House hunting trip!

We are back from our house hunting trip! We took Lynsey and Adam with us and off we went on Thursday. Nathan stayed with my sister Liz in Three Hills on Thursday and that night got transferred to my sister Gert's house for the rest of the time. Knowing what I know now, I can say quite certainly that taking him along would not have worked well at all. Taking Lynsey and Adam worked, but add another straw to this camel's back and I might have been in an insane asylum by the end of the trip! We looked at a bunch of rentals, took a tour of the area with some realtors, did some swimming at the hotel, and that was pretty much it! We stayed in Bellevue and didn't go into Seattle at all - just didn't have time. It was an eye opening trip. Rental prices are a bit insane there - if we wanted to rent something anywhere near what we have now, it would have cost us well over $3000 a month. Not cool! We ended up finding something that will work in Kirkland for $2350 a month, not perfect but should work okay. It's only for a year I keep telling myself! We submitted an application but we're not even sure we're going to get it. I think we have a good chance, but we should know for sure in the next day or two - there were some other applications on the house as well. A lot of people are moving into Seattle area so housing is a bit scarce! We waffled back and forth a lot on the weekend, wondering if we should just wait until we get here and stay in Amazon's corporate apartments while we're looking. All options had pros and cons, so we picked the one we thought was best with the information we had.

Our house has not sold. We had another offer on the weekend, lowest one yet:(. I don't know what's going on, why people don't want to buy our house (or why they don't want to pay market value for it) but it's starting to get a bit discouraging. Lots of showings over the weekend and another yesterday, dreading getting ready for more over the weekend:(. I don't know what we will do if we don't get the possession date we want (which is August 23rd). We have talked about renting out the house until the Spring, but I don't know if that will be worth the hassle. I didn't think it would take this long. We can just keep it on the market after we leave, but Brian says selling it after we leave the country could have some tax implications. I don't know, it's tough. We'll figure it out though. Someone has to want this house!

Oh wait, house is not sold:(

Just when you think something is over!

I should have clarified in my last post that the house was CONDITIONALLY sold. The reason I didn't, is because it was made conditional based on inspection and financing. People usually have their financing in place before making an offer, so the only thing that would stop this sale was an unfavorable inspection, which we knew would not happen. The house is three years old and everything works. The inspector came by on Friday, and spent three and a half hours inspecting the house (what a pain that it took so long, but I thought, it's the last thing!). One of the buyers was there as well as the realtor, and they asked if the wife could come in on Saturday to see the house. Trying to be accommodating, we said no problem, she could come in. I didn't bother cleaning up too much, I figured they already bought the house, don't need to impress them. Well, as it turns out, this was the FIRST time the wife had seen the house (would any of YOU let your husbands make an offer and then sign a contract to buy a house without you seeing it??) and she didn't like the master bathroom. So, on Saturday, they told our realtor that they were not waiving their conditions based on "inspection" and walked away. They didn't want to supply the inspection report but our realtor made them, and the report was squeaky clean. As in, the worst thing on it was a burnt out light bulb. Apparently, the rules are so vague now you can have buyer's remorse and just walk away for no reason, and just call it "inspection". I have now had several days to accept what's happened and I'm no longer seeing red (except when I start thinking about it, which I am trying to avoid!). I am trying to accept that everyone gets screwed sometimes, and apparently it was our turn. We almost sold it to someone else the next day, but they were trying really hard to get a deal on it (it's the house you're going to make your home, and you're trying to get a "deal"?? I just really don't understand people!) and we just couldn't agree on the price. We are struggling because we are already losing money because of all the money we put into the house, so when someone tries to get it for less than market value it's really frustrating. The people that are coming to look at this house come from a different culture and we are finding it very difficult to understand what they value, other than a good deal! In any case, we continue to pray that the right people come through here really soon . . . have some more showings booked for the next few days, so maybe one of them will pan out!

