our NEW adventure begins

WHAT A DAY!!!  

We had some big donations today and made some serious progress toward our goal this year!

THANK YOU

Eileen,

Shaun,

the Turners, 

and the Pekalas!!

Plus, I posted on fb this evening that there is going to be a drawing for 2 free airline tickets.  We were entered in that drawing one time for every $100 we raised from May 1 to today.  I looked back and it looks like we'll have 12 entries!!  That's right, you all donated $1200 in the last 8 days.  

Well done and THANK YOU!!!

Back to the blog, it was time to get off the boat in Bellingham, WA and drive the rest of the way to Spokane.  Getting off the boat was about as bad as getting on....lots of hurry up and wait!  We had to hurry to our car, pack it up, and sit there....for over an hour!  We had our things crammed in there so not much room to stretch.  Thankfully, we didn't have to wait too long after they started working on the second deck.  There were still quite a bit of cars up there when we left.  Our first stop after leaving the boat was to find a cafe to get some coffee and breakfast.  We definitely took our time and enjoyed our first meal off the boat in 84 hours.  We had a 6.5 hour drive in front of us before we arrived in our new home.  Thanks to some excellent advise from an Alaskan friend, we took Highway 2 which might have added a little bit of time but was much more scenic.  This first picture is approaching Steven's Pass in the very beautiful Cascade Mountains.

On the other side of the Cascades was an amazing town called Leavenworth.  It felt like we were back in Germany.  Everything is decorated as if you are in Germany, even the McDonalds.  Can't wait to go back and explore this place.  Today we had to breeze through and push forward to Spokane.

As we continued east, the landscape was definitely changing.  As we crossed the Columbia River and headed into the basin, we noticed the temperature rise as the terrain got real flat! 

Ends up we were driving to Spokane on what was the hottest day of the year!!  What we also weren't expecting was all of the farm land.  I had done my research on Spokane and eastern Washington but just wasn't ready for what central Washington had to offer.  WOW!!

As we kept driving, we noticed the landscape change from farmland to rocks...and then eventually trees and just as we arrived in Spokane we finally saw MOUNTAINS!!!   

 For those of you who have visited, we love showing this off.  I-90 has a great first view of downtown Spokane.  You round the corner and start heading down into the valley.  We were thrilled to get our first view of our new home.

We arrived in Spokane on a Saturday and immediately started looking for homes.  Sunday morning we met our good friends who were driving through Spokane at a restaurant that was near our temporary quarters.  I just looked up good breakfast restaurant and Chaps was the top rated breakfast spot.  For good reason...we LOVED it and it is still our favorite restaurant in Spokane.  We didn't know this at the time of course, but the house we fell in love with was just up the hill from Chaps!

The next week was a blur!  I started my new job on Monday while Lisa and the girls split time between playing and looking for a new house.  They succeeded in BOTH!

 

Toward the end of the first week, Lisa and I fell in love with this house.  We liked a lot of houses that we saw but this is the only house we LOVED!  It was a bit out of our price range so we kept looking through the next weekend but by Sunday night, we were ready to make our offer!  After some stressful negotiation, our offer was accepted!!  

The new Brown household!!!

Thanks again for all of the donations today and for giving us a better chance of winning some free tickets....but really for helping babies have a better chance at a healthy start!!  Thanks everybody!  

6 days and $1500 to go!