From Texas to Washington, Part I: Preparations

Late last year, K was told that his contract would not be renewed with the practice because the new office just didn't have the client demand that they had expected. This was undoubtedly for the best, since there were some personal conflicts going on as well, and K hadn't been as happy there as he hoped. Since this site is available to the public, that's all I'm going to say on that matter, but if you know us well, I'm sure you've heard our complaints!

K started going on his interviews early this year. His top choice in Virginia wasn't hiring, so he interviewed in Boston, St Louis, Sacramento, and Seattle. Boston was an easy elimination. The job just wasn't right. The other three were harder to choose between. My mother was rooting for St Louis because it was the closest and most driveable (she hates flying.) They also offered him the most money and had a reasonable cost of living, so I was all for it. The Sacramento job sounded pretty good and also offered great pay, but the job didn't even officially exist yet, and they weren't sure when it would. Despite that, they wanted him to pay $1,000 for his California license before they'd even officially consider him. When K came home from Seattle, I had a suspicion that it might be the place. He loved the people, the potential partner, the seafood, and the area. They were offering the lowest pay, but he felt he'd be happiest there. In the end, he talked them into meeting him halfway on his requested salary and contributing to the cost of our move. We both felt that his long-term happiness with the practice outweighed a higher starting salary, so the decision was made. I dreaded telling my mother that we were going so far away!

Once we settled on Seattle, we started looking at houses online. We didn't want to buy until we had a chance to get to know the area and to be sure that the partnership was going to work out, so we were limited to rentals. Housing is much more expensive in Seattle than in Dallas, and it took a while to adjust to the idea of paying at least twice as much as we had been. Air conditioning isn't very common in houses in the Seattle area, but I insisted I couldn't live without it, which limited our choices considerably. After months of looking, we decided that K and Layth would just have to fly up there and look at some in person in order to make a decision. Unfortunately, their flight was cancelled due to bad weather and they lost about a day and a half of their four-day trip. It was frustrating and exhausting trying to actually get them up there, and once they were en route, I found out when I called to confirm their hotel that despite the fact that we had prepaid over $500 for the hotel, because they didn't show up the first night, the reservation was cancelled and our prepayment forfeited. That was so frustrating! I hurriedly booked them a room at a hotel down the street and left instructions for them at the original hotel to call me for details.

The few houses they were able to see weren't right for us, and there were many days when it all felt hopeless. However, we had a fantastic real estate agent, Marilyn Droukas, (referred by our wonderful Dallas real estate agent, Eric Holmes ... if anyone ever needs an agent in the Dallas or Seattle areas, look them up and tell them I sent you!) who was a great help to us and even went to look at houses on our behalf while we were in Texas. Thanks to Marilyn and Craig's List, we were able to make arrangements to have a house to go home to once we got to Seattle. Pictures of the house as seen on Craig's List and sent to us by the owner can be seen by clicking on the photo below.