It's been a busy week! We drove 2400 miles, settled into our temporary apartment downtown, applied for driver licenses and WA vehicle registration, set up our utilities and registered the kids in their new school. When we registered for school in Tennessee there was a permission form regarding your children being paddled. Although I myself was hit with a ruler and a belt on my hand at school, it's not the practice to hit a child nowadays right?! I was shocked to read the form and I thought it was a joke, but as I looked around the classroom filled with other parents scribbling away, I realized that it was for real! Needless to say, I declined to sign my kids up for paddling in Tennessee. It was nice to see, when doing the paperwork here, that paddling is not an option and in fact, isn't even mentioned.
This place is pretty similar to back home in the UK in many ways. You can buy wine in grocery stores for starters - yippee!!! No more dragging the kids into the liquor store if I'm picking up a bottle of vino for dinner, and getting frowned at for doing so. This is life changing, people! When you're grocery shopping, if you don't bring your own bags with you, you are charged 5c per bag, which isn't a bad thing at all and will encourage me to try and remember my own bags next time. It definitely costs more for groceries here though. It also doesn't rain here all the time contrary to popular belief. The weather has been lovely, t-shirt weather in fact, and it's only rained once so far.
Gas is 70c per gallon more expensive than it was in Tennessee. That's going to be a shock to the system. We've already experienced Seattle traffic at its worst, but because it's still new to us, we were quite content to sit in the van, and admire the scenery. I'm sure that'll get old soon enough though. The husband will be the one dealing with city traffic while the kids and I spend our days in and around our new abode close to the mountains.
We now live 25 minutes from a ski resort! Granted, the snow season hasn't been great, but we're that close to stunning, craggy mountains that we can enjoy year round which is pretty cool! The view from the kids' new school is Mount Si, which is pretty spectacular. They can also see Mount Si from their bedrooms. I don't think we've ever lived anywhere with such amazing views.
Recycling wasn't really a big thing in Tennessee. Here, however, it's highly encouraged and even compulsory, which is great. I'm still learning though, it took me an embarrassingly long time to sort out our lunch trays at Panera after we'd eaten. Hopefully I'll get used to that quickly!
So that's it for now, just a quick blog until I have more time. Our stuff arrives tomorrow so chaos will ensue for a few days, but it's one step closer to being settled. We're really looking forward to our new life here and so far, so good. Molly has had a few walks around the city and has even visited her first Starbucks. She did so well traveling in the van for 4 days to get here, and now has yet another trip under her collar, making her a very well traveled dog indeed. I'll blog about our mega road trip soon!
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