Well, one of the first things to do when preparing to move is dealing with utilities. We set up utilities before we went out for April except for internet and phone because we mainly needed electric, gas and water/sewer only set up so far. We also had to set up a post office box because when I called the city to set up the water and sewer she said, "what's the box number?" I said, "box number?" "oh, yes, well you do know there's no mail delivery to that address, right? You have to set up a box at the post office." No we didn't know, and my mother-in-law was able to get us a box number so we could submit a mailing address and we just had to fill out some paperwork (no charge) and get the keys when we were back there in April. In case you didn't know, Canada also has no Saturday mail delivery, which the US post has thought about doing, I guess Canada's ahead of it's time.
We now have internet and phone set up. We have a one year commitment and they will let us change services up or down, but not cancel either for the year and there's a one year intro price. You have to change services for 6 months in order to re-qualify to have the first year prices again. We did not sign up for TV at this time because A) we aren't there (we got the phone so we can give people the phone number, we are on limited time to be able to keep giving out our WA number) and B) my father-in-law has been kind enough to wait around for various service people for us, the least we can do is get the guy some internet. We're going to see how it goes on the same plan we are on now (no TV, just internet TV) and see how it goes. Considering it took a month or so to detox from TV, I think I want to see how it goes first to avoid another detox. Also, the boys play way more video games than watch TV and Valerie's currently happy with DVDs. The phone is local only with a very low, flat rate per minute for long distance. The pricing between plans and all our other ways of communicating with family back in WA (Skype, etc.) means we'd have to burn through a lot of minutes before we needed to get the Us/Canada plan. Most of our family in Canada is local, so it seemed like a good place to start (plus, we can change it later!)
As far as cell phones, we investigated US/Canada plans here in the U.S. Canada has lots of regulation and not a lot of options as far as cell phone plans, also since Paul will be traveling back and forth for awhile, it made sense to get a plan that he could take with him that would treat Canada and the US as one big happy country for awhile. He was able to find an AT&T plan (Verizon also had one, but it was quite a bit more expensive. I've been a Verizon customer for about 12 years and they have GREAT coverage and I truly believe you get better coverage and service which is worth the cost, but AT&T's plan just better fit what we need right now). We got two phones, one with keypad one without (I text more and like to keep my calendar on my phone) for $15 and $30 and they are prepaid. This means, we use our credit card to prepay the bill for the month rather than after the month is up. Because of this we were able to get out of having a contract which is great since we aren't yet sure this is the best option possible. $45 in phones that we can take to another network is way better than early termination fees. We dropped data, which I wasn't really using anyways, and texting is expensive... texts in Canada are .50 to send .25 to receive. So my husband reminded me, "well, instead of texting, you could just call people, you know!" We'll get 700 anytime minutes, 1000 nights and weekends (handy since nights for us are when our family in WA will be getting home from work) and free between AT&T subscribers (my parents and grandparents are on AT&T) AND the unused minutes roll over. I think we'll have plenty of minutes.
So, the cool thing we sprung for on our home phone is one calling feature.... call forwarding... if we are out and about, my family in WA can call my US cell phone and it's just like calling like they used to. We can have the home phone (Canadian number) forward to our US cell so our Canadian family can call our home phone number (Canadian) and it will forward to our U.S. Cell, but be treated like they called in Canada. Pretty, sneaky, right? Hopefully it works as well as we think it will. Plus, then family can reach us whenever we like. Only family, because we also sprung for an unlisted number. I consider this the best moving present ever and hope it keeps telemarketers at bay for awhile!
Let's see, I also got all our utilities cancelled for the day after we move out (no dealing with annoying "what can we do to keep you?" conversations when they hear you are moving to Canada!) I just have to call the homeowner's insurance once we close.
We've set up the movers as well, we're going UPack, which means we pack the truck and they drive it. You have the trailer (semi, not just a regular uhaul type) 3 days on either end and pay by space usage rather than weight like everyone else. it's about 1/3 of the cost of traditional movers, so we're springing for moving blankets ($8.75 each to Uhaul's $15 on UPack's site for a 12pack) and UHaul boxes . So far I've heard good things and a friend recently used them Indiana to Louisiana and suggested the blankets, but had good things to say.
