Countdown

Not many posts from Emily here because we don’t have much news to report.  We have just one more week here in Dayton.  We have been doing lots of swimming and the girls are getting good and comfortable in the water.  Camille and Elyse can both do a fairly decent backstroke, and Camille can float on her back for minutes at a time.  Elyse is working on the breast stroke (she prefers not to get her face in).  They have MANY new suits for the beach!

Chris will fly to Dayton on Sat. Aug 2nd to meet us.  We are getting very excited to see Daddy!!  It’s been a long 4 weeks without him.  On Sun, the whole Browder family will fly down to the beach.  Ben, Bitsy, Zack (and Andy for a short time) plus Mom Dad and Nini will all be COZY together for 2 weeks at our same little beach house in Garden City, just south of Myrtle Beach, SC.  From there the Browders will fly to Seattle on Aug 15th and then the craziness will really start!

I’m a survivor…

This is Chris _again_. Anyone else sick of me and want to hear about the girls? Yeah, me too. “I will survive, Keep on survivin’, I’m a survivor, …” or the alternate title I was thinking was “The bike ride from hell.” But that seemed to imply flat tires, hiking with the bike, things like that. No this was just a long bike ride of my own doing. Emily’s and my bike boxes arrived on Friday from Cleveland. On Friday, I set mine up but it was late and I didn’t motivate to go out. On Saturday, I took Frankie and Rick (the people I’m staying with) to the Airport. This would be a good day to go for a long bike ride and maybe see the house we are interested in buying. Good idea right? Get some exercise, see the neighborhood. So these are the directions (click) if you went by car. Now 13.3 miles out and 13.3 miles in isn’t too shabby for a bike ride. Right? Well, my problem was I didn’t exactly look at this map beforehand. And well, I thought lake sammamish was little farther north. At ~2 PM I started out of Holmes point and went toward Bothell to catch the Sammamish River Trail. I knew that the trail led to the lake and the house was on the north end of the lake. So I’d avoid all the busy roads and take the trail the whole way there. Now that’s a good idea! However, taking that route goes by these directions (click). Note: You need to zoom in a ways to see the actual trail. These are approximate w/ roads. Actually, I made a couple wrong turns and really followed something more along these directions (click). Again, zoom in to see the trail. We’re getting close to 50 miles now, if not over. Remember this is a trail following a river not a road, so it is winding. And, this isn’t a flat 50 miles. Seattle is more like San Francisco it has plenty of hills. So at 2pm, I started out fine even though to get out of Holmes point to Juanita is a steep grade for about 20 minutes. I stopped near Woodenville park I think. I’m not sure the name but later in the evening they had a Shakespeare in the park. Semi circular thing, you can find it if you look on the map. Near 131st Ave NE & NE 175th St. I wasn’t in a hurry, just out for a day bike ride. I had a little snack, read my book a little, called Emily. Now it’s 4pm or somewhere around there. I went off down the trail. Emily was a big help (I called her on my cell) and she told me to head for Marymoor park, and then take W Lake Sammamish Parkway to NE 24th ST and that’ll get me close. I eventually got to W Lake Sammamish Parkway and was taking it. What I didn’t realize was, if you continue on it, it actually turns into Bellevue-Redmond (Bel-Red) road! You have to take a left to stay on W Lake Sammamish Parkway. Woops! Ok so I finally got that corrected, thanks to an annoyed Emily who I called again. I was a bit frustrated at this point, but really it was my own fault here. I was about 4 miles off course. I eventually got to the house though there was plenty of up and downs on the way. I did take pictures along the way. Here they are (click). The ride back was a killer. My legs were tired when I turned back. Mainly because there is a step uphill, and oh of course I didn’t know about W Lake Sammamish Parkway so I went back to Bel-Red road. My legs were killing by the time I got back to that park. There was a Shakespeare in the park that I stopped for. However, it was a bit of an amateur show and I didn’t want to stay too long. Just enough to stretch out my legs and get back home! It was now 7pm! I’m going pretty slow at this point apparently. I can’t force the peddles around like I was doing before. The ride home has a long ascent (of course) and then a quick and step descent. I stopped in the middle of the ascent to get some water (restocked at the park) and stretch again. I got home around 8:15pm. I ate some food feeling exhausted. By 9:30pm, I was a zombie on my feet and went to bed. Might do a shorter ride today .

Oh, I forgot to mention that in my pictures of the ride. I took some of the elementary school. There is actually a path right by the house that goes to the elementary school. So that is nice. The Sammamish Forest Manors is where the pool is (and pretty close as well: 175th Ave NE vs house on 179th Ave NE). Not sure if you have to be a resident of the manors to get in or if you can pay to be a member. They have tennis there as well.

