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Gabe has finally moved out of the HFS world so a going away party was necessary. Armin sent out an email and some HFSers and former HFSers met at the College in for a few drinks. Jayson, Armin, Sue, Christie, Ramel and I all showed up. We swapped HFS gossip, had a few beers, ate some nachos, and then I had to go to meet a potential room mate. Of course, the guy showed up more than an hour after he said he would, and then he wasn’t interested in the room. People are really good at wasting other people’s time. Kim and I went to Jim’s real estate class since he’d doing it for free and Kim hasn’t been. We got there an hour into the class and Jim was dressed in overalls pretending to be the maintenance guy. After intermission he came in wearing a suit pretending that he was late and that the maintenence guy had taught the first half of the class. Quite the character that Jim.

While my Dad is off in Kenya building wells and hippo fences, my mom decided to come for a visit and see our new house. Kim and I went to see the Incredibles Friday night with Brigid and Gabe, and it was a great movie! I want to see it again. I love Pixar’s movies.

My mom arrived Saturday and we first bought a lawnmower, and then went to the EMP (Experience Music Project). As usual, we spent most of our time in the interactive room with all the instruments. We wandered around the exhibits for awhile and then went to dinner. We ate at Julia’s on Capitol Hill since we had a Chinook book coupon. The food was pretty good and they had live Jazz singing. Kim requested some Ella Fitzgerald songs which the wonderful singer was happy to do.

Sunday morning we all spent a few hours doing yard work. We raked the leaves that fall off of our fruit trees and cut the grass. The lawnmower that we got is a non motorized, push, reel mower, and the grass was really long so it was hard work. After yard work we went to the zoo. The zoo is always a fun time. We saw most of the African animals and ended up in the bat house at closing time. I joked with my mom that she probably saw more animals than my dad did these past few weeks.

After the zoo we came back to the house to relax in front of the fire. Mom spent another night, but I had to get up in the morning and go to work so we said quick goodbyes and she drove home in the morning.

We came together to witness democracy in action. We started hopeful and quickly became depressed. At least we had beer and candy. Thao and her boyfriend Thai (sp?) showed up with a friend of theirs who was pro-Bush. His argument was that he worked in the medical instruments industry and that Bush was a lot better for the industry. Interesting. Things look bad for Kerry. Four more years of terror. People need to learn. That won’t happen until we find alternate sources of information. Read my political site. Watch the Daily Show. Do something besides listen to the corporate owned nightly news. Please.

I guess this is the first holiday in our new house. Deborah, Jesse, Travis and Brian all came over Halloween night to hang out and hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. Now that we have a house, we thought we might get kids in costumes at our door asking for candy, but none came. We set a pumpkin out and had the lights on and everything, but this just must not be a neighborhood for trick-or-treating. Apparently the mall is the new popular place to trick-or-treat because it’s safe. Lame.

Since no trick-or-treaters came to our door, Brian, Travis and I had to go trick-or-treating. Brian was a big pink bunny, Travis was the candy burglar, and I mostly just wore my Bush mask. Some Democrats wouldn’t give candy to Bush. Poor Bush. We scored a lot of candy since it was late and people were just giving it away at that point.

To finish Halloween, we watched Donnie Darko. Then we tried to figure out what the hell it was about. Let me know if you think you know.

Right down the street from my office is the 911 Media Arts Center, a non-profit group the Krekow Jennings has been donating to by helping them renovate their new office location. To celebrate the opening of the new space Krekow Jennings threw a Halloween party there. There was live Reggae music, catered food, free alcohol, strange live performance art, and lots of great costumes.

Kim found a dress at the thrift store that she immediately knew she wanted to be part of her Halloween costume, she just wasn’t sure exactly how. She put on some face makeup and a black veil and looked pretty spooky, although I’m not sure what she was exactly. The pumpkin on her head in the picture was just sitting around and was fun for pictures. I went as a three headed Republican. Now that’s scary, especially when you have cowboy Bush, ghoulish Cheney and hulky Arnold.

We ate, drank, danced and socialized until the party began to die down and then went home tired and satisfied. You can see all the party pics on Image Station (you’ll have to have an account but they’re free).