Tomorrow we leave for Seattle! Brian, myself, Adam and Lynsey will take off around noon tomorrow! Nathan is headed out to Three Hills for some aunty time, and I really hope he does well. I'm curious to see if he will enjoy the time away from his brother and sister or if he will miss them terribly! I'm guessing a bit of both:). We found a bunch of rental properties that we're going to look at on Friday, so hopefully one of them pans out. I'm feeling a bit anxious, because if these don't pan out, what's our plan?? We can't even really look to buy a house this weekend, because we no longer know when we will have the money from our house sale, since it is hypothetical at this point. We found a bunch that are within 15 minutes of Adam's preschool and reasonably close to the Interstate that would take Brian into Seattle, so please, let them not all be dumpy! I am trying to tell myself it's only a rental - we don't have to fall in love with it, just be able to functionally live in it for a year!

Oh I do want to also talk about our trip to Banff on Sunday:). It was marred a bit by the house sale crashing, but we still had a great time. We walked to the lower falls at Johnston Canyon - Adam did the best of all three kids. We then drove into Banff and had supper, and then off we went to the Hot Springs! The kids loved the Hot Springs! Adam even let us know he had to pee while we were in the water, and waited until he got to the toilet! I am declaring him pee-trained if he can do this:). I've had him in shorts the last 6 nights, and he's stayed dry 4 of those nights. One night I thought he might not make it because he had a bunch of cantaloupe right before bed, and I was right. Last night, I heard him talking in his room so I rushed over and he was standing there with wet pants. His bed was dry. This means that he realized he had to go, got up, but then didn't know what to do from there. Still progress! He's doing so well, I'm so proud of him! He still doesn't know what to do about poop, though:(. Getting really tired of cleaning poop out of shorts, but I have to believe that he will get it sometime! I just need to catch him in the act and I think he's at the point where he might actually go on the toilet if I caught him in time. I guess we'll see how long it takes!

House sold!

Wow am I ever behind on this blog! What a crazy couple of weeks it has been for us. But we are here, we are still (mostly) sane, and things are coming along for our move. We are booked to fly to Seattle next weekend for a house hunting trip. Finding a place to live is kind of a big thing hanging over our heads right now, so really hoping we find something quickly. The rental prices are pretty high in Bellevue, but we will probably still rent for the first 6 months to a year anyway, just because we want to get some familiarity with the area before buying. It's hard for us to get our heads around renting when we've been home owners for so long, but it's not the end of the world to throw some money away, right?:) Seems like the best way for us to go!

We sold our house yesterday! It went on the market last week Tuesday, and we were gone in Edmonton Wednesday night to Saturday night so we were able to get a lot of traffic through the house with only one cleaning. It was a lot of work getting the house ready. The weekend before was spent cleaning and de-cluttering and doing paint touch-ups. It was truly exhausting. We had an offer on Thursday night, but it was pretty low and they buyers didn't want to step up to the plate so we let them go. We got another offer on Sunday night but it was even lower, unfortunately. We stayed pretty firm and told them to come back if they wanted to start serious negotiations. Well, yesterday around supper time they came back with a more serious offer and we ended up at a reasonable place. So the house is sold pending financing and inspection, with a good possession date, too. Very thankful, but yesterday was such a heavy day that it was hard to take it all in and be happy about it. My niece was involved in a serious accident while at work and she got air lifted to a hospital here in Calgary. Her parents were on their way back from Saskatchewan so another sister and myself went to be with her in the hospital (her brother was able to be there too which was really good). She was pretty banged up, broken femur, but her mind was clear and she's going to be okay. Her coworker was killed. They were weed wacking in a ditch (they were highway maintenance workers) and were just getting into their truck to move on to the next place. A semi truck blew through a stop sign and hit a car, and both vehicles slid into her and her coworker as they were getting into the truck. I don't know exact details, but it seems like a miracle that she was okay. I feel so much grief for her coworker's family. It just doesn't seem fair, to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and just like that, it's over for you. I feel guilty being happy that Shelby is okay, because it's not fair that her coworker is not. A lot of weird feelings about that, and to have the house sale kind of happening at the same time made for lots of weird emotions in me. I won't ramble on about it too much, it's just hard to feel like all the little things we are dealing with are super important when we were so close to losing a family member, and we know there is a family that is suffering from such intense grief right now. Hard not to get a little philosophical! In any case, we are happy it happened so quickly and we can now move on to the next thing, which as I mentioned before, is finding a place to live down there.

