Oregon Coast

Prepare yourself and get a cookie: this post should be about four different post but since we leave in 8 days, it's one big jumble.

So in true "we're moving far far away and instead of packing, we'll go on a vaca" fashion that my family is known for (we went to Disneyland the day before the movers came to pick up our stuff from CA to WA - and we weren't ready at all), Jeff and I spent last week in Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast with Jeff's family.

In preparation for the trip, Andrea and I went out on a girls day on Saturday and went and got all the food at Costco and Fred Meyer and then packed it all in our car, since it was the one without any kids in it. I had a very stressful two days trying to keep everything cold because instead of picking out the brand new 5-day cooler from the pile of coolers in Ken's garage, we picked up the old ratty one which we didn't even bring back but threw away in Lincoln City.

Jeff and I headed down to Portland on Sunday and stayed the night just across the river in Vancouver. Funny story about Portland: we have accidentally started a tradition that Jeff gets a new pair of flip flops every time we go. Last time we went to Portland for our honeymoon, Jeff left them at the wedding venue so we didnt have them; and this time Jeff blew out one as we were loading the car. So accidental tradition started :]

When we got to Vancouver, I was pulling out my computer to do the one computer related thing I needed to do the entire week, only to discover I left my computer cord at home. This sent me into total panic. “What am I going to do with myself?!?!” panic.

In the midst of this panic, my brain kept saying to me “Dude, you have no obligations this week. You took the week off from work, you prepared and are far enough ahead in school work that you don’t absolutely need your computer until you get back, and one of your goals of this week was to be as unplugged as possible. Relax!” But even with this logic ringing in my ears I couldn’t stop the feeling of dread coming over me. Disregarding the fact that Jeff still had his computer and I still had my phone, the fact that I didn’t have my computer ready and available 24/7 was like someone had chopped off my foot. 

This made me feel totally pathetic. I in no way need it. I literally only brought for a “just in case,” yet it’s apparently become so integrated into who I am that being without it even for a week of vaca time is making me freak out. So I spent the week in total unplugged mode (helped along by the lack of wifi at the beach house), which ended being an awesome experience and I'm now looking forward to being as unplugged as possible when we go on our adventure. 

On Monday Jeff and I putzed around Portland for a few hours, getting delicious Pearl District sushi and going into what I've decided is my most favorite store ever, West Elm. I bought a "train blanket," which is the perfect size and not too bulky to keep in my carryon for when I inevitably get cold (and no, they didnt have Orange in the store so I didn't even know that was a thing and got Slate instead, which I actually think will hold up better for its purpose). Then we got in the car and drove the two more hours to Lincoln City. 

My shrimp tempura sushi and our favorite Salmon and Scallop roll from this place (theres a full scallop in each piece!)

You can't really tell in this picture, but this sushi is ON FIRE. Also, Jeff couldn't decide if he liked warm sushi or not after. I thought it was amazing.

The beach house that I rented was perfect. When I was looking I specifically wanted one with four bedrooms because Jeff and I are on the bottom of the adult-bed-totem-pole and I really didnt want to sleep in a pullout in the living room. So I found this place and it was a great place for all of us to hang out and still have our own space. But the best part of the place hands down was the table. We all could sit down and eat together which is something we've never done before because Ken and Julie's house can't accommodate that many people in one room. Jeff and I took the room on the main floor with the handicap bathroom and it reinforced my love for huge walk-in showers. Ken and Julie had the loft all to themselves; and Craig and Jess and Kenny and Andrea and the six kids took over the basement.

The beach was only a block away and we took many walks along edge of the water, playing the classic "can you run faster than the water?" game with the kids. It was Oregon, so it was foggy and and only about 64 degrees the entire time we were there, but we did manage to get in one epic sand castle, complete with stomping on it at the end like we were giants.

One day we all piled in the car and drove down to Newport to the aquarium (famous for being the home of Free Willy for a long time).  It's not a very big aquarium so we were able to explore at our own pace while still staying in a group.

Jeff and Ken checking out some jelly fish (and even though you can't see Jeff's face in this picture, he's making the same exact face as Ken. I guarantee it.