Other than that, I'm just packing and procrastinating packing!
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Farewell, sweet Washington
Ok, well, not officially, but I felt I needed some sort of Farewell Tour and my college roommate's visit was the perfect opportunity. Especially when I asked her what she wanted to do and she answered, "San Juans and Pike Place" Done and Done.
Thursday we dropped the boys off at school and parked at the Space Needle (there's a lot there that is only $9 for the day if you get there by 10am) and took the Monorail to downtown.... Val wasn't 100% into it at first, but got there quickly...
We saw the fish mongers, got some cheese and other goodies for our ferry ride lunch on Friday. We stopped by the gum wall in post alley and got some great chowder at Pike Place Chowder.
Then we ran out of time to try the new ferris wheel, but did make it up to the Chihuly Exhibit while taking a 2 year old to a glass museum may not be on my list of Most Relaxing Activities Ever. There was only one exhibit towards the front that almost gave me a heart attack, then in the garden she was good and stayed on the sidewalks and really it was ok. Still don't know that I'd take all 3 kids unless I'd also taken a Xanax first.
After picking up the kids we headed home for some dinner and Paul took over so we could go on the First Thursday Wine Walk which was great! Only thing is the website's not clear that you are supposed to bring your own glass, so we got sweet talked into buying glasses as big as our heads for $6 or something. But you are supposed to bring your own glass. Supposedly so you can walk the district with your glass, but if you head to close to your car, the open container laws will see you ticketed, so maybe bring a travel mug???? Anyways, it's $20 for 15 taste tickets to try out wineries in and around the Hollywood Schoolhouse in Woodinville, which is now fashionably called the "Warehouse District" There are SO many tasting rooms down there! and 15 tickets was just about right. We then enjoyed a meal at Purple Cafe & Wine bar (my first time, had to try it before leaving!) where I had an awesome fig & goat cheese pizza. Plus, when you do the wine walk you get a free dessert there :)
We learned a lot. At Otis Kenyon (check the link and see the crazy story!) we tried a Carmenere which is a red wine. You could taste black pepper in it! It would be awesome with a steak, very different than we'd ever had before. The Port over at Brian Carter Cellars on Sunday was the only other one we tasted that was anything like it. Another one we tried was SANGIOVESE which is a lighter red wine (we aren't big red people, so this was a nice, lighter one to try). Another one new to us, which was a dry/sweet kind of middle of the road white wine was Siegerrebe. We also learned about the new trend of Chardonnay aged in stainless steel casks for people who aren't into the oak taste of Chardonnay and tried a few that we were pleasantly surprised had very crisp, refreshing tastes to them.
We also got to try Sky River Honey Wine & Mead which was like a white wine made of honey. Delicious and definitely worth the amazingly steep hill to get to the tasting room! We came home with a bottle of the raspberry mead.
We made it home and got packed and slept for our San Juan trip. Dropped Carter off at School and the littles off at my parent's house, then we headed to the tulip fields. It's late for tulips, Tulip Town where we intended to go was closed for the season, there were no fields still around, but Roozengaarde still had a fair showing of flowers in their display garden.
We kept on towards Anacourtes and took the ferry to Lopez. It takes a lot of planning for the ferries, the times and where they go are amazingly hard to figure out unless you do some careful planning and remember you pay on the way out there, but not on the way back, so, if you have more flexibility, pay to head to Friday Harbor and visit the other islands on the way back, so you aren't paying inter-island. We couldn't quite get to Friday Harbor when we wanted and had already seen Orcas last time, so we stopped on Lopez for a few hours. On the ferry ride we enjoyed our goodies from Pike Place Market and Kari had her aura read by an old Native American woman with no teeth. (it's a colorless aura by the way).
On Lopez we started at Just Heavenly Fudge The two ladies pictured were there making fudge and telling us all about it. The gal on the right is the daughter the one on the left is the mother. She's southern and was happy to tell us all about the 137 flavors of fudge they make year-round based on season. We were especially interested to hear about the "pumpkin pie fudge with pecans that taste just like the crust of the pie" they also ship anywhere in the world she was happy to tell Kari when she was wondering how to get her hands on some pumpkin pie fudge. Kari was hoping for a Youtube video of her listing all the flavors of fudge in her southern accent and titling it "Fudge Gump" and you can't beat that you buy a pound of fudge and you get a 1/2 pound for free! Their maker makes 36 pounds at one time and they have 6 pound pans they put it in. We were just about to leave after spending more time than one should in a fudge shop when she calls out, "my granddaughter's a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, wanna see a picture?" Well, how does one say no to that???? She told us all about that and shook her head a little, "she doesn't eat any of my fudge."
