Hello 2015

We finished out 2014 more relaxed than anticipated.  I was a mess trying to work full-time with both girls and preparing for our anticipated move, so I quit my job the beginning on December.  I was able to fly out to Connecticut a few days later and help Glen look at houses with the real estate agent.  Even though it's probably the least pretty time of year (lots of bare trees), I really liked the area.  You can hear my full report once I move, but my first impressions were that it is very clean and the people are friendly. Connecticuters pay very high taxes (income and property), so the roads and other public services are exceptional.  The schools are some of the top in the country.  But, it's more rural than I'm used to.  I'm trying to think of a comparison, and east Woodinville is what I come up with.  I'm not even sure if that's accurate, but most houses are on 1/2 to 1 acre of land, but everything is in cul-de-sacs and very neighbor-hoody.  They are true New Englanders and get all four seasons, so Glen has already experienced negative (Fahrenheit!) temperatures and driving to work in a snowstorm.

For Christmas this year, Glen flew in on Christmas Eve and we spent a nice evening by the fireside just being silly and enjoying each other.  We do Skype and talk on the phone, but it had been two months since the girls had seen Glen.  On Christmas Day, Santa was modest (like always) in our household, but added to some gifts from our family in Australia, the girls had fun playing with their new toys.  In the afternoon, my mom & dad hosted a fun Christmas Day celebration.  They always do such a great job and we really appreciate all their hard work to bring the whole family together.

So on to the hard stuff.  My Auntie Pam is not doing well.  She did one chemo treatment, which she did not tolerate well, and then had blood clots from her surgery.  The worst-case-scenario happened and she had two strokes from those clots.  After a couple weeks in the hospital, she is now in a nursing home in north Seattle.  She has lost a lot of function, but is comfortable.  My cousin Loren (her only son) is amazing and is there with her every day.  He is a very calm, sensible man, and his daily presence gives us all comfort.  My mom is very involved with her care too, and her experience as an OT, and with healthcare in general, helps us all understand what is happening.  My parents are simply amazing dealing with all of this.  Even if they feel like they are totally losing it at times, they are really such strong people and among their own grief, are helping everyone else process what is happening.

Compared to all of that, our own struggles seem small, but we are grappling with the reality that we're moving soon.  I've been able to meet up with lots of friends lately and of course spend lots of time with my family.  We're excited to be reunited with Glen and start a new beginning, so it's nice to always have that in front of us.  The movers are coming on Tuesday (yikes!) because it takes two weeks for our belongings to get cross-country in the winter, and then we will live with Neely & Emilio until we fly out.  Our anticipated date to leave is February 2nd, so if you're in Seattle and want to see us, please connect me before then and we will make time for you!

Connecticut bound

So here is my official post that our family is moving to Connecticut!  Well, Glen is actually already there.  He is now a Senior Principal Investigator in the Rare Diseases Division at Bristol-Meyers Squibb.  I'm so proud of him for landing this awesome job where he can continue to make a difference in the research and development of treatments for muscular dystrophy.  It's a big step for Glen to move from academia to industry, so we're so thankful for the opportunity, and BMS is also very excited to have such an expert in the field join their team.  The girls and I will join him after Christmas, once we can arrange everything here in Seattle for our departure.  We are so sad to move away from our family & friends, but are also excited for a new adventure and the opportunity to have a better income to cost-of-living ratio than we've had here in Seattle.  That's the complicated way of saying that we're excited to move from a 1-bedroom condo to a house with a yard and even possibly a pet.  I already promised the girls (and myself) a cat.

Whew, that's big news, but so many other things have happened since my last post.  First of all, Glen & Claudia went to Australia for a couple weeks at the end of September/early October to visit family.  Claudia's most talked about part was stopping in Hawaii for one day on the way over.  She's definitely half-Australian, because no other American kid would talk endlessly about Hawaii for one day when they get to go to Australia for two weeks!  She had an amazing time and was in super-silly mode the whole time (from what I hear) and got to do lots of fun stuff with her Nana and Daddy.  Sorry I don't have any photos, but they're on a computer in Connecticut right now.

