(Pictures are all available in an album in FaceBook.)

Current Location: Bremerton, Washington

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.
~ Jane Austen

As you know from last week’s email, we’ve moved in behind Jackie’s house (Ashley’s oldest sister) and this week we’ve been getting settled in for a short duration. This means that we’ve been exploring the area, taking care of some chores and submitting job applications.

Just this morning we both had job interviews – Matthew at a local letterpress printing company here in Bremerton and Ashley at a Seattle-based sight-seeing cruise company. If these don’t work out we’ve got other applications out there and more places in mind to approach. While we can always use more gas money, interviews are a lot less stressful when you don’t “need” a job just at the moment.

• 3 dozen new coffee shops to explore
• 2 exciting adventures planned thus far
• 1 anticipated visit from Ashley’s Mom

We haven’t been doing any hiking this week, we’re giving Ashley’s ankle a chance to heal. Exploring locally and cooking lots of delicious food hasn’t left us feeling deprived, however. Ashley has also been taking advantage of a special offer at a local yoga studio – unlimited classes for a month, and she’s getting her money’s worth with daily classes. 😀

Saturday morning found us exploring the Seattle area, where we walked around Lake Washington, had a fun lunch at a Turkish cafe in Freemont and then visited the troll that lives under the bridge (see picture above – for scale, he’s holding a real VW bug).

Lessons Learned:
• It’s fun to explore a place more in-depth and feel like part of a community again.
• Having a garage to work in is a nice change.
• The ferry is a great way to get around.

In the next few weeks we’ve planned a backpacking trip that has been on Jackie’s to do list since she moved to the area and are eagerly looking forward to a visit from Norma (Ashley’s mom). We also just got a wilderness permit confirmation for a much anticipated backpacking excursion in Glacier National Park, Montana in August. So much to do, and so much we don’t even know about yet!

Getting cozy,

Matthew & Ashley