Me and Noah touching some things while Kenny makes sure Noah doesn't face plant into the pool (because if anyone would do that, it would be Noah)

Then Jeff and I had to pretend to be crabs (btw, that is a life-size painting of a Japanese spider crab, which there was a tank of "juvenile" ones just to the right of the painting)

Jeff's technique: focus on the pinchers

My technique: focus on the wingspan (the sign said 12 feet!)

Us surrounded by sharks!

The rest of the week was spent relaxing, reading, playing games, and spending time with each other. It was an excellent way for all of us to get together before Jeff and I head off on our grand adventure.

Oh and of course on the way home, we had to stop at Tillamook.

Let there be Storage!

As we were driving home from Seattle on Monday, it all started to hit us. We still don't have everything packed. We don't have any luggage. We don't have a storage unit. We don't have a place to land when we get to London. Our social calendar is quickly filling up and we're now feeling like we don't have time to do any of this stuff. Let freak out commence.

Being efficient people that we are, we did the only thing we could do from the car. We called about a storage unit. We knew which storage place we wanted to use and had already talked to them a couple of weeks ago. At that time they didn't have any 10x10 units available, so we left without doing anything. So while driving we decided to just call and get our name on their list. But when I called they said they had a 10x10 unit available but since it was the last one, they couldn't reserve it for us. At the time he told me this we were in Moses Lake and the storage place closed in 3 hours. So I told him we would be there as soon as possible and told Jeff to drive faster.

This was not what Jeff wanted to hear. He wanted to be home on the couch and not driving all the way up to the northside of town after we got home. But we did it anyway.

So we get to the storage place and take a look at the 10x10 and both look at each other and say "wow, a 10x10 is much smaller than we thought." So we looked at a 10x15, which was a better size, and we took that one. We also asked them if they had an pallets because Kenny and Andrea, who managed Auntie Denise's storage place for six years, told us the best way to protect our stuff was to put everything on pallets. They said they actually had a couple that someone had left behind and if we wanted them, they were ours. So the guy went and got them out of another unit and one of them was completely busted and no good, but the other one is super nice. So nice that instead of going and acquiring (either legally or illegally) more pallets, I decided I could just build them. Because I've got the skillz.

So the good news: we have a place to store our crap.
Bad news: I now have to find time to build pallets, which will most likely happen next week because the boxes in our apartments that are full of stuff are in the walkways and Jeff might throw one out the window because it's in the way.

The Seattle Leg of the Good-bye Tour

This past weekend Jeff and I went to Seattle to say farewell to all Jeff's family over there. It started at Jeff's cousin Mitchell's wedding Friday night. Which we had to buy all new outfits for because we somehow left without the pile of wedding stuff (including the proper sucker-inner underwear because the dress I was going to wear is darker and the dress I ended up wearing wasn't).

They put on a nice wedding and had some fun quirks, including piles of legos as centerpieces for the tables. So lots of lego building ensued.

Ken proving he's still got his dad-lego
skillz and can build anything
on demand, including an elephant

Then the elephant started flying

And you can't build something out of
legos without smashing it at the
end of the day

Jeff making lego magic

We spent a lot of time at the wedding talking about our upcoming trip because somehow the Mosmon side of the family hadn't heard we were leaving. 

Saturday we spent the morning hanging out with Gma and Gpa, talking about adventures (since Gma and Gpa are world travelers), and doing homework on the sly. We had dinner with one of my good friends from Whitworth and then headed up to Anacortes. 

Sidenote: when Jeff and I started dating, the first time we went to Anacortes Jeff told me that you could get from Seattle to Anacortes by ferry. So as we were driving up there, I looked it up to see if we could take the ferry on Monday on our way home. Only problem: there is no ferry! I've been excited about this for three years and now those dreams are dashed! It was a bit of a disappointment. 

We spent all of Sunday hanging out with the Aunties (Dana and Denise). Started the day off of course at Penguin coffee, the local coffee shop (a trip to Anacortes wouldn't be complete without it). We had lunch with Grandma and Grandpa Brown and had some good laughs. Then the Aunties and Jeff and I dragged each other out and played "tennis without rules." And let me tell you, playing tennis with ocean breezes is really easy on one side of the court and really hard on the other. Later we made dinner for everyone which was yummy and just hung out of the rest of the evening. 

