Redmond Week 1

Well, we made it! Calvin and I arrived last Saturday night after a week of shows, packing, cleaning, a bizarre taxi ride, and dragging a huge car seat, 2 suitcases, a diaper bag, stroller, and a number of "personal items" that wouldn't fit anywhere else. I looked pretty insane lugging everything around at the airport. I was so grateful to have Kelsea there to help me get through security. And to watch all of our stuff while I cleaned up Calvin when he peed so much that he soaked all the way through his stroller. Phew, it was tiring. Life without my Tyler to help was hard. I am so glad that Kelsea and Carson were there all week to help out. I do not know how single moms do it. I am very impressed.

Anyway, we are here! The apartment is great. We have 2 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, a fireplace, living area, dining area, washer/dryer, and a good-sized kitchen. It's great. We're on the 3rd floor, so there are some stairs to go up, but it's good exercise and makes the view of all the trees even better! We are across the street from a grocery store, 1 block from the library, bank, post office, police headquarters, and city hall! Redmond is such a cute little suburb of Seattle. I really wouldn't mind living here.

We went to church on Sunday, and the ward is really great. We saw some friends there that moved up here from Provo a few months ago- the Needhams! They just had their baby last week and are doing great! Also, I now have some names and numbers of moms who I can swap babysitting with! And we learned about Mother's Group at the park on Tuesday mornings. Fun.

This week, one of the first places I went to was Daiso in Alderwood. Daiso is a Japanese chain of dollar (100 yen) stores and they have opened some in the United States in the past few years. Three of their nine US stores are in the Seattle area (the other 6 being in the San Francisco area). As a missionary in Japan, we would go to Daiso almost on a weekly basis to stock up on housewares, stationary, and a bunch of other random items. This Daiso didn't disappoint. It had EVERYTHING from Japan that I love. I tried to hold back as much as I could, but went a little crazier than I should have. Take a look at our loot:

This week has been spent mostly settling in, but we were able to take a little day trip on Saturday into Seattle to go to Pike Place Market, the piers, and the aquarium!

Calvin and Tyler with Rachel the Pig at Pike Place

Delicious crepes for lunch! And don't worry Shandy, we tried some dark chocolate linguine. Yummy...

Next stop was the aquarium. It was very busy!

Our little jellyfish...

Touching the sea stars in the tidepools.

Fish.

Calvin played here for about 20 minutes,
growling at the fish that would swim by.

We saw the cruise port while walking around on the piers.
I had to stop Tyler from getting on the boat.
Two of our friends are leaving tomorrow for their cruise.
We are so excited for them. We can't wait to go on a cruise again!

The events of the day tired poor Calvin out. What a cutie!

Well, that's our first week! I am going to try to do updates each week we are up here. There is so much to see and do, and we are trying to live it up the best we can. Hope you all are doing well!