Adam is doing amazing at potty training! Last week Saturday, about a week in, something started clicking for him and it's just been getting steadily better. He figured out what he was supposed to do on the potty and he now has no problem releasing pee. He is even peeing on public toilets and other people's toilets without a potty seat. Quite amazing! Poop is another story, and he does not have that one yet - at all. I don't really know how to help him make that connection, but I figure he'll get it eventually. I just hope it doesn't take too long! I am pretty proud of our little bud:).

Operation Relocation . . . is a GO!

*I wrote this blog post last Tuesday, just had to wait until Brian notified his boss before publishing.*

I can't believe I'm writing those words . . . this is very surreal. I just looked back on a blog post I wrote almost exactly one year ago. About how we had an opportunity to move to Seattle so Brian could work for Microsoft. How we really wanted to go, but it just didn't seem like the right opportunity. At the end of that post, I said this:

"This process opened our eyes up to the fact that we are open to moving, which I never thought that I would be. The HR lady at Microsoft told us that if we change our mind in the next year we should give her a call - "We might get you down here yet" were her words, or something to that effect. So while the timing and offer were not the right opportunity right NOW, who knows how we'll feel in a year? I know I sure don't!:)"

The year is up. We have an offer from Amazon. We're going to take it. Brian starts his new job August 26th.

Most of you reading this know that Brian has been applying for jobs in the Seattle area, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. He started this back in February, right after we got back from our weekend in Seattle. We heard nothing for months. A few recruiters from Microsoft got in touch with him, but it never progressed past the initial interview stage. He did have a few phone interviews with Google, and it looked like they were going to be bring him on onsite for an interview, but in the end decided not to move forward. It was a bit discouraging for Brian, as he was starting to get a bit excited about the prospect of working for Google, but the reality was we might not have been able to accept a job with them anyway (not too sure how good their Autism treatment benefits are). This was back in May and we were back to square one. I was genuinely starting to think it wasn't going to happen this year. I was starting to settle into the idea that we were staying, and was perfectly happy with that. The kids were set for school next year, everything would be easy, smooth sailing.

And then out of the blue, an Amazon recruiter calls. They are coming to Calgary again and they want to interview Brian on Monday, June 10th. Okay, the door was open again! However, I was pretty sure that Amazon would never be an option for us because last year at least, they had no Autism treatment benefits at all. If anyone doesn't know, Autism treatment in the US can cost between $40,000 and $50,000 a year. Not exactly feasible for most families. Microsoft had amazing benefits, but at the time that we researched it, they were the only ones. Brian decided to look it up and lo and behold, Amazon switched to the same benefits company as Microsoft back in February of this year. That didn't necessarily mean their benefits would be the same, but we knew that at the very least, they had an Autism benefit now. Right before Brian was set to interview with Amazon, he found out from a Microsoft recruiter that he had been in touch with that there was a hiring manager that wanted to do a phone interview with him. The phone interview was on Friday, Brian's Amazon interview was on Monday. Just when you think the door is closed...

The Amazon interview went well. They let Brian know on Tuesday that they were very impressed with him and wanted to extend him an offer (I'm not surprised, I know how good he is at what he does:)). He let Microsoft know that he was getting an offer and they immediately told him they wanted to bring him down for an onsite interview - that Friday! So off he went to Seattle on Friday. While he was there, Amazon got in touch with him and gave him the offer. They actually called here first, and I was able to ask about benefits. The guy on the phone verified that they did indeed have an Autism treatment benefit and he sent me a very general overview of it. The offer was pretty good, better than the Microsoft offer last year, but there were still a lot of questions to be answered before we could accept. We put in a request to talk to benefits experts and waited to hear from them. In the meantime, Brian heard back from Microsoft. No-go for this group. It was a bit of an odd response, actually. The specific team he was interviewing with didn't think he would be a good fit for them, but they thought there might be other teams within Microsoft Office that he WOULD be a good fit for. So no, but yes . . . very weird. They told us that if he said no to Amazon, he should get back in touch with them and they would put an offer together for him, but they wouldn't be able to put one together in a short enough time frame to compete with Amazon.