Then we went around the corner to the Lopez Island Wine tasting room. She was in the middle of rearranging and said they weren't doing tastings because of it. We told her we only came to the island for fudge and wine tasting and she moved some stuff aside and let us taste some wine!
We headed back down to the ferry after that and headed to Friday Harbor. After checking into our B&B Inn to the Woods we went to Roche Harbor to the grocery store to get something to drink and saw the original Lime Kilns to the island (the island was quarried for limestone and then the kilns pulled out the lime needed to make steel and other metals) then to the sculpture park at the north end of the island since we weren't really hungry yet and there was still light and it would take some time pressure off our list for Saturday. A metal chicken to give Beyonce a run for her money & some other Modern Sculptures were worth the trek and the $5 suggested donation.
Our B&B owner gave us the recommendation of The Place for dinner which was really, really good and had a good atmosphere. AND on our way we got a picture with Tilly the Orca.
We headed back to the room and the best part of the room was the hot tub on the balcony where we caught up and drank champagne I'd saved for a special occasion since winning it at a bonspiel last year.
Saturday morning, we had a decent breakfast at the inn (they do have animals in the main common areas, so if you are sensitive to fur, keep that in mind) then headed out to the Farmer's market. Before that though, we went and looked at a boat my parents were interested in seeing.... super clean and it was set up like a 450 square foot Manhattan apartment. Very interesting to say the least and it was nice to briefly see the kids (Henri just wanted to get back to their boat and eat lunch!) We then headed Since it's the shoulder season, it was a little small, but we found fresh goat cheese, a bakery, fresh oysters, etc. etc. available, including a gluten free booth of stuff.
We took our stuff and headed over to the Pelindaba Lavender Farm near the middle of the island (the island is only about 56 acres and takes approx 1 hour to drive completely around). We shopped a little and I had a chocolate lavender ice cream. Then we headed to Lime Kiln State park for a little lunch and whale watching and to see the light house.
After that, since we'd already seen the Sculpture park we crossed back over the island to go to a wine release party and tasting at San Juan Vineyard. 2 of the wines are grown there, the others are grapes purchased from elsewhere and the wine made at the vineyard. Across the street is a camel. Oh, yes, Mona the Camel. She has a few wine blends named after her and her likeness on some labels. We went from the vineyard to the ferry waiting line, parked and used our waiting time to sample yet more wine at the Cannery (love their selection!) and get a coffee & ice cream across the street.
We took the ferry back home to find Paul had made a butter tart. For those of you not in the know a butter tart is the canadian version of a pecan pie (well, little ones, but we don't have anything small unpacked, so Paul made an 8x8 butter tart!) he made it from scratch and took Valerie to the store with him and kept her happy.
Sunday morning we got up and enjoyed Anthony's Homeport brunch (I've been lusting after crab Eggs benedict!) then, yep, hit the wineries... Chateau Ste. Michele & Columbia are across the street just below my house and then we tried Airfield estates, Brian Carter and Apex, non of whom we'd been to before. Airfield was not only good, but inexpensive and they only bottle using their own grapes, they don't buy any from anywhere else. They let us try the stainless steel chardonnay next to the other and it was interesting to try them side by side. Brian Carter is a winemaker, not estate, but the taster gal was very knowledgeable and we learned all sorts of things from her. Apex had many tasting menus available, including a complimentary one of their sweet red wines. The Chocolate Shop red wine smells like you've walked into a chocolate shop and I was very tempted by it. The Raspberry chocolate and chocolate mint were also good, but the mint was almost overpowering. However I bought the Almond Roca one which could go over ice cream. A creamy sweet, chocolate, red wine.
It also seems the Harvest Reislings and the Gewürztraminer are getting sweeter and sweeter. We tasted one that had a 15% sugar content! I think 10-12% is my sweet spot, over that is definitely sipping territory.
