PA Life, Young Love, Hobbies, and Life of an Up-Rooted Alaskan: More Moments in the Emerald City

We’ve finally settled into our new place. It’s been wonderful and exciting, but I am not sure if I will ever fully adjust to the city. I am thankful that we live right next to Seattle University, and within their few little acres are beautifully landscaped and wooded retreats from the traffic and noise. This city is exciting and busy and shiney and new! But loud with lots of people and concrete. Needless to say, Cooper gets walked through SU’s campus most days. We’ve been trying to explore lots of the parks, and we have been so lucky with warm spring weather in the midst of January. We spent an amazing afternoon at Discovery Park yesterday, Seattle’s largest park with beach access. Seth and I grew up on the Alaskan beach, and I spent many many weeks of my childhood camping and fishing on the Pacific, and being back on a west coast beach yesterday felt so very right. This isn’t home, but it is pretty dang close and for that I am grateful.

Other things we’ve done: I think we’ve found the church we’re going to being staying at. Churches aren’t exactly in plethora in Seattle, and this one is excellent. No church is perfect, but this one fits many of my personal preferences. An intellectual pastor who does a mix of expository and topical preaching, diverse array of people of all ages and stages of life, a good balance of high quality music, media, and design without it being the focus, and it’s within walking distance of our apartment. More importantly though, sound doctrine and everyone is just excited to be there. We went to a ‘newcomers dessert’ last night to meet everyone on staff and learn a little bit more. If you’re in the churchy world, chances are you know who Mars Hill Church is, who was based here in Seattle, and that big fall out. It never dawned on me that this church would have to do a lot of healing for people who were a part of Mars Hill. People had lots of questions about how Downtown Cornerstone Church was learning from that situation, and that was definitely addressed. Also, the church itself has a few goals just being part of this city and one of them I thought was really awesome is “for every Seattleite to know and respect 1 Christian.” Seemingly easy task for a Bible belt Roanoke or southern town, but not here. This is an entirely different demographic and way of life.

Lastly, Seth started his job today! Yay and sad! He got a temporary 4-month position as a data analyst. Good resume builder and some income while continuing to look for that long-term position. It is very bittersweet him going back to work though. We needed money like, yesterday, but not going to lie, haven’t hated naps together every day, non-chalantly going to work out, perhaps going to bed at 9pm or 2am, taking Cooper wherever to explore, whatever we want! But this is America, and much of life is spent getting money. But that’s ok. Because I need to restock my pantry to start really cooking again, and there’s only 10,000 restaurants to try so a paycheck will be exciting. I have had some great first and second round interviews for various PA positions but am currently in the waiting process to hear back decisions. So things are in the works! Until then, just trying to appreciate this time off and I guess it’ll just be me, Coop, and Soph for the afternoon nap.

Yellow morning light. You can sort of see our mountain view. It's typically pretty foggy in the mornings.

Rainy afternoon. Sophie is adjusting fairly well to being a 100% indoor cat now, although she does angrily meow at the front door when one of us takes Cooper out.