6 months later

Nate and I have been married 6 months now.

We've been in this house for 5 1/2 months.

Summer came and went with only scattered days of warmth and sunshine making up a few weeks' worth.

The general warming though caused the trees to fill in a bit and the flowers to bloom up the driveway and in the backyard.

We put up a fence in the backyard to keep the dogs from running away, but of course they always find a way out if they want to get out. Where there's a will there's a way. They probably know the surrounding neighborhood better than Nate and I do.

Our walls are now decorated and our corners are filled in with accent furniture that has been passed to us or that comes from World Market.

During the dry days of summer Nate and I took to some trails within 5 min of our house that are beautiful. It's wonderful that we are so close to such transcendent forests. The huge trees, moss draping over branches and ferns sprouting out of nurse logs and walls of soil. I'm often so enjoying being out in the fresh forest air when hiking that I forget to snap a few pictures. One day though I remembered that after the fact I like to re-envision the environment and so I snapped a few shots.




So far I'm loving Seattle still. I've had a chance to finally get to some music performances in the city...coffee house style. I miss seeing live music, so it's great to have such an accessible city full of it no more than 30 minutes away.

In my free time I've been getting back into art. This time I'm painting. More on that later :)

Through the Looking Glass

I love looking out the windows here. Although the house is a little in disarray and the walls are bare making it not quite picture ready, I can definitely share some pictures of the views outside from inside the house.


The dogs favorite windows are the two directly on either side of the front door. Because it has been cold, Nate has been keeping our wood stove going. The wood shed is on the other side of the driveway across from the front door. Sammi (below and right) especially likes to watch him do that.


In the picture below Nate is working on getting a fire started. He makes good fires. One day he wasn't around to keep it going and it was up to me. It takes the know how and dedication to keep a strong fire going. I could get better at my fire-making skills.



To the left of the entrance is our dining room and there are two big windows with awesome views. Out the bigger window is a
beautiful cherry blossom tree along the driveway. Out the other window are more trees and the rest of the driveway that is lined with flowers that are beginning to bloom. You can also see out to the hills. In the morning the fog hovers at the base of the hills as the trees on the hills gently appear through the mist






In the kitchen we have a potting window along the counters, so as we cook we have a beautiful view. And we have a window at the sink (below the wall clock) that looks out to the back yard.






Upstairs we have views to the backyard, the right side of the house and the wooded area on the other side of the driveway. Wherever we look, it's a beautiful view.

Beautifulness and Backyard

My favorite part about living here so far is the natural beauty. I love looking out our windows
when I have to be inside, unpacking. And I love being outside even though it's still pretty cold and occasionally wet here. Weather is strange here. I have been told that bipolar weather is typical spring around here. Yesterday it started sunny, then cloudy, then downpour rain, then instant bright sun, then partly cloudy through the afternoon and by five it was snowing big and hard. The temperature dropped rapidly while it snowed, but it never stuck.




Our first morning here there was still snow on the lawn from snow earlier in the week and ice speckled the deck. The dogs went slipping and sliding across it. Everything about our new home is pretty exciting, but the back yard is the highlight. I love watching the dogs run freely and explore through the trees. We had to put up a fence of sorts to keep them wrangled in, but they still seem just as happy.

Roadtripping

We had a very smooth and quick trip up from California to Washington. We took I5 all the way up. We finally got away by 10AM our first day after the 10th last thing finally got taken care of. We hugged my mom tight and set out for a day of flat land driving.

We spent a short night in Redding and got out the door at 5AM eager to reach our new home that afternoon. By the time the sun rose we found ourselves in the mountains surrounded by snow and icy roads.

By the time we got into the Seattle area (3pm-ish) there was no more snow, just light rain. We began to get really excited as we came into familiar territory. We headed down SR900 aka Sunset Blvd, the road our house is just off of, and then we turned onto our little private gravel road 162nd ave SE and pulled into our driveway.

As we parked the car in front of a quirky parking sign Nate and his dad had put up years ago*, we stepped out and the sun broke through the clouds. The dogs were thrilled to get out of the car once and for all no matter the weather.

*note that the house we get to live in is the David's old house that he now rents out and the house that Nate grew up in