As for our day-to-day stuff, I'm honestly kind of struggling right now.  It's a lot to be on my own with the girls on top of a full-time job that's quite intense.  I am so thankful to my family for coming to my rescue on several occasions, logistically and emotionally.  And on the other end, Glen is a bit lonely by himself and also working pretty intense hours trying to get up to speed with his new job.  On top of all of that, my Auntie Pam (my only aunt, who lives locally) was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian carcinoma recently, so my family is all coming together (again, logistically and emotionally) trying to help with her needs.  I think it's hard for my whole extended family to balance everything right now, but overall, I think we are doing a good job, but it's not easy that's for sure.

On a lighter note, I will post some cute photos of the girls from Halloween.  We were all black kitties.  We spent the day with the Beltrans & Mackinnons.  My girls were super into trick or treating this year.  Teagan just loved running from house to house, but Claudia was in it for the candy.  We also carved pumpkins with Grandma.  And, our "baby" Teagan turned 2 on October 14th.  We had a small party at our house with a "frog" theme, so I will include photos of those too.

My little monkey at the park.

A parking lot pumpkin patch in our neighborhood.

Kitties.

 

The gang--dinosaur, kitties, bumblebee, and "Mickey Mouse", i.e. ladybug.

 

Candy!

 

 

My mom did the "confused" pumpkin.

 

 

Auntie Pam, my Mom, and my Grandma.

 

Big #2 birthday girl

 

My mom made this cool cake and cupcakes.

 

 

Kindergarten starts

Claudia started Kindergarten this month at Wedgwood Elementary.  She goes full-time (6 hours a day).  She was super excited to go and not shy at all.  Neely & I dropped her off for her first day and we were choking back tears, but she just gave us a big smile and waved.  At first she was a little bored because they were just learning routines, but now that she's into the actual learning, she's having a ton of fun.  She has already made a few friends (although can't quite remember their names) and is super excited about learning.  She wants to practice reading and math every night.  We're most impressed by her ability to write her own story by just sounding out the words.  We need some major translation when she's done, but I love that she is not intimidated and just goes for it.

I started my new job at Immune Design as a Quality Control Research Associate in August.  We have an oncology immune-therapeutic drug in clinical trials and my job is to test it to make sure it's perfect before it goes to the patients.  I'm really enjoying myself because I have good coworkers, a decent commute, and it's fun just to be back in the lab again after almost 2 years away.  Glen has been in charge of the kids since he's not working right now.  He's loving his time with them and is getting a little exercise by walking Claudia to school every day (0.8 miles each way) pushing them in a double stroller.  We've had an amazing summer in Seattle with beautiful sunny weather for almost 4 months straight.  We go to our pool as much as we can, several times a week.  Teagan has no fear and will jump off the side into Glen's arms.  Teagan in general is must more stubborn than Claudia ever was.  She gets very particular about things, like she wants the diaper with Pluto on it, not the one with Mickie.  Her PJs have to have an animal on them or else she rips them off, and she sometimes refuses to change out of them.  She has no problem throwing a major tantrum is she's not happy and she can cry SO LOUD.  But, she's also very cluey because she's always trying to keep up with Claudia and play big-girl games.  Her speech and vocabulary is amazing for her age (23 months) and she's putting together full sentences.  She can also play quite independently, in fact, she gets very possessive about her toys and does not like to share.  Her favorites are to play dolls, kitchen, Legos, trains, and coloring.  She is particular about her food too.  She likes rice, cereal with milk, broccoli, and apples (no skin, but whole, not cut up).

Claudia and her cousin Asher.

Teagan taking a dip in Asher's bathtub.

First day of Kindergarten!

My stubborn girl who refuses to take a nap and then falls asleep at the dinner table.

Pool time!

Family day-trip to the Olympic Peninsula.  Game Farm and then playing in the river.

Mom & Claudia day at the Seattle Center and Space Needle.

The girls both love the movie "Frozen" and "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" is Claudia's favorite song.  Notice the progression: happy, Claudia puts her hand over Teagan's mouth, then Teagan body slams, pinches, and then pulls hair.  A typical day in our household.

