Happy birthday to Z – well, a week late, but still. 🙂

I feel like my life is a little cliche now. Upper 20’s, living in Seattle, working downtown, for Microsoft. One of my brothers-in-law mentioned that as he wished me happy birthday, and I didn’t realize how true it was! Cliche though it may seem, I’m having fun.

We found a house, and our stuff is now out of storage! WOOHOO!! We slept in our big, comfy, KING SIZED BED last night for the first time since the end of August. What an incredibly large and comfy bed. I’d like to still be there, but, alas, I have work to do.

The house we found is right off of I-5, so we get lulled to sleep by the soothing sounds of the freeway. Last night, those soothing sounds were masked by the fan in the room, thankfully. We’ll probably be getting a white noise maker this weekend to help with that. But, honestly, it’s not that bad, just takes some getting used to. What’s really nice is how close it is to I-5 and the express lanes, so getting to and from work takes only a few minutes – HURRAY! And it’s pretty close to everything while still being a nice residential area. It’s also a more modern house, so it’s pretty updated, and the master bedroom fit our bed AND dresser – bonus!! It seemed like very few of the houses we looked at DID have a bedroom large enough. It also has a bathroom attached to the master bedroom, which is another bonus. The living areas are smaller than our house in Pasco, but roomy enough to still be comfortable. It does make me miss our house, though. Moving from temporary housing to not-so-temporary housing gives the move to Seattle a bit more of an air of finality to it, and I’m surprised at the effect it’s had on me. As much as I’ve been enjoying Seattle, I miss home, and last night, I really missed our house, the yard, the familiarity of it all. Being in temp housing in downtown, I guess I felt more like I was playing – now it’s like everything is “really for real.” We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Last weekend was my birthday, and we had friends visit from Tri-Cities. It was a blast having them and their kids here, especially on my birthday!! We had a FABULOUS dinner of crab and seafood at the Crab Pot. I think it’s going to be a tradition while we’re here – I haven’t had that much fun eating in a long time! And it was GOOD food – fresh seafood! Seriously, you can’t go wrong with a dinner of clams, crabs, and shrimp! (At least, not if you’re a big seafood fan like I am!) Someone in the group had mentioned that it was my birthday, so our waitress came out while the table was being cleaned off and asked if we wanted dessert. We kind of just looked at each other, and then she said, “Since it’s your birthday, it’ll be on the house, so you might not want to pass up a chance to try something…” I voted for the strawberry rhubarb cake. Of course, we were expecting a single serving, that we could probably share. But, instead, we got a WHOLE CAKE!!! It was baked in a loaf pan, yellow cake with strawberry rhubarb topping, served with ice cream! We were VERY impressed, not just with the cake, but with the fact it was a WHOLE loaf cake! And the waitress came out, had lit a candle for the cake, and, all by herself, started singing, “Happy Birthday to you…” I was surprised she even started singing by herself! Rich and our friends all joined in so she didn’t continue singing by herself, but it was GREAT. That will be a dinner to be remembered!

This weekend will be internet-less and full of unpacking boxes – here’s to finding places for all our stuff this weekend!!