Monday included one last Penguin run and then it was back to Spokane. Driving home Jeff and I were both definitely feeling the sadness sinking in. We don't see everyone on the west side all that often, but it's enough during the year to stay involved and up-to-date with everyone, and realizing it wont be a simple 5 hour drive anymore was a little freaky. However I realize we'll probably be so busy seeing and experiencing everything over there that we won't even realize how fast time is going until it's over and we're coming home. 

Lady Washington

The Visa Catch-22

Jeff and I have done a lot of research on visas. More than I ever wanted to know about visas. Especially UK visas, since the UK is where Jeff and I - if given the choice - would use as home base for the entire year we are over there. However, since there isn't a visa for people who strictly want to live there and funnel money into the economy and not take a job or health care away from the citizens, we can't. We have to use visitor visas.

So in doing research, I discovered that we can stay up to six months in the UK in a year's period of time. I also learned that since we're from the US, we can just show up at the UK border and get a three month visa no problem. However you can stay for up to six months in one chunk if you want. So I looked into that. There are two ways to do it: (1) extend your three months to six after you're there, but pay a huge fee, or (2) apply before you get there.

So Jeff and I chose the 'apply before we get there' route and started filling out the visa application. Only to get halfway down the page and discover they wanted our address of where we would be staying while there. This is where the Catch-22 comes into play. Because in order to get a place for six months you need a visa.

So we were stuck. And at this point in the process of researching visas and places to live and so on, I was fed up with the whole thing. My Type-A-must-plan-everything brain said "Fuck it. We're getting on a plane and we'll see what happens."

So this changes our plans considerable. We were planning on doing six months in London and six months in Dublin (sticking to the English speaking countries because I refuse to be a dumb American who doesn't know the language) but now it looks like we'll be keeping it simple and doing three month stints everywhere. Jeff really wants to do Germany (he cant stop talking about donorkebabs) and I really want to do Italy (think of all the architecture) so we might be doing a marriage compromise and doing London, Germany, Italy, and then maybe London or somewhere else in the UK. This will of course mean learning at least the basics of a few languages, but it seems to be the only way.

Packing

In other news, I started the packing process the other day. Jeff and I are packing our stuff up with the mentality that we most likely wont be unpacking it after we get back to Spokane and instead moving it directly to a bigger city where I get a job. So we're doing a lot of culling of things we don't need. And two things have happened so far.

The first is that I felt very fat and unfashionable for about an hour. I was sorting clothes and getting rid of things that don't fit (I'm very anti "oh, I'll lose the weight and then be able to fit into it again" which consequently makes it so every girl ever has a box of clothes of every size she's ever been that she never actually wears again) and got rid of ton of stuff. Granted a lot of it was stuff from college (and there was even some high school stuff floating around), but it was still depressing. It was also depressing because I was also getting rid of my "office" clothes. When I graduated the first time I bought a bunch of nice business casual stuff because I had the mental image of me wearing cute outfits and heels every day to work. And let me tell you - I never did that. My style is strictly a jeans and trendy t-shirt with some Converse Chucks, and since most of industry also wears that, it's perfectly acceptable work attire. So much to the point that when I used to decide to dress up, all the guys in the office would ask me why I was so dressed up. And now it's even worse since I work and school from home. So I decided that I was going to let go of the fantasy that I would ever need really nice work clothes, kept a few of my favorites for the odd occasions, and got rid of the rest. My other thought behind this is even if I do end up a with a job that requires that kind of dress, I can always get new stuff. But carting it around right now seems silly.

The second thing that happened was Jeff had to force me to sort books. I started looking through them and suddenly realized that I could not live without them and Jeff was being crazy to think I could. He promptly turned me back to the book shelves and told me to try again. So I was a little more brutal (still probably not to Jeff's level of brutal, but it was step) and ended up with a large stack of giveaway books. I still have piles and piles of books though that will get boxed up and kept. Notice my total ruthlessness with the clothes and complete unwillingness to get rid of books.

So the process has started and our apartment looks like a mess but I'm figuring that's how it's going to look until we leave so I better get used to it. It's weird because when we were still in May, August seemed so far away, and now that it's June it's suddenly very close.

