Our Move to Seattle

Inspired by our close friends, Joe and Stephanie Welsh, who just moved to Shanghai and started a blog (two, actually: www.swelsh73@blogspot.com and www.joewelshohiooregonshanghai.blogspot.com) to document their adventures and keep us all informed, I've decided to start one for the Trzupek family. We're not in China, but we are definitely on an adventure, having lived in Portland for 10 years and now getting accustomed to saying that we live in Seattle. (I still look for Portland on the departure boards at the airport... and on my last flight in, I got confused trying to determine which part of Lake Vancouver we were flying in over. I think Mike was greatly relieved to find that we actually made it to SeaTac.)

To make a long story short, in January, an old friend of Michael's (now working as a private consultant and doing some work for Microsoft) recommended him for a job. Michael was recruited, and we were both convinced that it was an opportunity we couldn't pass up.

Shortly thereafter, I reluctantly told my boss I was leaving. Before the day was out, we had crafted a job where I am working part-time from home. Logistically, it's a dream: I work half-time, over 3 short days.

I spend far more time with the kids than I used to, when our schedules meant dragging kids out of bed at 6:30 in order to get them out the door (with breakfast in hand more often than I'd like to recall...) by 7:15. Now, I am typically propped up in bed reading Dr Suess or Tonka books at 7:15. And the kids beg for homemade cream of wheat or scrambled eggs for breakfast when we finally make it downstairs. Now that's a good trade. Working from home has its challenges, but we'll get to those later.

In May, we moved into our new home in Northwest Redmond, an area we carefully triangulated for its combination of commute time for Mike (it takes him about 8 minutes to get home on a typical evening), great public school district, and relative ease of getting in to downtown. (What we did NOT get was an easy trip to Portland; while a GPS might tell you it will take 3 hours, our friends Chris and Jean or Val and Matt will breathe deeply and recall their 5 1/2 hour drives.) We moved into a brand-new house in a new development, which is proving to be wonderful. We've met lots of neighbors already, many of whom have young children, and all of whom seem to be eager to make friends.

Our house is great-- since it is new, we don't have a long list of maintenance items to work through this time! And we have lots of room, including plenty of guest space in the basement (hint, hint).

Compared with our house in Portland, though, we have a pretty small backyard. I had a hard time accepting the small yards here at first, but this house makes it a lot easier: our backyard is framed by an environmentally protected forest. We love the view from our kitchen and living room, and occasionally we get to watch the deer or rabbits grazing in the mornings.

For anyone interested (bored?) enough to keep reading, look for future posts about Sam's total infatuation with construction, Michael's newfound love of XBox, and Sydney's upcoming first day of Kindergarten!