Kim’s Aunt Mary Anne has been visiting for the last four days. Kim and Mary Ann have been a whirlwind of activity, and have seen and done a LOT in four days: the zoo, the space needle, the aquarium, two imax movies, a trip to Mt Rainier, the science center, and more. I’ve been able to join them for some of their activities, but I’ve had to work during the day. I really need to find a way around that.

All this has been amidst Kim and I getting settled in our new house. It’s been busy the last few weeks, and I think this weekend it’s time for some rest. Thank goodness.

We have internet and TV at the new place. Of course the cable guy showed up late (you’d think the 4 hour window they give you would be vague enough that being on time shouldn’t be a problem, but no), but I’m happy as long as I have internet. So isolated without it, nerd that I am.

We cleaned out our old apartment and it was harder than we thought. Our apartment manager has changed twice since we’ve been there, so the current manager wanted to charge us for a bunch of things that were already problems in the apartment when we moved in like nasty baseboard heaters. We also forgot to clean behind the fridge and stove. Fortunately the manager was reasonable and let us go back in and clean a bit more and let a few things slide after we explained them to her. We got out with only about $70 in carpet cleaning fees and such.

It already seems like the unpacking will never be done, although Kim made a huge dent in the mess today while she was waiting for the cable guy. We ran into a problem setting up our tall four post bed. First we realized that the ceiling was too low to screw the posts on while the bed was already up so we took it apart. Then when we went to put it up we discovered that the ceiling is about a half inch lower in one spot so not all the posts fit so we have to leave the tip of one post off. Then the bed was super wobbly because we put the side slats in the wrong holes. We’re getting the locks changed tomorrow and we don’t know where we get mail yet.

We really haven’t had much time to enjoy the new house yet, but I can see that once things are in their place it’s going to be really nice. It’s a good thing that we don’t have other people moving in yet because it would be absolute madness I think.

A bunch of our friends showed up on Saturday to help us move despite the awful weather. With all the help we were able to move just about everything in 3 and a half hours. Thanks to Armin, Wentz, Gabe, Ramel, Cameron, Brian, Patrick, Preston, and Jacob. Kim and I had a LOT more stuff than we thought we did. It’s amazing what you can fit into an apartment over the course of a year.

Once the moving and the drizzle let up enough, we had a barbecue. Once again, everyone was very helpful: Travis was the grill meister, Cameron sliced and diced the cheese and onions, and Ramel even stayed late to help put away the food and dishes. Jim and Mel even stopped by, had a few burgers, socialized with the younger crowd and brought a birthday present for me. Most people left after a few hours, but a few people stayed around to sit in front of our new stove and enjoy the new house. This mostly involved sitting around in front of the fireplace and drinking beer and talking about math and politics. The pellet stove makes a really nice atmosphere.

We’ve still got to move a few random things out of our apartment and clean it for the inspection on Monday.

This last week or so has been insanely busy getting everything in order to close on our house. I always heard that closing takes a while, and now I know why. We did a fairly fast closing and it feels like we’ve had to cram a whole lot into a short period of time: insurance, utilities, renters, escrow, title, moving. We’re almost there though! We’re having a move in party this Saturday and anyone is invited. I’ve sent out emails to people I know live close by, but it’s possible that I forgot someone. Sorry if I did. People who have time are helping us move at 1 PM and then we’re having a barbq at the house at 4 PM. I can’t wait to be moved, but what a pain moving is.

Kim, Brian, Bridgid and I went for a hike in the Cougar Mountain area. It’s only about 15 miles from Seattle so it was close enough that I didn’t have to drive too far. Now that I have a car I’m really tired of driving. The weather was perfect for a hike. It was sunny and the air is just starting to get chill.

We hiked about 6 miles in a loop around the Wilderness Peak area. Bridgid and Brian hiked fast and far ahead while Kim and I took a more leisurely pace and enjoyed the views (I’m being sarcastic because there weren’t really any views).

After hiking through a lot of dense, wet, northwest style forests we arrived at Wilderness Peak, which is just a bench at a high point in the middle of the woods with no view. We stopped here to have lunch. We ate the biggest apple that I’ve ever seen. It was so big that it was hard to get your mouth around a piece of it to take the first bite. It fed all four of us and there were left overs. That’s how big it was.

On the way down we found a really odd shaped tree that was just asking to be climbed and straddled. So I did. Then we went home and the weekend was over. I want more weekend.