Cheryl's Blog

First Visitors

2008-10-15T14:33:00.000-07:00

October 15, 2008

Well, our first 7 weeks in Washington has been great! I love it here! I’ve been busy with learning a new city and organizing a new house so I haven’t had time to get homesick yet. Though, I do miss several things. I miss the wide streets of SLC. The streets here were definitely not designed by Brigham Young! They are narrow and go every which way. My Cadillac hogs the whole lane. There is no Chilis, no bagel shops, no Carl’s Jr, no indoor play land to take my kids to other than McD’s, no Super-Walmart, no dollar movie theater.

We had our first visitors on Oct 9 which were my mom, Karen, and my sisters, Jennifer and Brook. I picked them up in Seattle and we went to Pike’s Place Market. The flower bouquets there are so beautiful! My mom had been there several times before and has never been able to buy the flowers so this time she bought a big bouquet to take to my house. I couldn’t believe the prices on the flowers. Only $5, $10 or $15 for big, beautiful bouquets!

There was a cheese shop there and it was interesting because we got to see them making cheese. There were 2 large tubs about 10 feet long each. One tub was full of liquid on its way to becoming cheese and the other tub had formed cheese that was being cut into slabs and then fed into a cutting machine. It was so neat to see how it’s processed. Brook was so excited to buy cheese curds because they squeak when you eat them. I refused to try them. That just sounds so foul to me…squeaky cheese!

We found the best bread/pastry shop there too. Oh, they made the best cheese rolls filled with garlic and green onions. We even tried to make them at home with some success.

On our way to Pike’s, my mom informed us that we needed to get off the highway because there was no parking on the freeway for the market. Really mom? No parking on the freeway? I didn’t know. We laughed about that all weekend.

The next day on Friday, I sent my kids off to school and Evan off to work and showed them around Bellingham. We went to a waterfall that was gorgeous because the sun rays were streaking through the trees. The whole scenery was just breath taking. We went to the waterfront and walked along the boardwalk. We went to Evan’s office and Evan showed them around. We had yummy Mexican food and ate salsa buy the bowls full! And I showed them a couple other parks around here.

On Saturday we decided to cross the border and head to Vancouver, British Columbia. Evan stayed home with the kids so just us girls went. It took us 5 minutes to get across the border and 50 minutes to get back into the U.S. We made our way to the touristy part of town and spent the day there. We went to Granville Island Market and walked around the shops and then took a ferry ride around the water. We saw where the 2010 Olympic opening ceremonies will be and saw the Olympic Village under construction. We also drove around Stanley Park, Vancouver’s most visited park.

It was fun to see but too crowded. The streets are very narrow and smelled like exhaust and other things I won’t repeat here. It didn’t help that it was their Thanksgiving weekend.

I thought it was going to be really cold in Vancouver so I made everyone dress really warm. My alarm clock wakes me up to a Vancouver radio station so I hear how cold it is there every morning. Ever since I moved here, their temperature has been in the teens. I’ve always thought, ‘man, who would want to live there when it’s only in the teens during September.’ So, I packed my trunk with extra coats, hats, gloves, scarves, etc because my family didn’t come very prepared.

When we crossed the border I realized that Canada used kilometers for speed instead of miles so I pressed a button on my Cadillac and switch over to km. And wouldn’t you know it, that button also switched my temperature gage to Celsius and guess what it was in Canada, yep only in the teens. Yet only 15 minutes down the road it was in the 50’s. Yes, I’m dumb sometimes. It didn’t even dawn on me that Canada doesn’t use Fahrenheit like we do.

When we got home we met up with Evan and the kids and had dinner at Tino’s, an Italian restaurant in my neighborhood. We found out that Evan had been a busy dad that day. First he talked Olivia into getting her ears pierced. We’ve been trying to get her to do that for 2 years now and he finally got her to do it. He took her to the mall and helped her pick out earrings. Then he took her and Max to a deserted parking lot in our neighborhood and taught her how to ride her bike without training wheels. She was pretty excited!

On Sunday before my family flew out, we hiked the hill in our back yard to a rope swing and we all swung under the tree canopy. Even my mom swung. We then took them to the Bellingham airport which they ended up staying in for longer than they thought because their flight got cancelled because of mechanical problems. It made them miss their flight in Seattle. They were able to get on the next flight but then that flight was delayed an hour so they didn’t get home to SLC until 1 am.

Here is a link to some pictures I posted on Facebook from our weekend. I hope it works.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1029726295&ref=name#/profile.php?id=1029726295&v=photos&viewas=1029726295

Glassett's move to Washington!

2008-09-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Cheryl Glassett’s first ever blog! It may be pretty boring to you but this is going to be my journal so I can remember what’s happening in my life. If you’re interested in what’s going on with the Glassett’s, read on.

Evan was lured away to Bellingham, Washington by Evergreen Team Concepts. We moved up here on Thursday, August 28, 2008. They gave us some moving money so we hired a moving truck to load us up and deliver our household up here. We also hired an auto transporter to move our cars up here. We flew up here with Max and Olivia so we didn’t have to suffer and long drive with them.

Our house in Murray hasn’t sold yet but we’ve had about 20 lookers since July 11th. Hopefully the right person or family will find it soon so we don’t have to pay for 2 houses for very long.

