Part 2 of Catch Up

With the car packed to the brim and Mia and Kona snug we tearfully left Seattle this morning. We enjoyed breakfast at UVillage with the Hwangbo's who saw us off. Mia got the playground all to herself and Kona got one last Seattle walk in. I can't believe that our time in Seattle has come to an end.

Here's another catch-up post and I think that's about all the stuff worth blogging about.

Memorial Day Trip-Sadly we had to miss Pam's 4oth birthday bash to search for a new home in the Bay Area. After a couple of days of looking we had to choose between a single family home in a great community, Foster City or a larger townhome for less in Sunnyvale. We opted for the latter and are currently bound for our new home. The townhome has four bedrooms and plenty of room for us to grow into. I have grand plans for Mia's room. We are leaving behind the puppy theme and going for dragonflies and butterflies.

First Love-Mia fell in love with Elmo. We read an Elmo book at a bookstore and she would not stop asking for Elmo. Nowadays she gets to watch a couple of Elmo clips on youtube each day. Her favorites are of Elmo and Norah Jones and Elmo and the Goo Goo Dolls. We try not to indulge her Elmo obsession too much, but we bought her a stuffed Elmo that we hoped would replace Wa-Wa as her lovey, but Elmo still plays second fiddle when it is time to sleep. Below is a pic of Mia wearing an Elmo t-shirt her Aunty Sarah bought her. She also happened to be caught red-handed playing with toilet paper.
On Two Feet-Mia has been growing more and more steady on her feet in the last month. She is quite proficient at walking and it is only a matter of time before my baby girl is running. This developmental milestone has not gone by without incident. Mia still has a knot on her forehead from a fall that happened three weeks ago. A day did not go by without some accident and it took me a while to stop worrying over all her bumps and bruises. Usually Mia cries for about a minute and then is back at it. It has been so much fun watching her and her friend Poppy walking around.

A Sad Day, Booty Recalled-Oh no! No more Veggie Booty for Mia. Our picky eater rarely eats veggies and fruits and now we can't give her any Booty. Now that I have a picky eater on my hands, I understand how parents wind up letting their kids an unbalanced diet. But we've had our small victories as Mia recently began eating grapes, raisins, and watermelon--all fruits she had previously rejected numerous times.

Busy with Good-byes-We basically spent the month of June with good friends and being treated to lovely farewell meals. Our move did not quite hit me until the last week of June. I guess I was busy trying to get the house in order and maintaining Mia's regular routine to come to grips with leaving Seattle. Thank you to all of our dear friends for making our time in Seattle so special. Our time in Seattle was short, but we feel that we made friendships that will last a lifetime. We will keep all of you in our prayers.

Sour Note-The worst thing that happened just before we left Seattle had to do with our crazy neighbors. From the day we moved in we knew they were odd about parking as they told us that people only mark in front of their own home. We had never heard of this phenomenon coming from San Francisco where we circled our neighborhood for at least ten minutes looking for parking each day. We were lucky to end up within two blocks of our building. Over the last three years, I've witnessed how obsessed they are with parking. They get mad at others for parking in front of their house and the house next door (they have claimed those spots too!). Whenever a new or different car shows up on the street, neighbor lady goes around asking who it belongs to, she used to use cones to save her spots until the police told her she could not do that. They love to play musical cars and are constantly moving their cars to position all of them right in front of their home. Anyhow we never had a problem with them over parking and in general I tried to avoid them as much as possible due to her drama-loving ways and her odd perspective on others. (I've got more stories about them that have nothing to do with parking).

Well, our moving company applied for a permit to close off parking spots on our street so that the moving truck could get through and park while still allowing traffic to run through our street. We told our neighbors who would be affected, but our parking hog neighbors who have SIX vehicles for their household of only THREE gave us such a hard time. When I first informed them they were somewhat fine, but they did question why it was necessary. Neighbor man, asked if they could just park across the street so that our side of the street could still park. Can you believe they would even ask? Dudes, we need to move and you are only inconvenienced just for one or two days. I should have known I would have problems. Once the barricades were placed, they were upset that both sides of the street were cordoned off leaving them no option but to park down the street. Neighbor lady told me that the whole street was "LIVID at us". A complete lie and I should have known it based on the last three years of knowing her drama-loving ways, but I went around apologizing to the neighbors who were home. Turned out none of them cared one iota. Most people are at work from 8 AM-5 PM and most people do not have SIX cars to move.

Neighbor Lady called the police to ask if it was legal for us to have the spots labeled "tow-away". They told her it was a public street. She still gave Ken an earful about the inconvenience to her. What got to me the most was that she actually threatened to sue us if her trees were damaged and if her cars were vandalized while parked down the street. It makes it so hard for me to be a Christian in situations like these. First of all her cars are not that nice and who would vandalize them anyway? She thinks they are is some kind of safety zone in front of her house and if parked just a few homes away they will get damaged? And why would her perfectly manicured trees get damaged unless the moving truck had wings? This woman had a handicapped sign put up in front of her home for the sole purpose of making sure no one parks in front of her house. She has no handicap as she mows her lawn and carries her toddler grandson as well as groceries into her home. I was so tempted to report her for this. When it came time to say good-bye to our neighbors (everyone else on 24th Ave NE is really nice) they were out to dinner so we just said bye to their son who is not as crazy. Leaving that unreasonable family is the only good thing about leaving Seattle.

Oh it turned out they were only inconvenienced for 6.5 hours as our pack and load took only that long! We were supposed to get packed on Thursday the 28th and loaded on Friday the 30th. Instead we were inconvenienced as we had to find a place to stay one night earlier.