On Sunday, January 16th, the kids and I flew from Charlotte to Seattle. We checked three big bags and two car seats. Brian saw us to the gate and then we said goodbye for the next four weeks. The kids did really well on both plane rides, but started to get pretty tired by the end. Overall, it was a positive experience, which is really all that I could have asked for.
On Monday, January 17th, the housing hunt began. That has been a process, of course, but my mom has been great to be the chauffeur, an opinion-giver, and often the in-car babysitter. It's been so nice to have her help! It's definitely been an adventure with all of us taking turns being sick (including Wes throwing up in the middle of the Burger King table while Sydney had a direct, and pretty traumatic, view). We still haven't picked a place, but we're narrowing the areas down a bit, so that's progress.
All along, Wes has had an opinion on the place we'd move into. He can share a room with Sydney (but not a bed), and then he wants a backyard like we had in Michigan, a basement, a garage for two cars, and no "chirpers".
Chirpers are the really loud and annoying all-building fire alarms we had in our apartment building in Charlotte. They went off at least seven times in the seven months we lived there - and four of those times were the last week we were there. They made the kids panic and stressed and went off at various hours of the day, including at 3:30am the morning we left for the airport. It was really frustrating. The picture above is one of the last days we were there (the 10th) when the alarm went off around dinner time. We had a picnic in our closet because the chirper wasn't as loud in there.
I'm happy to be rid of those chirpers because they completely stressed Wes out and made him afraid of the dark and going in his room alone. Hopefully, wherever we live next will still have a fire alarm, but it won't be so loud and obnoxious.
