(I really hope someone got the Home Alone reference in the title.)
((This post is about to say the word AC a hundred million times. Sorry. Overheated Laura gets really heated about AC. Go figure. Also this post was published two weeks ago, but I took it down because I thought it was too complainy. But there are some cute pics so I'm publishing it again.))
We made it! We closed on our house two days late, and there were quiiiiite a few hiccups along the way, but we're here now. And we're thriving!!! Jk lol we're not thriving. Our new house has no AC and it's a record hot Washington summer. We are literally ded.
I took some pictures of the inside of our house when we moved in to share in this week's post, but I don't have those pictures with me. I am currently taking refuge in the air conditioned house we were living in before we moved to our new home because the heat was making me unbelievably grumpy. Brings me back to our Grenada days when we cut out every non-grocery expense so we could afford to use our heavenly air conditioning a few hours a day. Jared's medical degree brought to you by sweet, heavenly, productivity-enhancing AC.
Our new home is AC compatible (whatever that means), but because of the record heat this summer, the waiting list to get AC actually installed is so long that it would be winter before we got it. Also very expensive. So I bribed my lil brother to try and find me a window AC unit on Utah KSL and bring to our family reunion later this week. Everyone is trying to get their hands on one up here, which makes them pricey and hard to find. Anyway, it would be nice to have just one room in our house to take refuge in and get good sleeps and work done.
More pics and updates next week, I promise! Also a ghetto window AC unit in my bedroom! Or else! (:
Oh I guess we did have some fun times this week. Here's a quick pic from outside the fancy dinner we went to to celebrate Mama Lambert's 60th birthday. We went to a fancy Italian restaurant called Carmine's. It was such a delicious, posh experience.
Hi! Not too much to report today. It's supposed to be our closing day, but it got pushed back to Thursday. No one's really surprised, given how disorganized our lending bank has been. But again, they're giving us a good rate so we'll cope.
Over the weekend we celebrated Jared's mom's 60th birthday. We had her over for dinner and a delicious (but kinda ugly, oops) chocolate orange cake I made. We've also been tying up some last-minute moving-related items of business, and on the in-between days Jared takes Jack to play at Grandma Lambert's while I work on getting our home designed and furniture ordered. We found out about some pretty big setbacks this past week (hi we won't get our moving stipend and we unexpectedly have to cover closing costs for our house), so most of our rooms and our backyard will have to wait until next year to be finished. We have the budget to get one room put together (mostly), so I'm focusing on our downstairs living area. That way we'll at least have one nice area to hang out that feels like home.
Here are some pics from this last week:
If Jack can escape and run around the house, he will escape and run around the house. Even if it's midnight and he's horribly sleep deprived. He's not a kid that just sits still, or enjoys going to bed, ever. Now bed time is this battle of taking him back to bed over and over again, and eventually giving up and rubbing his arm in his bed for half an hour until he falls asleep. And now he either ends up coming to find me at 2 a.m. to sleep in my bed, or waking up way earlier than he used to and coming to get us up too. Everyone's sleep-deprived. In conclusion, I am not ready for this stage yet. We'll be trying to go back to the crib for a little while longer once we're in our new house. I think he'll like having his room set up exactly like it was in Wyoming for a little while, too.
Ok, we're off to find a hiking trail! Pray for our closing date not to get pushed back again, and for our appliances not to be delayed until next year! We may be doing laundry at the in-laws for a few months. Gr8 times.
Whelp, I just read through my last post and am now cry-laughing because we are officially vacation-cursed. If any of the rest of you are vacation cursed as well, solidarity dude. Sol. i. darity.
I think I've mentioned this before, but every time we plan a vacation we schedule out 2-3 nights for it. The number of times we have made it past the first night is . . . maybe once? Maybe not even once. At the moment I really can't think of a single time we made it past the first night. Not to spoil the end of this story or anything.
Ok, so we had our anniversary "trip" last week. You'll recall I was a little bummed that it wasn't going to be a weeklong cruise like I'd saved 3 years for it to be, but I made a really solid go at having a good attitude and being excited to stay in a cute tiny cabin on Whidbey Island we found on AirBNB. It started out great. Jared brought me home some roses, and I took myself back to my flower shop days by foraging for greenery and arranging them in a pitcher in the rental home we're staying at.
^^Very pleased with this work. Then we dropped Jack and Savvy off at Grandma's house and we drove/ferried up to Whidbey Island. It was so quaint and gorgeous with farmland/mountains/tall trees/ocean views all at the same time.
We got to the cabin (I didn't get any pictures because, spoiler, we ended up having to make a speedy escape when I thought we'd have several more slow days to get pics). It was extremely tiny and rustic, but also cozy and with a cute fountain/pond/hammock area out front. We were really excited to have some needed time to relax and reconnect. Upon arrival we collapsed into a deep post-moving-week nap and didn't wake up until 7:00. We rushed to the nearest town, Coupeville, to try and get a table for a nice anniversary dinner before all the restaurants closed. Restaurants close surprisingly early in this part of Washington. The only place that didn't turn us away was a little seafood restaurant (the one behind Jared in the below pic). The wait time was almost an hour, but we took it and explored the beach while we waited.
