There are some additional pictures in this Flickr set and some property pix over in Skitch.

Now the "fun" begins. Hopefully, the clan will all be back under one roof by July 17^th. We're still waiting on the finalization of the Seattle house "stuff" (and hoping it goes well).

The house is now claimed on Zillow.

Week numero uno is almost at a close and it's been arduous (to say the least). Lots of meetings, most of which weren't with the folks I came out here to collaborate with. It has been cold. I mean, *cold-cold* but I've had a chance to hang with @ianjukes twice and one of my directors cooked up a fabulous meal last night. I am missing the kids, my wife, my friends and Seattle-in-general something fierce (not to mention the food back there). Switching gears back to being an "industrial park" worker has also been interesting. There is very different workplace dynamic when compared to city-dwellers who jaunt around town during the day.

We started the relocation process today and I get more info on what is involved next week. I've got a whirlwind house hunting tour tomorrow and plan on hitting LL Bean up in Maine either Saturday or Sunday. I'm going here Sunday morning and @sethhoff will be preaching.

Kids are recovering from some nasty colds and Tori made a cassoulet last night (for French class today) that had everyone's mouth watering. I at least got the visual from it during last night's iChat.

Lots of personal stuff going on I can't really tweet or blog about yet. "Change" is certainly the "go" word for 2009. I'm not expecting this to be a stellar year, but will be very glad to be proven wrong.

I'll post some pictures from the house hunt and keep y'all updated on the relo process. My new office view is below. It definitely beats the Seattle Public Library I've been staring at for 18 months, but it's no Puget Sound, either.

The Graebel truck pictured in the post was one of two necessary to haul all our stuff from PA to WA. It took the four lads from ~9am - ~6pm to haul everything into the house into the (mostly) correct designated rooms. Most everything survived and not much was missing (so far). There are a *ton* of boxes and the house in (what feels like chaos). However, getting our "stuff" has helped the place feel even more like home.

Tonight that feeling should be even more complete since the rest of the fam makes their way here today (*finally*)! You can track both legs of their trip via those two flightstats.com links. (Theres a great flight tracker OS X Dashboard Widget you can use as well - Southwest Airlines flights 2203 and 1251).

Now, we just have to unpack everything and settle in (and have a few more yard sales).

For those of you still sticking around for these posts, we're officially no longer homeless. Fran (Omholt) – our agent – handed us the keys Friday along with numerous surprises: she provided everything necessary (dishes, towels, inflat-a-bed, sleeping bags, etc.) to enable us to crash in the new place Friday and also eat dinner there. Definitely look her up if you are in the market to buy/sell a house in the Greater Seattle Area. You will not regret it.

Thankfully, Mary likes the new place (whew!) and we are trying to get our small amount of stuff settled and figure out what to do flooring-wise before the rest of the fam and the rest of our stuff arrives (not 100% sure of the order yet, unfortunately). After one massive Sentra-packed trip from Fremont today, the only thing left in Seattle is my bike, which we'll be picking up tomorrow. I'd kill for some chairs and a desk at this point.

Ian is doing remarkably well in spite of all the chaos and confusion. He's not afraid of the new room and is sleeping very well. Eating is another story (some kind of stomach thing going on with him). He loves the nearby parks and keep handing us fallen apples from our trees outside. Boy did I miss him. Mary said he did very well on the plane rides, too.

It's been a long day and I'm off to bed soon. More on the move as the week progresses and perhaps even some pictures - autumn is spectacular here.

Sorry for the pun (we're in the Puget Sound area up here).

Mary & Ian arrived safely tonight.

It's good – *really* good – to have them here.

Everything is set for the closing tomorrow.

Well, moving is a pain in general and moving across country is turning out to be an adventure. Now that we have a house picked out, I had to enable all the services. Here's a summary of experiences:

Trash/Recycling

Waste Management has a great web site that lets you do all service-related functions online and has on online bill-pay option. Best experience so far out of all the services.

Utilities

Water, electric and gas are all needed at the new place and I had to hunt to find out who does what. The Snohomish PUD was very helpful, but phone-only (sigh). Puget Sound Energy was necessary for natural gas, but they made it seem like they could do electric. Had to dig for a PDF high-res map to determine that they do not serve our portion of Snohomish County.

TV/Phone/Internet

I had a battle of the reps with Verizon last week. Some said "Yes" to FiOS (the website did, too). Others said "No". The reality is that ViOS is not as ubiquitous as they'd like to make you believe out here.

So, we have to use Comcast, which has a crappy web site that conked out when my AT&T ExpressCard died (it does more often than I'd like). You can't even see what channel lineups are available (mom needs EWTN...we don't watch TV) in the bundles and - despite indicating that I wanted new service and was moving into the area - it asked me what the local phone number was at the residence that I was ordering a brand new and only number for in the bundle.

Misc

Switching insurance has been interesting. More on that later. DMV-related activities should be fairly straightforward as well.

Finally, I wanted to give a big shout-out to whitefence.com (it's one name/URL that has many other names/URLs that offer the same service). I don't recommend giving all your details or registering, but I would enter enough information to get you to the pages that give you contact info for the various services you need. Very handy.