We pretty much decided that we shouldn't count on Microsoft panning out, so we were back to trying to figure out if we could make Amazon work. Brian expressed some concerns about salary and vacation time, thinking they would probably not budge on either (such as our experience with Microsoft last year), and they immediately turned around and offered him 10% more on base salary and an extra week of vacation. Hmmm - maybe this would work after all?? Now we just had to wait and hear if they would cover Adam's preschool and ABA therapy. After much back and forth, we found out that the specific preschool we picked for him WAS covered, and that we would only have to pay a deductible and co-insurance up to a maximum, and that was an affordable number. Luckily, this is the same deductible and maximum that applies to ALL our medical expenses, so after we max this out, every medical expense we have will be covered at 100%. I wanted to add that in case anyone is concerned that we haven’t looked into that:).

Sooo that was the last thing we needed! All that was left now was to accept! And that we did - today, Tuesday, June 25th. There is a lot we need to do now. I am a bit overwhelmed at the thought. A relocation expert will be in contact with us soon to help us get started, so I'm hoping I don't feel too overwhelmed. Selling the house is the biggest obstacle in my mind. But, I know we will manage. I feel like God has opened the doors for us to make this change, and He is coming with us to Seattle! Or Bellevue . . . pretty sure we will live in Bellevue, although Brian's job is going to be in downtown Seattle.

Operation relocation begins!

Goodbye training wheels for one, hello potty training for another!

The last few weeks have been very interesting for this family of ours! Lynsey decided it was time to say good bye to her training wheels, and she is riding her bike like a pro! It took no time at all, she got it right away. This is not something we ever could have tried to force her into, completely her decision, and that is why it worked! She loves riding her bike with the neighbour kids - it's gotten to the point where if there is a day when none of the kids are available to play, she can hardly carry on with the day. Such a social butterfly! I am happy she is enjoying her summer days with the neighbour kids, and it is pretty low maintenance for us. She just goes to the top of the cul-de-sac and rides up there, which we have deemed safe enough for her at her age.

Adam is potty training! Ack! We started Saturday morning. I had been thinking about doing it on this weekend for a while, and on Friday morning, he woke up completely dry! Brian took him to get his blood tests done at the Children's that day, so we didn't start the potty training until the next day. Too much trauma for one day! They did get the blood work done, thank goodness - what a load off my mind. He was totally off the rest of the day, though. Really rough experience, poor kid. So far, he has not made an association between his pee and the potty. He did wake up this morning almost dry, so I knew a big pee was coming. I followed him around all morning until I could him start peeing, and I whisked him to the potty. He kept going and hurray! There was pee in the potty! I tried really hard to be excited and show him the pee, and just generally try to help him see that this was what he was supposed to do, but he did not seem to care too much. I very much wonder how long this process will be. At this point, we're going to keep going with it and just keep trying to catch him when he starts. Several times on Saturday he started peeing just a little bit, but then completely stopped when we brought him to the potty. He seems to have great bladder control, which is working for and against us right now! I do feel cautiously optimistic that this is possible, so I guess we'll see!

Nathan is such a character! He is constantly bringing us books to read and trains to drive, saying "choo choo" the whole time:). He now tells us "ope" when he wants us to open something. Very interactive kid! He has started throwing rice from our rice table and sand from the sand box, so we are trying to redirect him out of these activities. From what we can see, a very typical little 16 month old:). Watching him and Adam interact the last few days has been interesting. It seems Adam is starting to enjoy bugging Nathan a little bit! Nathan had the two soft chairs set up on the couch and was switching back from one to the other. All of a sudden, Adam shows up and sits in one of them. Of course, Nathan immediately vacates the chair he is sitting in and wants to sit in the chair Adam just took. Adam smiles at Nathan while Nathan is pointing at the chair and crying. I am happy to see at least some "normal" interactions between the two of them!

