Time To Get Outside!

Bike Commuting in Seattle

Ryan and I have been enjoying a fairly quick bike commute to our offices. The route we take includes using the Ballard Locks to cross a canal. On one side of the Locks is the salt water of Puget Sound and on the other side, freshwater. Nearly every morning, we see a beautiful blue heron scoping for breakfast near the fish ladder. It's also common to see a harbor seal feeding on fish and lazily swimming at the entrance of the fish ladder.

I thought you all might want to see what our commute is like:

A bike's eye view of the commute.

Ryan checking out the boats while navigating his bike through the locks.

Gravel barge in the locks.

Walking through the gardens on our way to the street.

The locks have a fish ladder to help migrating salmon make their way upstream.

Let's capitalize on the "new house" energy while it lasts!

Not surprisingly, we've been busy getting settled in the new place. In the photos immediately after moving in, we showed you how our table looked tiny in the dining room. The solution? Buy a new dining table of course! We've put it to good use having friends over for dinner and hosting a fun night with my coworkers.

Ryan and I have also been busy cleaning up our side garden area. First, my friend, Amy (a master gardener), spent a day helping me take out an old "raised" bed -- it was only 2 or 3 inches higher than ground level -- and put together an herb garden. Then, we cleared out what seemed like an endless amount of weeds and overgrown grasses. Ryan helped me build 8-inch high raised beds and redo the drip irrigation system. Today, we finished the project by planting some fall veggies including kale, broccoli, chard, and golden beets.

A few things we learned from this experience: 1. Ryan is not nearly as enthusiastic about Swanson's nursery as I am; 2. gardening is my new therapy to teach me patience and the art of "chillaxing"; and 3. Soma is like a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man to the plants in our herb garden. Needless to say, we put up some low fencing to keep him out.

Stay out, Soma!

My awesome potting bench a la Amy and Byron.
The bench is a little too clean for my taste...

That's better!

New raised beds with lots of veggies and some creeping Elfin thyme near the walkway.

Another view of the garden

Ryan working hard on the new drip irrigation system

Behold the glory of Ryan's hard work!

I wondered why my lillies were looking a little flat.

Hurray! A second round of blooms coming from some of our 10 rose plants!

A sign of good things to come!

Special Thanks

One more thing about our new house. In our original post, we thanked our wonder real estate agent, Nicole, but we forgot to thank the fabulous mortgage guru, Fred Holland. Fred did a great job working on a tight time schedule and managing around our vacation schedule. Thanks, Fred!

Finally! News from the new house!

Let me start by saying that I'm sorry to all those who have contacted us with congratulations and well wishes without hearing a "thank you" or any response for that matter. For the last month or two, life has been crazy to say the least. We've appreciated and loved all the kind words from those who matter most to us, and we hope we haven't hurt anyone's feelings.

Two weeks ago, we closed on our new house and began the moving process. We've learned a lot (the value of hiring someone to help with the move itself, taking extra time off from work to get settled, etc.) and we love the new place!! A previous post showed some photos of the house before we bought it and made it our own. Here's what the house looks like when the Nonericks get a hold of it!

Are we having fun yet?

Soma gets off easy in the moving process -- he just enjoyed his new yard while we huffed and puffed.

Ryan enjoys his new living room

This is supposed to be our bedroom?

Somehow our furniture looks pathetic in the new place.

Slowly things get settled and put into place

"So, I guess we're getting take out?"

First visitors!!
Jill, Sadie, and Amy brought over burritos and were the first guests to the Chateau de Nonerick.

We are over the moon about the new place! Look for address change information soon and stay tuned to the blog for updates on our new life as residents of the Crown Hill neighborhood!

Mark and Tara's Wedding Movie!

We're a little behind these days -- moving has stalled everything. We will post about our new house and our big move within the next few days, but before that we want to share a video we made of Mark and Tara's fabulous wedding in Michigan. Mark grew up with Ryan (their parents are best friends), and he is always the life of the party. We had a blast! As luck would have it, we shared a flight out of Traverse City with Mark and Tara on the morning after the party!

To Mark and Tara: thanks for showing us a good time, and it was great to meet Tara and her family. We hope you enjoyed your tropical honeymoon! Say "hi" to Jake!

Vacation!!!

We just got back from a fabulous trip to the Midwest. We traveled to Wisconsin to visit Matt (my brother), Emily (my sister-in-law), Lucy and Amelia (my nieces), and Ted (the loyal family Shih-tzu). On the first night of our trip, we enjoyed dinner with another Nonemacher brother, Jake, and his wife, Jenna.

While we love seeing the adults, the visit is really all about playing with Lucy and Amelia. Here's a video of the good times we had with some clips from the past thrown in.

We also drove to Michigan to attend an absolutely beautiful wedding. We'll post pictures of that part of our vacation asap. Apologies for the lack of details, but we are in the middle of packing for our big move this week. We close on our house on Wednesday and move on Thursday and Friday. More to come!!