Well, we are officially all homeless. Don't get me wrong...we all have places to stay, but we no longer have a home.

If all works out, we will no longer be homeless on the 12th and should all be back together on the 18th.

Mary & Tori touched down ~10:47am. Long flight, but they are now tooling around the University District while I'm stuck in meetings.

It is *so* good to see them after three weeks.

My trusty, ol' 2005 Nissan Sentra was delivered back into my possession @ 1615 GMT (0915 PST) today (Wed, August 8). This saved us from having to rent a car tomorrow to pick up Mary & Tori (tho I suspect the minivan I reserved might have come in handy to lug stuff around for the 1.5 days I had it reserved).

Now to make her an official WA citizen.

Mary shipped my Giant OCR-2 road bike and it arrived yesterday!!! I managed to put it all back together and take it for a short test ride last night, but tonight I took it down to Green Lake for a decent spin. I'll post the route tomorrow, but it will be somewhat choppy since I kept adjusting the bike along the way and kinda forgot to turn the GPS on/off at various times. It also took a while to adjust to me being on the west coast (I forgot to pre-set it during the past two weeks - sigh). I'll be determining a route to work this weekend and trying my first bicycle commute on Monday or Tuesday (depending on weather). I still need to learn how to put the bike on the bus rack (in the event I need to do the bus instead) and also need to get a small cycling wallet that's waterproof and can hold my essential cards and cash along with the Belkin F8Z170-KG Sports Armband for iPhone and Shure MPA-3C Music Phone Adapter for iPhone.

If the hills here don't help me shed 30 more pounds, I don't know what will.

It's been an interesting 2.5 weeks. I really love this part of the northwest now and am looking forward to my first hike (hopefully with my family!!!!!). Work is plentiful and I am really liking the challenges I'm facing. The forthcoming office move will be somewhat sad, though, since I'm very fond of the University District. The new work digs are close to the Pike street market, so that will definitely be nice, and I'm interested to see what Seattle does during Christmas (there is so much potential).

I know where the troll is (more on that with pictures when I get there) now and will definitely be visiting there soon.

A week from tomorrow, Tori & Mary arrive and I am looking *so* forward to that. I think I'll be taking a break from house hunting this weekend until I see more momentum on our existing house. It's also kinda depressing seeing houses we like on a weekend, then see them sell four days later. We're now expanding our search up as far as Shoreline, putting our potential new residence just on the outer boundaries of cycling to work, but still well within the bus time range. Prices continue to fall, so the real challenge will be getting in when things are leveling off.

I'm seriously missing the old routines at various times and I'd be insane by now if it weren't for iChat video. I suspect things may get better once I'm in the new apartment, tho.

So, look for the GPS route tomorrow and drop me a note in the comments if you're interested in anything else about Seattle since I may have some time to explore this weekend.

Two developments on the real estate front to report.

First, I'm moving!. Mary found a nice place for me that's closer to work and significantly less creepy (and cheaper!) than Extended Stay America. I'm not gonna miss this place. I should be in the new place around August 9th, the same day Mary & Tori arrive for a week's visit.

Second, the house I went nuts over is no longer on the market. Sigh.

I have a day of house hunting ahead of me, so I will hopefully have more to report later.

I'm tired. I didn't think a day of looking @ houses could be tiring, but it is. We went all over and I liked two places, but this one, over in West Seattle, is - as far as I'm concerned - our new house.

It just needs to stay on the market long enough, and not go up in price, before our current home sells.

Anyone interested in a 2000 Nissan Maxima (black, fair condition, new alternator, new rear bakes, 118k miles) should contact me ( bob a-t rudis dot ten backwards) or leave a comment. It's in the Lehigh Valley area for those picking this up on Google. Will post pix this weekend.

Also selling a 2003 Rockwood Roo Hybrid Trailer/Camper. It's up on eBay and pix are here: http://flickr.com/photos/hrbrmstr/sets/72157600509692098/. We'd really like somewhere between 6K and 9K for it. Look at the listings for hrbrmstr on eBay since I'll probably keep re-posting it.

UPDATE: Camper got a $6,500.00 USD bid on eBay, so it may - in fact - be sold now. Watch for the Maxima next.

The countdown begins. Sunday ~0600 I'll be on a plane, bound for Seattle. I'm flying solo, and it's going to be horrible without Mary & the kids (and Ma *:^), especially given my accomodations (Extended Stay America - yay).

This event - which seemed so far away when we were over there for the last interview - kicks off a rather scary set of events that have to work out perfectly: fly out, look for house, put house on market, work with relo company to get stuff packed & ready to roll, sell house (more on that in another post), buy house, get fam over there, settle in house, get kids in school, breathe. It's not a comprehensive list and the order of events are more intertwined than a sequential text display can show easily. The "big 3" are sell house, buy house, move family. If the first two don't go well, it just means having completely drained finances and no place to either work or live. Gulp.

Thankfully, we can trust that things are in Much Better Hands than ours and that everything will work out the way it has to (if you catch me whining or being overly-anxious, just remind me of that every now and again).

I am definitely looking forward to the new gig and am eager for Monday to come, if only for that reason.

Watch for info on the house sale and pix from my new digs.