Then she had to head back to the airport. Next tastings will be in Niagara!
Thursday we dropped the boys off at school and parked at the Space Needle (there's a lot there that is only $9 for the day if you get there by 10am) and took the Monorail to downtown.... Val wasn't 100% into it at first, but got there quickly...
We saw the fish mongers, got some cheese and other goodies for our ferry ride lunch on Friday. We stopped by the gum wall in post alley and got some great chowder at Pike Place Chowder.
Then we ran out of time to try the new ferris wheel, but did make it up to the Chihuly Exhibit while taking a 2 year old to a glass museum may not be on my list of Most Relaxing Activities Ever. There was only one exhibit towards the front that almost gave me a heart attack, then in the garden she was good and stayed on the sidewalks and really it was ok. Still don't know that I'd take all 3 kids unless I'd also taken a Xanax first.
After picking up the kids we headed home for some dinner and Paul took over so we could go on the First Thursday Wine Walk which was great! Only thing is the website's not clear that you are supposed to bring your own glass, so we got sweet talked into buying glasses as big as our heads for $6 or something. But you are supposed to bring your own glass. Supposedly so you can walk the district with your glass, but if you head to close to your car, the open container laws will see you ticketed, so maybe bring a travel mug???? Anyways, it's $20 for 15 taste tickets to try out wineries in and around the Hollywood Schoolhouse in Woodinville, which is now fashionably called the "Warehouse District" There are SO many tasting rooms down there! and 15 tickets was just about right. We then enjoyed a meal at Purple Cafe & Wine bar (my first time, had to try it before leaving!) where I had an awesome fig & goat cheese pizza. Plus, when you do the wine walk you get a free dessert there :)
We learned a lot. At Otis Kenyon (check the link and see the crazy story!) we tried a Carmenere which is a red wine. You could taste black pepper in it! It would be awesome with a steak, very different than we'd ever had before. The Port over at Brian Carter Cellars on Sunday was the only other one we tasted that was anything like it. Another one we tried was SANGIOVESE which is a lighter red wine (we aren't big red people, so this was a nice, lighter one to try). Another one new to us, which was a dry/sweet kind of middle of the road white wine was Siegerrebe. We also learned about the new trend of Chardonnay aged in stainless steel casks for people who aren't into the oak taste of Chardonnay and tried a few that we were pleasantly surprised had very crisp, refreshing tastes to them.
We also got to try Sky River Honey Wine & Mead which was like a white wine made of honey. Delicious and definitely worth the amazingly steep hill to get to the tasting room! We came home with a bottle of the raspberry mead.
We made it home and got packed and slept for our San Juan trip. Dropped Carter off at School and the littles off at my parent's house, then we headed to the tulip fields. It's late for tulips, Tulip Town where we intended to go was closed for the season, there were no fields still around, but Roozengaarde still had a fair showing of flowers in their display garden.
We kept on towards Anacourtes and took the ferry to Lopez. It takes a lot of planning for the ferries, the times and where they go are amazingly hard to figure out unless you do some careful planning and remember you pay on the way out there, but not on the way back, so, if you have more flexibility, pay to head to Friday Harbor and visit the other islands on the way back, so you aren't paying inter-island. We couldn't quite get to Friday Harbor when we wanted and had already seen Orcas last time, so we stopped on Lopez for a few hours. On the ferry ride we enjoyed our goodies from Pike Place Market and Kari had her aura read by an old Native American woman with no teeth. (it's a colorless aura by the way).
On Lopez we started at Just Heavenly Fudge The two ladies pictured were there making fudge and telling us all about it. The gal on the right is the daughter the one on the left is the mother. She's southern and was happy to tell us all about the 137 flavors of fudge they make year-round based on season. We were especially interested to hear about the "pumpkin pie fudge with pecans that taste just like the crust of the pie" they also ship anywhere in the world she was happy to tell Kari when she was wondering how to get her hands on some pumpkin pie fudge. Kari was hoping for a Youtube video of her listing all the flavors of fudge in her southern accent and titling it "Fudge Gump" and you can't beat that you buy a pound of fudge and you get a 1/2 pound for free! Their maker makes 36 pounds at one time and they have 6 pound pans they put it in. We were just about to leave after spending more time than one should in a fudge shop when she calls out, "my granddaughter's a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, wanna see a picture?" Well, how does one say no to that???? She told us all about that and shook her head a little, "she doesn't eat any of my fudge."