After dinner we found a nearby beach and watched the end of the sunset. So pretty with the mountains off in the distance. Also weirdly deja-vu from the last time we lived close to the ocean in our Grenada days. Then we headed back to our cabin and played chess. S'cute. Jared won, but it was close. Here's a picture of the moment that I will not be enlarging.
Normal spiders wouldn't phase me too much, but we weren't going to chance anything with these. We climbed down from the loft and tried to get in touch with the airbnb hosts to see if they could bring us spider spray or anything. It was pretty late though and no response. Then Jared went back up to try and squish some of the bigger ones, but they receded back into the ceiling crack. It was really late and no hotels nearby, so we slept on the cold, hard kitchen floor all night so as not to be eaten by potential black widows. Happy anniversary. Super.
What a rough night. It was worse than camping because we didn't have any kind of pad, and only one thin blanket to share between us. The ground was cold and we woke up in so much pain. The airbnb hosts got our messages in the morning and came by to try and make things right, but we had already made up our minds we would be cutting our trip short and heading home early. It was devastating. They wouldn't even give us a full refund, but after coming to a partial-refund agreement we cut our losses and headed back to the house we're staying in.
We considered finding a new airbnb or hotel, but we were so exhausted and didn't have it in us to do any more logistical gymnastics to find a new place to stay. In this part of Washington there are so many people that you really need to book your vacations severallll months in advance. I was so sad that this was the post-medical-training vacation I had waited and saved and longed for over the past 7 years, instead of an Alaskan cruise. We stopped at a public park so I could use the bathroom on the way home and I just laid down on the ground and cried and cried big sleep-deprived tears for 10-15 minutes. Then we made a detour to visit our new house and got lunch in our new town. We also dropped off some forms at Jack's new preschool (yay!). That all helped a bit. Then we went home and spent one last evening without Jack, getting frozen yogurt and walking around Home Depot and going to bed early.
Black widows aside, it could have been a nice anniversary trip. It was just the fact that this was also supposed to be our "big" post-training trip that made it such a bummer. Wish there was a happy ending to this story. On a whim we looked to see if any last-minute Alaskan cruises had opened back up that we could book for next month. They have, and they're actually pretty cheap, but I have a feeling we're too paranoid/cursed to get our hopes up and try for that again. Especially since we'll be feeling all snug in our new house by then. I'll keep you posted though! And on the whole, we are doing good and are happy. Especially because we'll be moving to our new house (fingers crossed) in one week. But if I find a single spider in our new home that first night, so help me !!
We made it to Washington! Also, it's mine and Jared's 8th anniversary today. I'm trying to get all packed for a little trip together while Jared is out depositing a urine sample for our home loan? Man, the home loan process this time around has been soooo much more involved than our home loan in Wyoming. But we have a way better rate locked in this time around, so we'll continue jumping through the hoops.
Time is brief (and will probably continue to be brief until August--I'll give more thorough updates then). These are some pictures from swimming last night. Jared's parents have some friends from church who invited several families from the ward over to their gorgeous property for swimming and homemade ice cream. Jack was living his best life.
^^It was the most picturesque PNW house imaginable. Dark gray shingles covered the entire exterior, with blue hydrangeas around the base. This enormous tree and swing were to the side, and magnolia and pear trees across the front.
^^Jack playing "Wild Jack" after swimming and ice cream.
Ma-rye) watching some roman candles go off in Grandma Lambert's driveway. This was probably my favorite part of the night. Jack was so scared of the idea of fireworks, but once he actually saw them he was just enthralled. They couldn't stop giggling and "ooh" and "ah" ing. After this we walked down to the neighborhood lake to watch them put on a big fireworks show. Jack was scared until I held him close and covered his ears for him to watch. He loved it. Sounds like fireworks might be banned next year here, so I'm glad we got to experience fireworks on the lake at least once.
Ok, I'm off to pack! It's not all roses and daisies, and I'm actually kind of sad. We were supposed to be boarding my very first cruise today to Alaska for our anniversary. I've longed to travel the entire time we've been married, but it wasn't in the cards during medical school. So I scrimped and saved extra grocery money throughout all 3 years of residency to be able to book this Alaska cruise. It was going to be our first big trip together since our honeymoon 8 years ago. Very much needed after residency. Then when we were in Washington looking for houses last month we got an email that our cruise had been canceled. Yay covid. We always knew that was a possibility, and luckily we were able to get a full refund, but I'm just sad because it may be severalllll more years before we'll have another opportunity to get away on a trip like that, with my track record of awful pregnancy/recovery/newborn stage.
I'm grateful Jared's mom is willing to watch Jack and Savvy while we do a smaller getaway to an airbnb an hour north of here. I hope I'll be able to enjoy it and lay aside the guilt and worrying if Jack/Savvy/Jared's mom are doing ok. The nice thing about a cruise would've been I'd be trapped on the boat with no way of coming back early, so I would've been forced to let go and enjoy myself. Being an hour away makes me nervous I'll want to run home when I catch a whiff of Jack boycotting sleep and/or sobbing for mommy. Wish me luck and the ability to tune those worries out! Yay mom life!
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