THANKFUL.

it's not even thanksgiving yet, and i can't help but feel very, very thankful for all i have.

SEA LIFE: THE GREAT WHEEL.

people, the weather we are having here. oh my gosh. i probably shouldn't even say anything about it - i don't want to jinx it. saturday obviously needed to be spent outside, so i booked us tickets at the new seattle great wheel.

the wheel was just put up last year - crazy to think that was long before our first trip to seattle back in may 2011. {sidenote: we still constantly pinch ourselves that we live here.}

view from below. totally worth it to buy your tickets in advance online - you get to skip the ticket line!

inside the cart, looking up.

are you afraid of heights? i would say i'm moderately nervous nancy about them. the views made up for it, though.

can you see mt. rainer past the stadiums in the center of the photo? it's rare that you can see it since seattle is usually rainy and cloudy, but he has been out and about in the sunshine lately.

boats, boats, boats!

and, what's a seattle post without a picture of the needle?

the perfect day with the most perfect weather. happy monday, friends!

APRIL IN SEATTLE.

in between quick april showers this weekend we took a quick walk to the grocery store. the path takes us through some of the prettiest parts of our neighborhood, including by the space needle!

directly below. it's on my seattle bucket list to go up in the needle soon.

right next to the needle is chihuly exhibit. you can see the piece peeking just over the trees.

beautiful fluffy clouds!

hi from seattle!

I TOTALLY DO THINGS BESIDES WEDDING PLAN. NOT REALLY.

i haven't taken out my dslr since february, but here are some things i did catch recently with my phone.

i participated in a work event last week that was held on and around the university of washington campus. it is pretty - and was named one of the 15 most beautiful - but i am still partial to the brick lined streets of athens.

the sunny skies of the uw photo may lead you to believe it doesn't rain every single day here. and you would be very wrong. walking to work in it is the worst. upside: i have a ton of cute new rain gear.

if we are eating out in seattle, we are at little water. however, i talked b into hopping into a bar that's a block away from our house: belltown pub. the service was great and they serve hush puppies, which basically caused me to have a flashback to our days in the good old south. plus, they allow dogs. 

sidebar: i want a dog so, so, so badly. i routinely talk to dogs while on my walk to work {"you are so pretty!"}, know the name of our neighbor's dog {fiona}, but not the name of our actual human neighbor, and basically freak out whenever i see one. now, if we just had a house, a yard, mo monies and a bff who could babysit him/her when we were out of town, we could totally get a dog!

up on the roof, b's favorite spot.

 

we finally {only two months in} explored our neighborhood a bit last weekend. we walked down to the sculpture park and this is what is right beyond it: the beach. it's no sunny california, but the gorgeous view  does make me just a bit less mad about the daily precipitation.

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES.

it was the famed lyricists the spice girls who sang "too much of something is bad enough." they went on to express something profound about love, but in my case, it describes a lot of what's been going on these past few months. or really, these past few years.

moving to denver was a huge change. but, making friends happened relatively quickly and finding a job i loved happened on only my second try. it was a lot of change. especially when we were living in that 400-square-foot apartment. there was not a lot besides change in that apartment.

then, we got engaged! it's not only a change in your daily focus, but also preparing for upcoming change.

and then, seattle. which really came out of nowhere. a new job, no friends, learning a new city.  

i am a fan of change. but sometimes it's overwhelming. and that's where i am at today. and where i've been for the past few months, which is why i haven't been blogging. 

i love having this blog and being able to look back at what we were doing on a random weekday in 2011. so, i'm going to try to make time for it again.

see you soon, loyal readers, aka b, sandra and spammers.

SEATOWN.

 

besides being a common nickname for our new city, seatown is a restaurant near pike's market. thanks to a heads-up from my friend ben, we recently watched an episode of anthony bordain's the layover, which featured good eats around seattle. b put seatown's crab breakfast sandwich on his bucket list, but i talked him into going for dinner last week to celebrate my good news. 

we grabbed a spot in the window with no wait... and with this little buddy right over our shoulders.

 

our waitress was so wonderful. i mean, service can make or break a restaurant, am i right?! and she made our night. she recommended the blood orange margarita, and it was a good decision. {though, it's rare that the margarita is ever a bad decision.}

so. what to even say about this? b decided he was going to go all out and get "the full crab dinner". i mean, crab is one of my very favorite foods. but, when they brought this out, i almost cried. his little face is just looking at us! sigh. i may or may not have later investigated whether that walrus up on the wall was real or not, then.

but, clearly worth it for the pure joy that it brought him.

it took him about 30 minutes to finish the full thing, and yes, finish it he did! after finding out it was his first full crab, the waitress was so impressed with his eating skills that she brought us free dessert.

now we can check seatown off our seattle restaurant to-do list. only 13,407 to go!

SEAGRAMS.

um, can you all believe we live here?! we walk everywhere, and this is our view on the way to target! i lovelovelove being downtown.

i read "it starts with food" and proceeded to be afraid to eat anything at all for about a week.

ferry in the sound.

our second home, little water cantina. last friday was national margarita day, so it was a necessity. also: clams! delicious.

obviously, i have nothing of substance to share. but, i can't get over our daily views! the space needle, as seen via the sunroof.

BLESSED.

sometimes, my life feels almost too perfect to be true.

i feel so blessed that we were able to pack up and move to seattle for b to take this wonderful opportunity at his work. i feel so blessed that laura and shelly and their families are here. i feel so blessed that it has only rained for one full day in the past three weeks. i feel so blessed that even though our apartment is in a moderately sketchy area of town we feel safe and happy.

i feel so blessed that i've already started a new job. and that i really, really love so far.  

all of this good fortune just for me? i can only hold my breath and cross my fingers and be grateful for it all.

