Alyca's Daily Life

Today is my second wedding anniversary. In some ways it seems like it has been longer, and in others it seems like we have only been married a few short months. We are going to the Meltin Pot for dinner tonight. I like the fondue stuff. Spendy, but such a good meal and a nice evening. Next year, we are hoping to be out of town on our anniversary. Our goal was to go on vacation each year over our anniversary, to make it special, but this year Ethan doesn't have any vacation, since he needs to be a permanent employee for 6 months before he can use his accrued time.

This year (next week), we are going to Reno for 5 days on the State's dime (mostly). There is a locksmith convention there, so they are paying for Ethan's hotel and airfare, along with a food stipend. I am paying for my airfare and food, and we are set. Should be a semi-decent trip, and almost free. Only a week after our anniversary, and good for some relaxation.

Next year, we are thinking of going to Hawaii. Actually, a co-worker of Ethan's went on a relocation cruise this year, which is a cruise where a cruise ship that normally goes around somewhere (like Hawaii) cruises over to somewhere else for the season (in this case, over to Los Angeles). We are thinking of going to Hawaii, spending 3-4 days there, then getting on the cruise, which is a regular Hawaii cruise of 7 nights or so, then heads out in the open ocean and ends up in LA. It would be about 2 weeks in total, and an awesome time. The cruise is DEEPLY discounted, we would actually pay less for the 11 nights on this cruise than we did for our 7 night alaskan cruise. A lot less, like $200-300 less. We know that we will eventually have kids, and these sort of trips will not be as easy/possible to do, so we want to do them now, or else face not doing them ever.

I had a nightmare last night that I was pregnant. How happy I was when I woke up and I was just dreaming. While I do definitely want kids, I most definitely do not want them NOW. I have no idea where I would put a baby in this condo, and the financial strain would keep us here for a lot longer than we want to be.

We have decided to re-evaluate our situation here in January, and decide if we want to start looking for a house then or wait until this place is completely paid off. We have some concerns about the fact that housing here is jumping up in price so much that the equity we build up in this condo over 2006 would not be enough to justify waiting an extra year to start looking (we figure this place will sell for $145-155k, but the average house price in Seattle jumped up $30k over the past year, and prices aren't slowing down, or expected to slow down in the near future), so if we wait too long, the housing prices may get away from us. Ethan figures he would be willing to pay $75k more to live in Seattle, as opposed to Burien, which is the suburb just south of the city. You can get so much more if you just leave the city limits, but we would really like to stay in here. There are concerns about schools, because we don't want our kids in the Seattle public school system, but we can figure that out when the time comes. I know the Shoreline school system has some good alternative schools, but I don't want to live north of Seattle. We shall see.

Anyway.........