Congratulations Bonnie and Peter!

Our dear friends Bonnie and Peter welcomed their new baby to the world. We were honored to be there for it. Their new son, Solomon is beautiful. Bonnie was in the hospital for over 30 hours before Solomon made his entrance into the world. So it was a long haul for Bonnie. Best of all everyone is happy, healthy, and at home resting now.

The Bris is later this week. A celebration albeit informal. Not really sure what one wears to a bris? And of course, the only thing I know about it I learned from Seinfeld. Maybe not the most reliable source of info.

At home in Seattle....

We have decided that Seattle will be our home and are looking for a house to complete the picture. The market is rather funny right now with the economy in flux. But our timing isn't too bad since it is a Buyer's market (if only someone could tell the Seller's- it would help!). Even though the foreclosure rate was up 70% in June from the year before, Seattle seems to be a pretty solid market. We did try the Redfin thing with little success. We suspect that they are more effective for the HOT market and can't actually provide any service other than the monkey filling in the blanks on a document. This is a pic of the house we liked- but we have not decided about it yet.


There are a lot of issues. Some of them are little things like the half bath on the main floor- complete with angels, gilded gold mirror, and clouds in the sky on the ceiling! We are still trying to decide if the BIG issues are deal-breakers or not....


Luckily we have time on our side. It has been on the market for three weeks now. Slow markets are perfect for the indecisive.

Summer in Seattle: 4th of July!

Ok. We have been meaning to post forever. We had such grand plans for being bloggers, we even started a few a while back and never got around to adding the pics and posting. But now, we want to share some of the fun we are having. Living together in Seattle has been great, especially with summer finally arriving. There are tons of fun things to do. Freemont Solstice Festival, random musical events in Volunteer Park, fun concerts and happy hour!

But we will skip all that and jump to our 4th of July. We went backpacking in the Olympic National Forest. Since it was a three-day weekend we thought it could be really crowded and picked a nice obscure hike- Tubal Cain. It was perfect. The wildflowers were all in bloom and provided us with our "fireworks for the 4th". The first night we hiked to Buckhorn Lake and camped. We had the entire alpine lake to ourselves! The next morning we hiked up to Marmot Pass for some nice views of the mountains. We didn't stay long since the wind was cold coming from the next valley over and we trotted back to our warmer ridge. There was still snow on the trails, but there was no problem passing it.



Then we wanted to hike to the site of the B-17 bomber crash and camp there the second night. On the way we passed an abandoned mine shaft. We decided to camp here- since we got such a lovely greeting from all of the mosquitoes near the marsh. I always forget how good food tastes until I go hiking. Red beans and rice never tasted so good!

Wedding highlights!

We put together a slideshow with pictures of our wedding in Mexico (April 5th, 2008). Most of the pictures are from Jason, a friend of ours who agreed to be our official photographer, but we also picked from the many great photos that our friends and family sent us. Thanks so much to all! It was truly wonderful.

Click on the window below...



... or directly go to:
http://picasaweb.google.com/luc.melissa/WeddingHighlights

It is official- We are Married!

Luc and Melissa are finally married! And what a great time we had. Mexico was fabulous. Isla Holbox was the perfect "remote yet accessible" destination with just the right amounts of solitude, beauty, fiesta, and fun! The streets really are made with sand and dominated by golf carts.

So happy for those of us that joined us on our quiet island for our intimate ceremony. And we missed those of you that could not be there. We will be compiling pictures in the coming weeks and posting bits about our travels and celebration.

The BIG Move

We managed to move across the country two-weeks before leaving the country to get married without too much trouble. And even a little bit of fun. We made the trip in less than a week, visiting some wacky sites along the way and soaking up the last of our Southern meals for a while. We went to Elvis Presley's birthplace in Tupelo, Miss. and a drive-by on Graceland in Memphis. Also some of the best Bar-B-Que in Miss. The ribs were delicious.

Then up through a bunch of states we might never see again. Kansas certainly won the vote for most boring state. Even though we did manage to find a fun historical marker on the roadside. Part of The Oregon Trail passed through here. Notice how flat and boring the landscape is behind Luc-












We tried to visit the memorial of Little Bighorn's Battlefield but we were denied....

We passed through this funny little ranch in MT that was founded by a Quebecois man in the 1800's. He abandoned it after it started to get too crowded! Ha! But we did get to practice our farm skills while we were there. And made some new friends-

We stayed a couple of nights in Missoula, MT with Jonathan. We even caught a Bob Wire show, which was just delightfully good fun, not to mention some darn good music. Luc had never seen the smooth two-stepping cowboys complete with big hats and big boots. He was impressed with their fancy footwork, but then again who isn't? Maybe next time we'll stick around long enough that he can pick up some extra slick moves.

Almost...

Our plans seem to be coming together now. It looks like next week will be Melissa's big cross country move. Luc is at a conference in Florida. He will fly up to Atlanta and we will embark on our cross-country tour sans large moving truck. [what a relief- driving through snow-covered mountains would not be fun with a loaded truck.] We are planning on checking out some of the wacky Southern/Midwest states that we have not been through. We heard that the KFC in Ole Mississippi has fried chicken livers on their menu- who would have guessed? An overnight visit to Arkansas and maybe Nebraska (Go Huskers!). Then we'll head through Montana to Seattle. Let us know if you have any recommended sites along that route.

And of course, we are finalizing our arrangements in Mexico for the trip. Yeah! We are really looking forward to the trip. It should be really fun to spend time with everyone and share a little adventure with you.

Hopefully we will have most things unpacked before we leave for Mexico. It all depends on when the container arrives. But it would be really nice to return to our new city in April for a clean, fresh start.