Please excuse the fact that we haven't updated our blog in far too long. Things have been nothing short of busy even though we've been out of work since Dec. 31st. Also, please excuse the fact that this blog is very long.
We'll start with Christmas which was great and relaxing. We went to Green Valley's Christmas Eve service which was wonderful. I will really miss that church. They have found a way to keep all ages connected and feel appreciated. I'll greatly miss the community and kindness I found there.
After Green Valley we headed over to Paul's parents to spend the night and celebrate Christmas.
We gave both sets of our parents dog boots and packs. Holly was not too thrilled about the whole wearing dog boots thing. I'm sure it was because they were uncomfortable, but she may have also picked up on the fact that we were laughing at how ridiculous she looked prancing around in them. This picture should pretty much sum up how she felt about wearing boots:
We tried out our new lightweight hammock that Paul got from work. We're definitely taking it with us to Guyana as a "luxury item".
We both finished out our jobs on New Year's Eve, spent a wonderful evening with our newly engaged friends, Wesley and the future Trevor, Marla. Wes's sister and brother-in-law put together a great list of cocktails and we rang in the New Year playing a never ending game of Trivial Pursuit. :)
New Years Day we started to wrap it all up. We sold the rest of our furniture, keeping only our bed and night stands. We packed up the apartment in three days, taking all of our Peace Corps gear to Paul's parents' house in San Diego, and loading the rest into a U-haul to take up to Washington where my parents will store what we've kept. Sally enjoyed her last few days laying in the sun and avocado plant on the patio before her big move up to the Washington rain.
After cleaning the apartment from top to bottom and turning in all of our keys, we said goodbye to Paul's family for a few weeks and were off to Washington!
The ride up to Washington went smoothly. We left Sunday the 3rd and drove up to Moraga to see good friends, the Ricketts. Dave was the officiant at our wedding, and his family has always been very important and looked up to by Paul. They truly are great people and provided us with hospitality we couldn't have asked for. It was so nice before heading back on the road.
The next day we were back in the U-haul and drove the rest of the way through California, Oregon, and up to my parents' in Washington. Paul drove quite a bit that second day while I slept. I cannot stay awake in a car (or an airplane or any other moving piece of equipment for that matter).
The trip was uneventful. Naturally I was unnecessarily worried about the cat getting carsick or freaking out and having a heart attack. She was fine and loved being able to curl up in a blanket and look out the window. I worried for nothing.
Since pulling up to my parents' on the 5th, we've been building shelves in the garage, going through boxes one more time before they're stored, getting lots of last minute paperwork and randomness taken care of, and enjoying time with family. Oh, and the view is pretty nice as well.
We spent some time in Seattle and drove down to Vancouver (Washington, not Canada) to see my sister's new apartment and help her get settled in a bit. We really like Seattle, and found this really great artistic use of soda liter bottles down an alley way. If you stood under it, it spelled out "Waste Not".
I apologize to Paul in advance for posting more than one picture of the cat on this blog posting. Bear with me. It's pictures of the cat or pictures of kids. Take your pick.
I love animals. I especially love my cat Sally. Call it pathetic if you will, call me a cat lady even, I don't care. Brenna and I were cleaning through some of my craft boxes and found a plastic flower. We stuck it on her head and she didn't budge. Instead she fell back asleep. I just get a kick out of her.