WHAT WE'VE BEEN UP TO.

when i went to write the opening of this blog post, i had to stop and ask b to help me calculate how long we have been here in seattle. was it a week? a month? i would have believed either, but turns out we arrived in the emerald city exactly two weeks ago. meaning we left denver almost three weeks ago. 

time has flown by. we have had almost exclusively sunny days, besides tuesday, when it did the "typical seattle" gloom and mist all day. but, my hunters finally felt perfectly appropriate.

luckily, our living room no longer looks like this. but, it was touch and go there for a while on if we would ever get all the boxes out. hopefully i'll get it spotless this week for some apartment tour photos. i am really loving our new little home so far.

one of my life loves is for magazines, so to have a city that has more than one dedicated publication is very exciting.

and, of course: the food. this is the lunch special from the edgewater hotel, which is only a hop and skip away from our apartment {and across the street from b's office, meaning he has indulged quite a few more times in this wonderfulness than i have!}.

so, no grand declarations that i feel at home, but honestly, i feel no pressure to feel any way at all. whereas in denver, where we were really out on a limb, i feel relaxed and happy and right where i'm meant to be at this moment.

OOPS, I GOT IT AGAIN. {STREP THROAT THAT IS.}

ohmygosh you guys, i am so sick. i was getting the strep throat quarterly in nashville there for a while, but i was illness free the entire time we lived in denver. i was like "oooh, i've got an awesome immune system!" but really it was just the dry air, i guess.

so, i'm being treated for strep throat, but not getting better and my lady at the uninsured people clinic guesses that i may have mono. which, i've already had once, so it's unlikely. i could actually feel myself getting sick while on our snowmobile tour, so when it comes back that i have the plague, no one be surprised.

in any case, i have spent the last week in bed, but finally emerged from my cave to go up to our apartment's rooftop deck to enjoy some of the {rare} sunshine. it was well worth it.

that view, i will never get sick of.

HELLO SEATTLE.

well, it has been raining non-stop, and it is so foggy you can't see... anything... and i'm having quiteeee the hair day, but we are here!

lots more traveling posts to come - including our insane 100-mile-round-trip trek of yellowstone on snowmobiles!

DEJA VU.

wasn't it just yesterday we were holding this pose before leaving our nashville home?

 

you know what we didn't have last time, though? professional movers. hallelujah - they made the whole move 100 times easier.

we waved goodbye to all our stuff on friday morning, and headed out mid-afternoon saturday. here's hoping our semi-truck driver paul arrives in seattle in a week with every single box. if you're reading this tuesday, we are probably somewhere in montana. {say a quick prayer we beat the snow that is allegedly headed our way!}

how many pounds of stuff do you think we had? here's a hint: our driver said we have way less than most people. one bed, a loveseat and enough clothes to fill up six wardrobe boxes. ready for the grand total? 3,300 pounds!!! what weighs that much?!

and one last glance at our empty home that we were so grateful to live in. a garage, two point five bathrooms, giant closets, neighbors we knew and walking distance to our favorite little spot. seattle, get ready, you've got a lot to live up to.

FAQS ABOUT THE M-O-V-E.

needless to say, people were pretty stunned by our news. here are some of my favorite comments, and my answers.

are you going with him?! 
yes. we just got engaged.

do you know anyone in seattle? 
we do! baker's wonderful cousins shelly {mom of my future-seattle-bff betty} and laura {owner of little water cantina, home of the best margarita i've ever had} live there.

can you guys just live apart for a while?
no. i don't plan to start our marriage 1,000 miles apart. also, i'm afraid of the dark, killers in the closet and everythingelse, so no.

do you like the rain? 
no. have you seen my naturally curly hair? you will after we move. prepare yourself.

do you like seafood? 
this is a major yes and a huge plus to moving to the pacific northwest.

are you still getting married?!
...

are you going to have to get a job? 
yes. he wasn't promoted to ceo. plus, i need to work for my mental well-being and general independent woman-ness.

what did your parents say? 
they were very supportive. my mom guessed it when i called and told her we had news. we were able to facetime b's parents and that was priceless. they are very proud of him.

aren't you a feminist?! moving for a man?
this one is totally only said out loud by me, but hinted at by many. i'm pretty sure sacrifices are part of being someone's WIFE, i think i can still be pro-woman.

at least it's not tulsa!
amen to that!

photo: seattle poster by anderson design group.

WE'VE GOT NEWS.

in case you didn't get my fashion-based hint in the photo:

WE ARE MOVING TO SEATTLE!

crazy, right?! i am still in a state of disbelief and i've known for a couple of weeks!

long story short: b got the opportunity to either transfer and take a promotion at his company's seattle office or stay in denver and do a lower-grade job. that doesn't mean it was an easy decision. i have a job i love, we finally made friends and we really feel like we JUST got settled. plus, we are trying to plan a wedding and i still have debt from our first cross-country move.

but, in the end, i am so proud of him and i want him to have the chance to see this job through.

and, hey, we've already done this once, right?!

p.s. totally mad at everyone who assumed i was announcing our pregnancy. um, wedding in SIX MONTHS people - hold your horses!

seattle 1.

 {our hotel, in historic pioneer square}

{view from the pier}

{skyline from kerry park}

{one of the best meals we ate: doc's on bainsbridge island}

{on a boat}

{we made it!}

seattle from my iphone

we're home! more pictures coming soon.