Seattle WA

Yes, we are now in Washington state. Joe's new job at Amazon.com corporate office has moved our family of 6 (yes, 6. I'll save that story for later.) to Emerald City, Seattle. The whole interview process was really short, and within three weeks of applying, we knew that we had to leave our home in Lehi, Utah and move to Seattle.

The next three weeks are a blur... between sick kids, sick parents, de-cluttering, packing. etc. Fortunately, we had a lot of help from family, friends, and Amazon's relocation assistance program, and on the morning of Valentine's Day, 2014, we were ready to fly to Seattle.

Our stuff being loaded on the truck

The night before was an adventure. Since our house had been emptied the day before, we had to sleepover at Joe's dad's house in Bountiful. (It took 6 hours to box up everything we own, and another 10+ hours to load everything to the truck.) After hanging out with family, we were headed to bed at 10 pm -- the latest that the kids had gone to bed in a long time. Ellie and Alden fell asleep pretty quickly, but Eli had a difficult time falling asleep because he was free from the bounds of his crib. Between climbing over mommy, daddy, brother, and sister and smothering everyone's sleeping faces with his wet kisses, he was finally asleep just after midnight. Joe and I knew that it was going to be a difficult day with cranky kids, but we really had no idea what was waiting for us that day.

Joe's dad made us breakfast with banana pancakes, eggs, and bacon. We were somehow able to fit everything in our minivan. Three adults (Joe, his dad, and me), 4 kids, 4 check-in bags, 4 carry-on bags, 4 personal items, 4 car seats, and two strollers. After saying goodbye to Joe's dad, we checked everything in and headed towards security.

The first bump of the day started when I discovered that I had packed the bottle of hand sanitizer inside the carry-on bag instead of the check-in bag (it went in the trash can). We were two hours early to our flight, and we were determined to get on the plane early to get everything stowed away and ready to go. 20 minutes before the boarding time, Joe took Alden on a bathroom trip. After they got back, as I headed towards the bathroom with Ellie, they announced early boarding for families with little children (15 minutes early!). I gave up going to the bathroom and we hurried on to board. Imagine our surprise when Joe's boarding pass kept giving us an error and would not let us board the plane! 

Amazon was originally going to book us 6 seats for the flight, and we told them that 4 seats would suffice, since two of our children are under the age of 2. The travel agency had booked us 4 seats in the same row (Alaska instead of Delta since Delta didn't have 4 seats available in the same row) three weeks in advance. However, while reading Alaska Airline's policy online two days ago, we discovered that they didn't let 2 infants sit in the same row. We had to call the airline and eventually had to get separate seats (Joe alone with the baby two rows ahead of me with the older three kids). 

We thought that the problem had been resolved and were very upset that they would not let us board the plane early (especially since we gave up the bathroom trip). They tried scanning the boarding pass several times, overriding the system, and reprinting the passes, and eventually just had to let us on the plane because they couldn't find any problems (or solutions). 

As soon as we got to our seats, I realized that Eli was missing one of his shoes (He has a habit of taking his shoes of when he has to sit for a long time). After attempting to walk back out to find his shoe against the crowd that was filling in the plane for several minutes, I had to give up and ask for help. The flight attendants couldn't find the shoe, and we finally found it when they made an announcement over the PA system after everyone had boarded.

The flight itself was pretty good. Both Eli and Ellie fell asleep, and Al was pretty happy to be able to play his Nintendo DS. Ellie was still asleep when we arrived in Seattle, so we waited until everyone got off the plane to start getting our stuff. The flight crew was nice enough to help carry the baby and some of our bags, so Joe could hold Ellie. While we were getting off the plane, Eli lost his shoe again, and this time, we found it pretty quickly under one of the seats.

We walked towards baggage claim and found some chairs that we could sit and gather all of our belongings. Long story short, I had to change Eli's poopy diaper, Ellie peed through her diaper and on Joe's arm (from missing the bathroom trip before the flight), and it took us three hours to get the rental car and get out of the airport. 

We were all starving because we missed lunch, so we drove to H-Mart on Federal Way to have lunch and to buy groceries for the next week. We hurried and bought some pastries for the kids and ordered some black noodles for Joe and me. While we were waiting for the noodles to come, Al suddenly said, "Mommy, my tongue hurts!" I had checked the labels for the bread before purchasing them, and there were no peanut warnings! Joe went and asked if the bread Al had eaten contained peanuts, and they told him that it had peanut butter! I hurried and pulled out our emergency allergy medicine from the diaper bag and gave him some. I was so upset and went to tell them that my son had a deadly allergy to peanuts that makes his throat swell up. All they could say was that they were sorry and that they would trade me the peanut butter bread with something else! There was no time to argue, because Alden started saying that his throat was now hurting, and his tongue and lips were visibly swollen.

Minutes before Al started having allergic reactions

We hurried and put all the kids back in the cart and into the car and got the noodles in a to-go box, as we looked up the closest urgent care facility and got the Epi-pen ready. We parked our car in the parking lot and gave the medicine some time to work. I nursed the baby in the minivan full of kids and luggage, while Joe attempted to feed the bloated noodles to Eli and Ellie who were obviously hungry and upset that we had to leave before getting a chance to eat. Alden's symptoms started to reside, and he was starting to feel a little better but he insisted on going "home." We gave up shopping (and dinner) and started driving towards Bellevue, where our temporary housing is located.

On our way, we passed up two high speed car accidents, one of them being on the freeway and with car parts strewn across all four lanes (the police weren't even there yet). We had to carefully drive around the car parts. To add to the stress, Alden was still in shock from the allergic reaction and threw up in the back seat. By this point, we were just trying to survive and get home to wash up and pass out. As soon as we turned on to the road that our apartment is on, we heard a rhythmic thump-thump and realized that we had a completely flat tire (probably a result of the accident). We just pushed through and barely made it to the parking garage. I gave everyone a shower while Joe went back and forth to the garage to bring everything upstairs. Then I sent Joe on a quest to find us some food (on foot) while I fed the hungry kids now-super-bloated black noodles. 

After putting kids to bed, Joe and I gulped down some food, took a shower, and attempted to crash on the very squeaky bed while trying to put the baby down for the night. And Joe pulled out a piece of cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory for Valentine's Day! I was too tired to eat anything so I only had a couple of bites, but I'm glad the day at least ended on a good note... 

I should probably add that the next day, I realized my wallet was missing and it probably went missing during all the chaos on the first day. Hopefully all of our bad luck ran out and only good things will happen to us from now on. 

Kids snacking on Doritos

Sunday game time for the boys