House Hunt 2

Hi. This is Chris in Seattle again. First, is anyone reading this? Or is it a waste of time? Remember this is web 2.0. If you don’t know what that means, it means _YOU_ need to interact with this to keep it going. So I want to see some comments. Otherwise, this “well of information and insight” will dry up. Ok, so I went on my second house hunting trip with redfin. This time in various parts of Bellevue. I took over 300 pictures through 5 houses. Here are two that we like House 1 (click) and House 2 (click) The first house we like much better, but of course costs quite a bit more. The second is more a value pick. Both are very close to elementary schools (walking distance) and in good school districts. It looks like we may make an offer on House 1! http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.browder/ has other house you can look at also. One thing is that you have to get used to the house economics out here vs Cleveland. You can’t think “I could have bought my house and each of my neighbors houses for this price!” Ok, you can think it, but you also have to rationalize (convince yourself) that it’s an investment. Cleveland houses might be cheaper but those $’s don’t appreciate. In Seattle, they should appreciate and make you some money. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. I have new appreciation for my grandparents and parents when they say “We bought our house for $35,000 and couldn’t believe anyone could pay so much for a house.” We are in the same boat now. Our bikes arrived yesterday, and I set up my bike. I might go out for a bike ride and take some pictures. I’ll post links to here if I do. I also have a ton of work to catch up on. Have a VP review on Monday for one of my projects that is new, so I should get prepared. -chris.

House Hunt 1

Hi this is Chris in Seattle. Just a quick update. Went house hunting with the redfin agent yesterday at lunch. Started at 11am and got back around 1pm. We went around Magnolia and to that Mercer Island House. I posted all the pictures, but they are all deleted now except for the Mercer Island place. Click here. Overall it was a disappointing day. Magnolia is nice and convenient to work, but our price range hits the low end of the market in Magnolia. I looked at six places and most of them were in pretty bad. They were all 1930’s or before homes. One covered in wall paper and 30’s carpet, one had a basement that I wouldn’t let the kids go in (and a garage that was scarier). Emily definitely wasn’t happy with them. The Mercer Island one is still on my list, but definitely lost points with the walk through. You can post your comments here after looking at the pictures. Today I’ll go out again and look at Bellevue. But overall, Magnolia is _not_ cheaper than Bellevue. Oh, and that house I liked in Magnolia? What happened with it? It’s a “pre-sale” foreclosure place. The owner is trying to sell it, but for less than he/she owes. So apparently it takes a while for the _bank_ to agree to sell it if they do at all (likely they feel they get more out of auction or something). Redfin agents won’t do those.

Elyse is back to normal

Finally after nearly 2 weeks of being sick, Elyse is eating again.  She lost 2 pounds while she was sick (she must have stuck them on little Harry:)  On Thursday, the girls, Harry, my mom & I went to the beauty shop and got our hair cut.   Above is a picture of us afterwards.  As you can see, Camille decided to go short for the summer.  Also, Harry got to try swimming in the big pool.  He did really well and didn’t mind it a bit.  Then yesterday girls and I headed out to Target  (a 15 min. drive which is forever since our Target was just a 1 mile bike ride away in Cleveland).  I walked in and almost felt like I was home again, except I didn’t run into anyone I knew.  I can barely read the Chris’ blogs below–I feel rather sick about leaving Cleveland and thinking of my empty house makes me want to cry.  SO, I just continue in my denial of this move and tend to the kids.

House is empty

Today started with the vibration of my cell phone alerting me that it was 6:30am and the loaders were coming. They arrived with a large moving trouble (think large semi with two trailers). It’s length stretched from in front of our neighbor next to us just south of us. Four guys worked from 6:30 until 3:30pm moving boxes first down the stairs where they piled up, to the front lawn where they piled to, until the driver loaded them into his truck. For mom and I it was a tiring day (for me anyway) constantly going around the house looking for things we or they had forgotten. It’s amazing how many times you can go in a room and find new things you’ve left behind (how empty is an empty room really?). The new schedule has us thrown off a bit. They were originally supposed to load Monday and they wanted to push it to Saturday (which honestly is fine with me), but it doesn’t give us the downtime I was expecting to run last minute errands and maybe sneak a couple of extra boxes of packed stuff into the mix (that maybe, strictly speaking, weren’t supposed to be on the truck). So I did a lot of that today as well. My flight is now on Sunday so I can get back to work for some new Monday meetings. I used my hotel points to get a cheap (points-wise) room at the Hampton Inn across from the Great Northern Mall here. I’m writing from the hotel now. I need a shower and then we are going to walk the mall and get some food maybe. The cat is still at the house. We’ll pick him up tomorrow early morning and get him situated. We bought a new, larger carrier because the old one was mysteriously packed and who knows where now. Hopefully the larger carrier will make him more comfortable, but I forsee him crying (imagine baby crying, he sounds just like that) the whole way. My flight is at 8:40am tomorrow, so it’ll be an early morning again. Need to get to the house one last time to help my mom with the cat and then itl’ll be off to Seattle again. Frankie Anderson (colleague/friend who I am staying with in Seattle) is gracious enough to not mind (or say she doesn’t mind) me staying for the rest of the month. So it’ll be me back to finding a house. I’m now really leaning toward Magnolia/Queen Anne. THe pricing is better and it would be nice to be _really_ close to work since that is what I’m used to. And the neighborhood is really nice for the girls with a school nearby and parks (hey and the zoo is on that side too). So I’m scheduling tours next week with an agent and we’ll see. So 2 weeks until vacation and I _need_ to try to get the buying process started if possible. Not sure if Emily is in agreement there. It’ll be really hard for her to come out and harder to agree on a house (and city!) she’s never seen. But that’s the next puzzle to work out some how. One thing at a time… Cat, Flight, House… (ohh and work always).

