakfast there, the Zaballa House. It was wonderful. We had like every kind of fruit you could think of for breakfast, yogurt, granola, waffles, and 4 different kinds of quiche.

After breakfast we headed to the roads again. We made a stop in San Fran. We first went to the Twin Peaks, which is pretty much to mountain peaks overlooking the city. It was awesome and sooo cold. Beast hated it. It was really fogging so our pictures of this are not very good. We then went across the Golden Gate bridge (which was FREE...yay!). It was neat and we stopped on the other side and took pictures.

After leaving there we deciding to hit the coast again. Bad idea! It was gorgeous, but we drove for about 4 hours and only cut our trip down by 20 miles. Long story short....the drive is very curvy along the cliffs and the speed limit is 25 needless to say, it was a long drive along the coast.

We drove for hours through California before running into a mountain or so we thought. It was a mountain range that lasted well into Oregon. We were in the mountains for at least 2.5 hours. It was really pretty at first, but driving through mountains at 55mph sucks after a while.

We drove through Portland at about 12am, so our pictures did not turn out well. Portland was bigger than me and Davis thought. It looked like a cool city, but we didn't visit. It is only a little over 2 hours away from Seattle so I am sure we will visit someday.

Anyway, after passing Portland we made it into Washington and we stopped in Olympia to stay.

We finally reached the Desert...yay!

We are in LA. The first desert was in California....who would have thought. We had mapped out our LA doings before arriving. We started downtown shopping, which was amazing! Then we headed to Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, and Sunset Blvd. We cruised these streets in our luxury packed Toyota Camry while most everyone else was in a Mercedes, Bentley, Rolls, or Ferrari. It was great to get to see LA. I think we will definitely be making another trip here soon. Here are some pictures.

Cactus

Desert

California border...only state that stops you

more cacti

windmills...there were a ton of these

Rolls

random houseRodeo Dr