Easter Visit from Sunny So Cal…

Posted by Jay in Seattle

Alicia and Keith came to visit us this weekend from So. Cal. The weather cooperated on Saurday for our quick tour of Seattle and for the Seattle Sounders game they came to see that evening. Unfortunately, Saturday was the only day without rain! Sunday and Monday were very, very wet.. but then it wouldn’t be Spring in Seattle if it didn’t rain. We took a ferry ride to Kingston and went to Pikes Place Market (a must for visitors). We hope you visit again soon.. or better yet, maybe you’ll be our future neighbors?

The rest of the pictures will be posted to the gallery soon..

Tulip Festival = No Tulips??

Posted by Jay in Seattle

So we took a nice drive up to the Skagit Valley today to go see the world famous Washington Tulip Festival. There were supposed to be rows and rows of beautiful colored tulips that make Holland look like a small garden.  After 2hours of cruisin, all we found were a small patch of dafodils. I guess the cold-snap for the past few weeks has made the tulips not wanna come out. Dafodils not = tulips.

But we got a couple of nice pictures anyway.

Mateo Visits his Tia’s

Posted by Jay in Vacations

Mommy and Mateo took the weekend trip down to Los Angeles to visit family and friends. I personally think Mateo wanted to show off his cute baby cheeks so everyone could pinch them. For a baby that loves attention and Aunts that love to give him lots of it - You can imagine he was in baby heaven for those three days :)

The funniest thing is that everyone from Mommy’s family says he looks like Dad and everyone from Dad’s family say he looks like Mommy when they see him. I should post our baby pictures and put it to a vote to see what other’s think. But back on topic – both Mommy and Mateo had a great time and miss everyone a whole bunch. We can’t wait to visit again!

Rest of the pictures here in the gallery.

Family Sedans Rock!

Posted by Jay in Car, Seattle

So I picked up a new hobby last year. Mommy thought it would be something cute like badminton, golf, mountain biking, competitive chess, or stamp collecting – no no, it had to be drag racing. Well not exactly like professional drag racing, just taking the family sedan out to the local drag strip every once in a while to humilate all those middle-aged men in supposed sports cars to kick some butt and do it with an empty baby seat in the back.

Just doing it once, I can see how the need for speed is definitely addicting. I did feel bad a guy with a brand new Dodge SRT8 Challenger loss to the family car. Same with the new Pontiac GTO, various Mustangs and other sports cars. To be fair, I wasn’t really driving a mini-van but to say they didn’t see it coming would be an understatement. Corvette speed on the way to the supermarket never gets old :) Video of my weekend fun:

O-HI-o?? Yes OHIO!!

Posted by Jay in Ohio

"What you talking ’bout Willis???!" Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus and he lives in OHIO! Well after the last 6 months of ups and downs of the financial industry and the situation with my work at WashintonMutual and the collapse of the company last fall, things have worked itself out for the better and we have received a great offer for a permanent position with JP Morgan Chase in Columbus, OH. So we will be required to move out of the city we’ve grown to love here in Seattle and head on out to Columbus to make a new homestead.  Fortunately, we have lots of flexibility and can move anytime between now and this the fall - so we’ll take our time to get our house ready for sale and start to look around the city of Columbus.

I’m in Columbus this week and Norma and Mateo will be joining me later on this weekend to get a lay of the land and get a chance to see some of Columbus’ neighborhoods. The company will also fly us out for a few more familiarization trips to get to see more of Columbus and do some house hunting as part of the move package. Needless to say in researching the city – the cost of living is very very cheap compared to the places we’ve lived in Seattle or L.A.  A house of our size would be half the cost with twice as much land and a basement in most cases. Gas is running about $1.60 a gallon, so driving to work won’t be so bad since we’ve grown accustomed to the Seattle public transportation here (its great btw!).

So we’re excited as we get ready to start this new phase of our lives and explore a place of the U.S. and the portion of the Midwest that neither one of us has had a chance to see.  So 2009 brings new opportunities, new jobs, and a new home – but things will still stay the same since it’s our friends and family that matters most and we promise to stay in touch (and visit often!)