Then we went around the corner to the Lopez Island Wine tasting room. She was in the middle of rearranging and said they weren't doing tastings because of it. We told her we only came to the island for fudge and wine tasting and she moved some stuff aside and let us taste some wine!
We headed back down to the ferry after that and headed to Friday Harbor. After checking into our B&B Inn to the Woods we went to Roche Harbor to the grocery store to get something to drink and saw the original Lime Kilns to the island (the island was quarried for limestone and then the kilns pulled out the lime needed to make steel and other metals) then to the sculpture park at the north end of the island since we weren't really hungry yet and there was still light and it would take some time pressure off our list for Saturday. A metal chicken to give Beyonce a run for her money & some other Modern Sculptures were worth the trek and the $5 suggested donation.
Our B&B owner gave us the recommendation of The Place for dinner which was really, really good and had a good atmosphere. AND on our way we got a picture with Tilly the Orca.
We headed back to the room and the best part of the room was the hot tub on the balcony where we caught up and drank champagne I'd saved for a special occasion since winning it at a bonspiel last year.
Saturday morning, we had a decent breakfast at the inn (they do have animals in the main common areas, so if you are sensitive to fur, keep that in mind) then headed out to the Farmer's market. Before that though, we went and looked at a boat my parents were interested in seeing.... super clean and it was set up like a 450 square foot Manhattan apartment. Very interesting to say the least and it was nice to briefly see the kids (Henri just wanted to get back to their boat and eat lunch!) We then headed Since it's the shoulder season, it was a little small, but we found fresh goat cheese, a bakery, fresh oysters, etc. etc. available, including a gluten free booth of stuff.
We took our stuff and headed over to the Pelindaba Lavender Farm near the middle of the island (the island is only about 56 acres and takes approx 1 hour to drive completely around). We shopped a little and I had a chocolate lavender ice cream. Then we headed to Lime Kiln State park for a little lunch and whale watching and to see the light house.
After that, since we'd already seen the Sculpture park we crossed back over the island to go to a wine release party and tasting at San Juan Vineyard. 2 of the wines are grown there, the others are grapes purchased from elsewhere and the wine made at the vineyard. Across the street is a camel. Oh, yes, Mona the Camel. She has a few wine blends named after her and her likeness on some labels. We went from the vineyard to the ferry waiting line, parked and used our waiting time to sample yet more wine at the Cannery (love their selection!) and get a coffee & ice cream across the street.
Look in the pictures for the camel across the road...
We took the ferry back home to find Paul had made a butter tart. For those of you not in the know a butter tart is the canadian version of a pecan pie (well, little ones, but we don't have anything small unpacked, so Paul made an 8x8 butter tart!) he made it from scratch and took Valerie to the store with him and kept her happy.
Sunday morning we got up and enjoyed Anthony's Homeport brunch (I've been lusting after crab Eggs benedict!) then, yep, hit the wineries... Chateau Ste. Michele & Columbia are across the street just below my house and then we tried Airfield estates, Brian Carter and Apex, non of whom we'd been to before. Airfield was not only good, but inexpensive and they only bottle using their own grapes, they don't buy any from anywhere else. They let us try the stainless steel chardonnay next to the other and it was interesting to try them side by side. Brian Carter is a winemaker, not estate, but the taster gal was very knowledgeable and we learned all sorts of things from her. Apex had many tasting menus available, including a complimentary one of their sweet red wines. The Chocolate Shop red wine smells like you've walked into a chocolate shop and I was very tempted by it. The Raspberry chocolate and chocolate mint were also good, but the mint was almost overpowering. However I bought the Almond Roca one which could go over ice cream. A creamy sweet, chocolate, red wine.
It also seems the Harvest Reislings and the Gewürztraminer are getting sweeter and sweeter. We tasted one that had a 15% sugar content! I think 10-12% is my sweet spot, over that is definitely sipping territory.
Then she had to head back to the airport. Next tastings will be in Niagara!
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