House is packed

This is Chris in Cleveland. While Emily dips her toes in her parents pool and basks in the sun enjoying cool sips of lemonade, I’m in Cleveland getting the house closed, packed, loaded and moved. I left Thursday evening around 11pm on the red-eye arriving at 7am which left and arrived an hour late. Mom had arrived on Thursday to do any last little bit before the packers. On Friday morning, mom picked me up and we finished up the last minute items. We took down the pictures, I took down the TV, unplugged everything, Mom mowed the lawn for the last time, dismantled the swing set, etc. It filled the better part of the early morning. The packers arrived late because of the funeral procession for the killed police officer. They were all nice guys (if perhaps not real experienced). I did the closing of the house, signing “Emily J Clark Browder by Christopher E Browder, POA” about a thousand times exactly as typed. So now we are really, officially homeless (where does one put a forwarding address lets say?!). I took care of Elyse’s bike and also had Emily and my bike shipped to Seattle (we’ll see if we actually get to use them). The packers finished at 7pm or so. The guys came over for cards and we played into the wee hours of the night. Who needs sleep right? The loaders called and wanted to come early (6:30am, woops). I said: Why not. They were originally scheduled for Monday but now we can get it all over with. It’s 7:45am right now on saturday, and the loaders are here. They indicated we might be over the original estimate. I also mentioned that he’s welcome to drag is feet and get to Seattle as slowly as possible. He said he’ll visit his family and stay there a couple of days. May give us some extra time in storage which would be good. That’s our main logistical issue right now is that temp housing seems to go long enough, but Temp storage for the “stuff” runs out 2 weeks before temp housing. Still that’s 30 days of overlap and hopefully we can get the ball rolling on purchasing a house.
In case anyone was worried, Eli will be going to camp Browder in Falls Church for summer vacation until we have someplace to receive him. I’m sure he’ll love a flight from Washington DC to Seattle.

Here is my todo list (in pretty good shape I suppose):
• Cancel cox service: (216) 535 3500 / 001 6011005702708
• Return cable box
• Money to Shawna
• Check book
• Emily’s contacts
• Michells gift card $4
• Mom massage -> schedule | $40 for 1 hour, Emily has 15 min free from Little Gym winning | Leonard Chiropractic; Lorain Rd

• Swing Set
• TV down
• Speaker wires & speakers on wall leave
• Office desk out (or stay? let’s just let it stay)
• mow & remove fluids from mower
• do something with the propane tank
• chemicals & fluids
• sleep (tomorrow maybe)

Seattle Relo Update

This is Chris again. Just a quick update. I have my itinerary coming into Cleveland. Arrive 6am on Friday (18-Jul) and return 8:45pm on Monday (21-Jul). My mom is driving up Thursday afternoon and will help with the packers and movers with me. Baby steps to relocating. I’m jealous of Jon and Elizabeth who are “vacationing” for 2 years in Dubai and don’t have to relocate all their stuff! Oh and it’s not just the relocation folks that aren’t helping. USAA actually wrote up the pre-approval for the new home loan wrong so I got to go through that again. But I have it now and will likely be using redfin (see www.redfin.com) to purchase the house. Or at least I will try. They give 2% back from the 3% commission (and technical picky people will note that it is “technically” 66.67% of the 3% which comes to 2% overall). Anyway, that’s big bucks when a house can be $600K (get $12K back). Check out the site. Still lots on my list to do. oh and work too! -chris.

Back to the doctors

Elyse, Harry & I headed to urgent care where we discovered Elyse had a double ear infection (funny-she didn’t even complain about her ears hurting).  My mom is calling it a “Supervirus”-she had an ear infection that maybe didn’t go away completely in June, got the throw-up virus last week and then while her immune system was down, the ear infection came back full strength.  Anyway, she still has a fever but will hopefully be better after her second dose of antibiotics tomorrow morning.  While we were at the urgent care we weighed Harry again.  The bruiser weighs 14 lbs. 6 oz.  That’s more like it!  The day wasn’t a total loss though–the kids and I, Gigi & Pop Pop and Nini had a lovely dinner out back complete with b-day cake and ice cream.