Wildfire

Teagan is now 21-months old and is talking up a storm.  She's saying some phrases like "where are you" and "there it is", linking words together, and even attempting to sing songs.  She's also very agile and adventurous and will climb up on the big structures at the park and basically copy everything Claudia does.  She loves to draw, which she calls "color" and has moved on from scribbles to scribble-circles, and prefers the color blue.  She has added some familiar aversions, like sand on her feet or water on her face.  She used to tolerate these, whereas Claudia never did until she was 4, so I was a bit surprised by the change, but at least I know how to deal with them.  She's also been sick a lot this summer, which is a bummer.  She's the kind of kid that gets a high fever when she gets sick and she's had 5 different viruses this spring/summer, including roseola, and some of her illnesses have lasted up to a week.  Thank goodness she's not in daycare.

I'm so proud of Claudia's swimming skills.  She continues to doggy-paddle confidently around the pool and with the addition of goggles, has been able to swim with her face in the water blowing bubbles out her nose.  She's also very confident on a tricycle, bicycle with training wheels, and scooter this summer.   And she can pump herself on the swing now, which is huge for us because the swings are her favorite thing at the park, but it's hard to manage pushing both kids.  She's always been cautious with her large motor skills and I'm excited that she's now enjoying them.

On June 22nd Gina & Chase got married!  They had it on their farm in Sultan.  Chase built a huge garage where the reception was held and they both did an amazing job getting the property ready, including building a fence and going through three riding lawn mowers to get the grass nice for the ceremony.  Gina looked beautiful of course, and Claudia and Addison were exceptionally cute flower girls.

Now after all this good news, there were a few unfortunate things that happened this summer.  First, Glen's car got broken into and then the thieves stole my car.  The police did recover it a week later, but it was totally stripped of all our possessions including the carseats and kids toys, which was quite a violation.  Then not a week later, the thieves stole it again.  Ugh!  So my insurance company paid me out the value of the car.  In a twist of good luck, my friend sold me her car for a bargain.  It needed a little work, but Chase and Glen fixed it up and now I have a Subaru Forester!  Bye bye red Mazda3.  Shortly after this, Glen got laid off from his job at the UW, on June 30th.  We had notice, but it's always a depressing situation to lose your job before you have another one lined up.  We've both been applying for as many jobs as we can and I'm proud to say after a lot of hard work and many interviews, I finally have a job offer!  I start soon, so more details to come on that soon.

Our family had the month of July free with no jobs and no school, so we decided to head over to Alta Lake for a couple weeks to commiserate our situation and cheer ourselves up with some golf, sun, and a big beautiful house to hang out in.  We even had our friends Alex & Laura and their two kids visit us for a long weekend.  They live in Sheffield, England, but were in Seattle for a summer sabbatical (they're both scientists too).  And I got to meet up with my friend Colleen and meet her two kids (they live in Wenatchee).  It was super hot (around 100 degrees every day), so we spent a lot of time outside in the kiddie pool, sprinkler, or just playing in buckets of water.  Claudia even golfed her first "round" of golf, pitching and putting 9 holes with Daddy.  Everything was going really well until an ominous dark cloud of smoke came over us.  There are always forest fires out there in the summer, mostly caused by lightening strikes.  There were some nearby fires we were watching closely and after a second day of smokey conditions, we decided to head home the next morning.  We went out to dinner in Chelan for our last night and as we were driving back to Pateros around 8pm, the sky started getting darker and we noticed a lot of cars driving south, the opposite to what we were.  Just as we hit the welcome to Pateros sign, there was a road block and the whole hillside was on fire.  It was super scary.  Pateros was being evacuated because it was on fire.  Later that night about 11pm, it hit Alta Lake.  It all happened so fast that most people did not have time to pack up anything and the firefighters didn't even make it in.  Houses just burned down somewhat randomly as embers fell on houses.  We didn't even know what happened until the next morning, but 52 of 85 houses in the community burned down.  By some amazing stroke of luck, my parents' house was saved as were all of our family friends, Dan & Diane, Mike & Sharon, and Butch & Linda.  The fire (called the Carlton Complex) ended up burning 300,000 acres and is now the largest fire in WA state history.  It's been a month since the fire and we're still so sad about it.

I will start with the cheery photos first:

With cousin Asher.

With friend Rosie.

With friend Andrew.

Here's the ominously dark sky at Lake Chelan Winery.  A half hour later we would see the hillside on fire and be evacuated and driving back to Seattle.

Here's the smokey sky the day before that made us decide to head home.

Out our car window as we came up to the fire.

And the devastation.  Olson house still standing--the neighbors not so lucky.