Monday, August 3, 2009

First days in Washington

Let me just start by saying I love Washington. There is so much for us to do here and it looks just as I pictured it. I'm excited for all our future adventures together here. Now enough about that, lets talk about our first couple days here....

We drive 13 hours to get here from Utah. No problems. The dogs are being great and we split it in 2 days so it really wasn't that bad. Then when we get here everything changes.....

1. We got an awesome internet deal on a hotel that is pet friendly for $44 a night (cheapest we could find)but we check in and apparently they have a pet fee they don't mention which is $50 a night. (Now not so awesome $90 hotel.)

2. Then we dropped the dogs off and had a good time going to the base and other towns exploring for a place to live. The one place we loved is only building no already made homes for sale. Unfortunately, they said the earliest it could be done would be end of Jan. early Feb. (baby is due Jan. 26 ) That won't work.

3. After a long day we went back to the room and took the dogs for a walk and then at 9:30 Ben decided to go to Walmart to buy some groceries so we could save some money. He buys groceries comes out around 10 and the battery in the car is dead.

4. He tries to find someone to get him a jump. No one would help him. He called our insurance and luckily they sent someone out 45 min. later. After 3 jumps Ben finally made it back at 12:30 a.m. (With McDonalds for dinner and a movie for me, isn't he amazing?) But we had no dvd player in the room to watch it :/ so we watched it on the laptop with subtitles because you can't hear it. lol.

5. Next morning we get another jump, take it to walmart to replace the battery. There's a long wait but we have no choice and they say they'll call us so we just waste time in Walmart. Guess what, they never call we go check on it and it's been sitting there. (oh well, at least it's fixed.)

6. It's still pretty early and Ben's b-day is coming up and he wants a new phone so we go look for an iphone. Apparently Washington doesn't like it because we couldn't find it anywhere. No one would sell anything to us. Horrible service. Half of the time we would walk into a store and not one person would be in there. Weird.

7. Forget the phones, we realize our registration for the car is expired in 2 days so we run to the registration office, bring the title we have and it's the wrong one. We could only get a temporary paper registration until we mail off for our new title. And it would cost us an extra $23 on top of what we need to pay.

8. Ben's license expires on his b-day so we go to get a new Washington license, he can't have one until he proves he is a resident here. How does that work, since you have to have a Washington ID to be a resident? Weird.

9. As we were running all these errands occasionally I would run into some man or teenage boy who would try to hit on me. What kind of men like to hit on pregnant women? Gross. (unless its your wife, that's okay)

10. Ben was supposed to check in on this day (Friday) but when he called in turns out Friday everyone was off. Good thing he called in. Monday he checks in now.

11. We decided to go to Walmart again to get some stuff we had forgotten, and just our luck Ben was wearing a byu hat and the cashier said he didn't help mormons. But, he was just kidding I guess.

12. Then went home and went down to the front desk to pay for the internet so we could use it, turns out its free and everyone can get it but us. Joy.

13. Now I'm just grumpy, go to bed, wake up next morning to take the puppies outside at around 8 and I hear all these sirens. Turns out there was a criminal in our hotel and a guy is getting arrested right where I need to take the puppies. (Now I feel safe)

14. Last but not least, we go to church yesterday. I was so excited to make a friend and I had so many military related questions on decisions we should make so I wanted to get their advice. We even made sure to go to the ward right next to the base so there would be military. We get there, the bishop tells us Ben is the only pilot in the whole ward. Very few military. It was fast and testimony meeting and a lady got up and told us someone had gotten shot at her work that week. (freaky) I went to relief society there were only 3 rows in that room and the first 2 were all new visitors and half of them had just barely gotten baptized. The people were very nice but I don't think that ward is for us. The area is sketchy right there and I think I need to find a ward with more friends that I can make and more support for when Ben is gone all the time.

15. That is all I have for now. Ben and I thought all of this was very comical, and I would've blogged about it sooner but refer to number 12 (free internet didn't work for us)

6 comments:

Kimbo said...

Oh my goodness! I've been thinking about you guys and wondering where yall are at in your adventures. Needless to say after reading this post you are having quite a few crazy adventures since we last talked. Hope things look up. I guess the only thing you can do to get through moments like the 15 plus mentioned above is to laugh. Glad you like Washington though :) Miss ya!!!

Rebecca M said...

Poor things! I really hope things look up quickly, and you guys get happily settled! We'll be thinking of you! :)

Mari said...

Oh goodness! I feel embarrassed that my new state has given you such a bad impression. I'm glad you can still see the beauty in it though! We'll have to take a weekend and go to Seattle together. It would be so fun!

Unknown said...

Oh my goodness! That sounds pretty interesting...sorry that it couldn't be absolutely perfect, but you will look back and laugh so hard on these days. I miss you, but so glad that I could see you those two times. I can't wait to see belly pictures up on here!

Christine said...

La Quinta's don't charge pet fees, that's what we use when we travel :] Hope Washington turns out better. I wish I was there! You'll have to come visit us in Tucson sometime.. teehee. Or maybe we'll come and visit you.

Carissa & Jonathan Kougias said...

Wow! That sounds similar to our trip to jersey, but ours wasn't quite as bad! Things will be better once your settled down! Keep us updated! =)