2nd weekend in washington!

"what do you want to do this weekend" is a hard question to answer when you are a transplant in a new and unfamiliar city.  jarad got home from work on friday and i was so excited to start off the weekend feeling much much better and have 2 full days to explore with him.  we knew we had 2 obligations this weekend 1 - house hunt 2 - bike ride!  friday night is "no cook" night, not that i have been doing much of that lately anyways, but it was chilly and pho always sounds good!  so we looked up some good restaurants in the area and there were tons to chose from, so we picked one and had a good dinner.  then we made a trip to fred meyer and had a relaxing evening watching a movie. 

saturday we had plans to go out with the real estate agent.  i love looking at houses and was excited to get out there and potentially find our new home.  we woke up and had a good breakfast and jarad went to the gym and i took wilfred for a good walk on the bike path.  we got ready and started the house hunt a little earlier on our own and checked out neighborhoods and communities so we can get a better idea of exactly where we want to focus our search.  the first few houses we saw were major disappointments and then we went back to take a 2nd look at a a house we fell in love with when we came up here in november to house hunt.  i should say we fell in love with the property and not the house.  we took another good and long look at the house, which needs a lot of rearranging of the floor plan to make it more desirable and livable.  we left that house feeling like we were finally able to put that home to rest, knowing it is not ideal for our family.  we saw a few more houses, all of which we liked, but in some way or another all felt like we were compromising too much with the lack of land and space.  then lastly we revisted another house we saw back in november.  jarad loved this property as well, but i was quick to dismiss it as it was over budget and needed some work, mostly aesthetic TLC kinda work, but i also did not like the layout of the bedrooms.  we have referred to this house as the "dolphin house" because it has a dolphin statue in the front yard.  the owners had recently reduced the price making it much more desirable (for me) and we went back to check it out.  i have to say the first time we saw it, it was raining which made it hard to check out the property itself, so this time we walked around the grounds and took a good and hard look at the house and we left very interested in it!  we went to dinner at our favorite restaurant (so far) called wild fin where we hashed it over and got to daydreaming about making it our dream home.  i still had to sleep on it though...

sunday was an awesome day!  we woke up and had plans to meet our good friends for a bike ride/hike and lunch.  but first we decided to contact our real estate agent to tell her we wanted to play the game and make an offer on the dolphin house.  we drove to "duthie" where the boys did some riding and the girls did a bit of shopping before taking the dogs to the most amazing dog park i have ever seen, called "marrymoor."  it is a huge open park that runs along a river and the dogs are off leash and playing.  the dogs had a great time, but i think i may have had more fun, it was so nice to walk around on the flat paths and watch all the dogs. although it is a bit of a drive, i will definitely be taking visitors here as it is such an impressive park and outdoor space. 

we met the boys for lunch afterwards and then we rushed back to the apartment to get ready to have dinner with one of jarad's new coworkers and his family.  they have just moved here from texas about a month before us and live with family in washington while they close on a house.  and the wife is also pregnant, about a month behind me with their 2nd child.  it is so nice to meet new friends and start to build a social life for ourselves.  we had a really nice dinner with them and it was a great end to a great weekend.  i have my fingers crossed for the dolphin house, but have learned not to get excited, so this will be an interesting week ahead!