Moving to Seattle

You read it correctly.  After living in Gardiner for almost exactly 10 years, I moved to Seattle.  I had a lot of adventures in Yellowstone National Park, and now I'm starting a new chapter in life.  I have no idea what the future holds for me, but I'm hoping for new experiences and opportunities.

I found out around the beginning of April that I was going to need to move.  The house I lived in wasn't my own; it belonged to my grandmother, who no longer lives.  It was part of a family decision that the house was going to be rented out so that we could keep it in the family.  I was told at the time that a renter was going to occupy it May 1, but that never happened.  It's no matter though, it was only a matter of time before I had to move anyway.

The first part of April I spent saying good-bye to as many friends as possible in the area.  It takes a long time when your friends live all over the place.  My last hike in Yellowstone Park was with my friend Greg.  I went to Bozeman and literally had a day at the movies with another friend; we watched Transcendence and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  I was able to go to church at Calvary Chapel Bozeman on Easter Sunday and say good-bye to many people I'd befriended there.  (I hadn't been able to go to Bozeman very often lately because I had to save money so I could move.)  I still didn't get to say good-bye to many friends in the Livingston/Bozeman area that I wanted to.

I had a bit of an adventure getting my car fixed before I moved.  I originally expected to haul a trailer on the back of my Chevy Blazer when I moved, but I knew I had front end problems.  I went to Livingston on April 17 early in the morning to get them fixed.  By 2:00 p.m., the repair shop called me to tell me that they didn't have one of the right parts and that it would be the next day before it was fixed.  (They had to get the part from Billings.)  I was stuck in Livingston for the night!  It wasn't very convenient to stay with my dad and step-mom at their place, so I stayed the night at the Super 8, about 2 miles from the repair shop.  (I walked from the repair shop to the hotel.)  The next morning, the repair shop picked me up so I didn't have to walk in the rain and I was able to go home in a car that didn't make scary sounds.

My aunt Jean arrived in Montana on April 23 to help me move.  That day we met with some of her previous co-workers who live in the Bozeman area at IHOP, and had a good dinner.  The rest of her trip was extremely busy helping me.  By that point we decided that we would take anything that we cared about in case we couldn't come back.  That significantly increased the workload.  I had already started packing, but I wasn't really ready for the hurricane of activity to arrive.

Thunder helps us clean out the kitchen cabinets.

 Just before I headed out, my cousins Jared and Kassie came to visit me, and so did their mother Zana.  I was glad that I was able to spend a little time with them.  I hadn't seen them in almost two years.  While they were here, we had a bonfire in the field, burning the debris from the yard from the past seven years.

Jean poses with Kassie and Jared.

I left Gardiner on April 28.  I was actually a day late, but we had a larger workload that I originally intended.  I rented a U Haul truck with a trailer attached to it, and Jean was driving my Blazer with the cats and our overnight stuff.  Even looking at these last photos I took of the house, I'm still a bit sad, but as the Bible says, "The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride" (Ecc. 7:8, NIV).
 

After I arrived in Renton, Washington, a suburb of Seattle, on April 29, I put most of my stuff into a storage unit.  I was still spinning from the move; I was frazzled and frayed by the end.  Right now I'm staying at my aunt's house, and I'm looking for work in the area.

It's a whole new world for me.  I've been used to having to go 75 miles to get to Walmart or church.  Now the grocery store is across the street, as is a hardware store, a dry cleaners, and a few restaurants.  I know this move must be God's will because there's a Starbucks across the street too.

This past Sunday I went to New Life Church in Renton.  So far, I really like this church.  I hope I can continue to go there as long as my future work schedule allows it.

So now it's a new life and new experiences for me.  I've lived in the city before, but it's been a long time.  I've been doing a lot of praying lately trying to figure out what God's will for me is, and so far I've been surprised the whole way through.  I'm looking forward to what this city has to offer and what God wants to reveal in my life.