We're Not in Provo Anymore

We started our trip on Wednesday afternoon. After having made the quick trip back from Pocatello just the day before, Parker was not too happy to be back in the car again. He was good for the first part, but then the high picthed screaming started. We tried to tell him to use his inside voice and then we just tried to ignore it. Finally, we just gave him some candy until we were able to stop and let him run around a bit.

We made it to the Johnson's beautiful home in Boise, where we stayed for the night. What a treat! We had fun visiting with George, Caralee and Kevin. Caralee made us a great dinner and took great care of us for the night. I forgot how much I love Rice Krispie treats!

In the morning, we were back on the road again. We made it to Kennewick around lunch time and stopped to see one of Paul's mission companions and his family. The DeCoria's are great people. We continued on our way. The kids did great and Parker finally fell asleep about an hour or so before we arrived in Bothell where we are staying.

We are renting the basement of a home from a very nice family. It is bigger than our little apartment in Provo and we have DVR! We feel like we are living in luxury! Except for the spiders, of course.

I don't do spiders. Have I seen the movie 'Arachnaphobia'? Yes, at a young age and maybe that is what gave me this debilitating fear. As we were being shown our place, I saw a pretty big spider on the wall. I was going to have Paul kill it right then and there, but decided to wait until later. It was a few moments later that I learned that the family that we are living with prefers that we not kill spiders, but capture and release them outside. I didn't make any promises and let's just say the spiders that we have seen have been "taken care of." It really has not been too bad. There really have only been 2 living spiders found. And two quarter-sized hairy ones that were already dead. (Upon finding those, I immediately started praying that I would never find any of those alive. I might have to start sleeping in the car at that point.) Now that we have been here a few nights and have not seen too many spiders, I am feeling better. I just hope that we can coexist for a couple of months and not bother each other.

Parker has seemed to adjust without any trouble. There are new toys to play with here and even an air hockey table and a trampoline. The only adjustment was having Paul go back to work. Ever since Paul has been done with school for the semester, Parker has been all about Daddy all the time. The first day Paul went to his internship, I opened Parker's door in the morning, he said, "No, I want Daddy." He gave in when I told him that Daddy wasn't home. He asked quite a few times throughout the day for his Daddy, but has now gotten used to the fact that Daddy goes to work during the day.

Autumn was understandably clingy for the first day or two, but has now gotten used to our new home. She is army crawling all over this place.

Paul started his internship on Monday. His bus stop is just around the corner from where we live and it drops him off about 3 blocks from his work. He seems to enjoy what he is doing and has already gotten some good feedback on some work he has done. As anyone starting anything new, he was a little bit nervous. But he does well in everything he puts his mind to, he is a hard worker and he does everything with a smile. I am sure that they will be thoroughly impressed with him by the time we leave.

We took a trip downtown to get Paul's bus pass and look around. We got to see the building Paul works in (above) and the protesters in the May 1st Immigration march. Of course there were all kinds of other protesters there, from Health Care Reform to Gay rights. I guess it was more of a' March for your own Cause' here in Seattle. Good News is, they had drums and Parker thought it was just a fun parade and he loved it!

We are glad that we took the opportunity to see a little bit of Seattle when we did because it was a sunny day and every day since, it has been overcast and rainy. I guess what they say about Seattle is true.