2014 Dance Recital

So this year I was in 4 numbers in the recital and they happened within 15 numbers...so I was pretty much exhausted at the end because I'm not used to dance that hard or that much. But Stacie gave me some great advice about show day. She said to stay positive! Even if you're dying back stage, stay positive. So that's what I did. And it worked actually really well. I didn't realize how tired I was until we got back to the car.

Dance #1:
Curbside Prophet
Choreography: Kathleen
Intermediate Tap

I loved this dance because it was fun and laid back and we could all just be ourselves on stage

Dance #2
Solid Ground
Choreography: Stacie
Modern

This was the most challenging of the night because it's a full three minutes and it's intense not only physically but emotionally as well. The piece is about going through a struggle and fighting through it with the support of others.

Dance #3
Boogie Back to Texas
Choreography: Kathleen
Ladies Line - competitions

This is our competition piece this year. We all really liked it because we did a lot of quick tapping.

Dance #4
Rumor Has It
Choreography: Stacie
Partnering

This piece was a lot of fun because we, as adults, were able to play up the love triangle aspect of the song. We also landed all the lifts, so that was awesome.

All in all recital was a complete success and a ton of fun. It is bittersweet though because it is the last time I will most likely dance in Spokane. One if the things I'm sad about is not continuing to dance with the kids. It's a weird feeling. I got to see them go from pre-teens to full on teenagers, and I feel like I'm going to miss out on them growing up even more. But I'll miss the Ladies the most. They have truly made me one of their own and I'm going to miss their advice, antics, and of course the wine. I have had a great support system from them as I moved into married life and have really turned to them as great examples of how to make a marriage last.

This recital has been a major "ok we're officially moving" hurdle for me and as sad as I am to be moving on, I can't wait to start taking dance classes in bigger cities. London dance classes are all drop-in style, where you can go and pay $5 and take a class with no obligation to return. This means I'll be able to move around from studio to studio learning everyone's different styles and techniques.

One Year Anniversary

Now I've been playing with the idea that some of our trip to Europe will be recorded vlog style rather than all just pictures and writing. So this weekend I tested the idea out. And I realize that this is very rough and I say "um" and "amazing" in a high pitched voice a lot (Jeff was making fun of me a lot for that). But I think it turned out ok and I'll get better at it.

Europe Here We Come!

Grand adventures are happening!! Jeff and I came up with the crazy idea of moving to Europe for a year about six months ago. We have nothing holding us back. We have no kids, telecommute for work and school, so why are we doing it in Spokane? Let's go see the world!

Preparation Process

Passports
So a few months ago we started to passport process. Question: why do they, for a photo you're going to have for ten years on a pretty important document, make you go to Costco or Walgreens or whatever other bad lighting place to take the photo? No one looks good.

Passport: check

Visas
Next step - visas. We decided that sticking with the English speaking countries as our home base would be the easiest. So our plan is UK for six months, Ireland for six months. Both of those places don't require us to have visas beforehand since we are from the US, however we plan on getting them anyway because it will make the weekend trips to the continent much easier and it'll allow us to easily extend the standard 3 month visa into 6 months. But we can't get that until three months before the trip. But I doubt it'll be a problem

Visas: pending

Boss cool with it
Anyway, the last piece of the puzzle was confirming with our boss that it was ok. So we met with our boss yesterday and he was totally cool with it as long as we make ourselves available for the team at the proper times. And that's not a problem at all since Jeff and I dont usually start working until noon anyway, which will put us in line with US 8-5 time.

Boss cool with it: check

Plane tickets
So I wouldn't let Jeff buy the plane tickets until we confirmed with the boss, so pretty much the instant we got off the phone with our boss, Jeff bought the plane tickets. He had already scoped out the day and the times for the right price so all he had to do was click the button.

Plane tickets: check

Remembering things
I've decided that this blog is going to become our memories from our year away. I have these grand plans that I'm going to post every other day about random things we learn about a culture that isn't ours (for instance, how to live with a tiny fridge?), but it'll probably end up being like twice a week.

Remembering things: check (with a dose of reality)

So this trip is officially happening! Jeff and I are super excited, however August is eons away and we have a million social and prep things to do before then so we got time...until we realize that August is only like three months away and we have a million things to do before then!!