Our house moved on Monday, Aug 25 and we stayed an extra 3 nights to clean and say goodbye to everyone. Our friends, the Walkers, loaned us sleeping bags, sheets, and an air mattress to use and we lived out of suitcases. Evan’s cousin, Paul, picked us up at 6:30 am to take us to the airport. It was sad to leave my house but I didn’t cry.

On our flight to Seattle there was a man in front of Evan from Erda (which is where my dad lives) and in back of Evan was a couple from Tooele (which is where I went to high school). He was the principal of Tooele High before my time there. He was the Erda man’s principal. It was just a strange coincidence that we were all sitting together.

Our cat, Truman, flew in the cabin with us. Nobody even had a clue that we had him. His case is black mesh and he is completely black and he didn’t make a sound on either flight. He was crazy nervous but he showed it by holding completely still. When we finally got to our house, he wouldn’t even get out of the case even though he’d been squished in the thing for 8 hours.

When we landed in Seattle, we made the mistake of assuming where our next flight would be and ended up in the wrong end of the airport. We had to take 3 different underground trains to get to the right gate. We would get off the train, run across the platform, and jump on another train. We were one of the last to board our plane. Thankfully it was running a few minutes behind.

Olivia was a nervous flyer. She’s done it twice before but was nervous this time about take off. She sat by Evan on the first flight and hung on his arm from the moment the plane started to back away from the gate to well into the air. She did the same to me on the second flight into Bellingham.

Max was an animated flyer. He got really excited about take off and landing and let the whole section of our planes know by yelling out. Of course it was cloudy and raining when we landed in both cities so the kids didn’t get to see the Puget Sound very well and the San Juan Islands near Bellingham. They did get to see a couple of volcanoes though.

A new co-worker of Evan’s picked us up at the airport and took us back to the office where they had lunch waiting for us. After a short visit, we went directly to Walmart to pick up a litter box, litter and food for Truman so he could do his thing. We then went to the property management company to pick up our new house keys and sign a bunch of paperwork. Finally we made it to our house.

There was a baby and mama deer sitting in our back yard. They just stared at us and didn’t run away until Olivia started to get too close to them. There are deer everywhere up here. They are so used to humans that they don’t run away unless you get really close. We also have tiny wild rabbits and beautiful blue jays here. There are huge blackberry bushes that anyone can pick blackberries from. We’ve already picked a bowl full. It’s so green and dense with pine trees in our neighborhood especially. It’s like living up in one of the Salt Lake canyons.

After letting Truman out and unloading our suitcases at the house, we went to the school to make sure the kid’s were registered. We then went back to the store and loaded up the car with supplies, food and sleeping bags. We only had to use the sleeping bags for 2 nights until our moving truck got here. Max asked when all the trees were going to go away. He didn’t like it that he can’t see very far.

Our cars were supposed to be picked up by the transporter the day before we left SLC but he didn’t come until Saturday. Our cars were finally delivered up here five days after we arrived. Thankfully Evan’s new company let us use the company car while we waited for them. My sister, Jennifer, and our neighbor, Joe were kind enough to drive our cars to the Winchester Park because the truck driver didn’t want to drive into our neighborhood.

When we got to our house we discovered that we didn’t have any blinds or curtains. YIKES! I did some crawling in my bedroom the first night. We also have no walls around our master bathroom shower so we have to shower in the kid’s bathroom. The shower enclosure is being installed on Sept 12.

On our second day here I discovered that Truman peed on the kid’s clothes in the middle of their suitcase. I HATE CATS!!!!! I would have totally left him in Salt Lake and saved myself $700 but no, I got out-voted by the family. I should have vetoed! Yes, you heard me….$700 to move our cat here. $200 for airline fees and a carrying case. $100 for the vet to examine him, give him shots, and give us a certificate to fly. And $400 in fees to the property management company for a pet deposit. Truman’s on death row with me. I only let him get away with it this time because he’s been so nervous about the move. But, he does it again….good-bye Truman! I HATE CATS!

My family wants a dog so bad. I told them that they can have a dog or a wife/mommy, take your pick but you can’t have both. I think they are leaning towards a dog.

We also met the kid’s teachers on our second day here and toured the school. It’s a nice school. A lot different from their previous school. We have to provide the kid’s supplies which is different that Utah.

We met a few of our neighbors so far. The family next to us actually came from Sandy, Utah by my sister, Jennifer’s neighborhood. Small world. A 15 yr old boy on the other side of us came and introduced himself. He came back the next day and stayed for about 30 minutes visiting. I was impressed with him because he was worried that his drum playing was disturbing us.

On Sept 2nd Evan started his new job and the kid’s started their new school. I told the kids that I was sad because I didn’t get to start anything new and Max said, “Hello, you get to start a new life!” Max and Olivia weren’t nervous or reluctant to start school. They both just make friends so easy and jump right in. They really like it which gives me great relief! They both start at 9:00 am but Olivia gets out of school at 2:30 and Max gets out at 3:30. It has something to do with the buses.

Evan really loves his new job. It’s been different for him to have a regular job again. They heaped a lot of responsibility on him but he’s ready and enjoying the challenge. Check out their website if you want to know more about his job. The site is up but it’s being redesigned I believe. Web: http://www.etcwa.com/

Well, this makes an end to me first blog entry. I hope I can get this to work right. I’m happy! I’m excited! I’m glad to be here! I haven’t gotten home sick yet because there’s been too much to do. Come and see us! We've got a guest bedroom. Glassett Bed & Breakfast is up and running!