Happy to be high and dry!

As you all likely know, Calgary has been experiencing some horrible flooding over the last few days. We went down to Crescent Heights tonight to get a view of downtown, and it's really crazy. I've seen a lot of pictures, but it feels a lot more real when you see it first hand. It is hard to imagine how long it will take even just for the water to recede - I don't know that it's gone down much at all since yesterday! It looks like it's going to take until mid-week at least to get all the power back on downtown. That means Brian will be home for a few extra days next week. Not the reason we would want him home, that's for sure!

The last few weeks have been a bit stressful (will do another blog post over the next few days explaining exactly what has been going on in our crazy lives). Adam continues to really struggle with his home program, although we did have ONE good day last week Friday so that was great! His Speech Therapist is good, she seems to be able to keep him reasonably calm and regulated. I am so sick of this home program. We will give it a few more weeks and then re-evaluate what we are doing with this. I wanted to give it a chance, but it's been over three months now and we need to do what will be best for Adam right now. I continue to be unconvinced that this is helping him a whole lot right now. Lynsey continues to have some big emotions, and has been showing some anger towards me lately. It is very difficult for me to not completely lose it when she starts being defiant. I don't know what she is triggering in me, but it is not pretty! Really working on staying calm and getting to the root of the defiance. I have had some success figuring it out and talking it out with her, although it usually takes a while before she is willing to talk calmly about it. It usually comes down to her feelings being hurt by something we did. Nathan is trying to communicate with us more and more, which is so cute! He loves trains and loves to say "choo choo!". He says a few more words now, like "milk" and I think I heard him try to say "good night" today (sometimes it's really hard to tell if they are saying an actual word or not).

More to come from me soon, so stay tuned:).

Summer days are here!

Has it really been over a week and a half since my last post? Where is June even going! I can't believe school will be out in a couple of weeks. I survived the dreaded half day Kindergarten year! And I did it while walking to school almost every day, too! I might not be the mom making her own laundry soap or sewing my kids' clothes, but I did get them outside every day on a nice walk to bring Lynsey to school and pick her up again (well, Nathan anyway, since Adam gets on the bus before we bring Lynsey to school).

Nathan is such a little nerd these days! He loves things on his head and face (hence the pictures with Lynsey's helmet and headband - he was pretty proud of the headband:)) and Brian got some great video of him walking around with the potato head glasses the other day:). I know I'm biased, but his little smile is just the absolute cutest! He always wants to know what I'm doing when I'm cooking, which is a bit of an inconvenience, but at least he's curious! He still doesn't say a lot of words, mostly "that" still, but the other day he did say "cloth" when we were by the sink and he wanted to bite on the cloth (he is getting eye teeth still - two down, two to go!). He has started to love the swing at the park, and loves to climb on the equipment as well (this makes me pretty nervous, but I'm trying to let him be as much as I can).

All of last week, we had no home program. It was such a nice change, I have to say. I know it seems like having an aide is supposed to help me, but as I've mentioned previously, it has only added to my burden of late. The other night, Brian was recounting Adam's day to him, and he actually joined in with Brian! Brian said, "And we played outside, and planted some trees" and Adam pipes up, "and you played in the mud, and you opened the back door, and you went inside and played in the rice, and you opened the gate and went in the front yard". He was talking about himself, but he still really struggles with using "I" and tends to say it as though we were saying it. This is different than what he's done before, because he was not directly repeating what Brian was saying, but actually recounting his own day and during a time when Brian brought it up, so completely appropriately! He has also been pointing to things and saying, "this" a lot more, being specific about choices which is also good to see. We just feel like ironically, last week without therapy has been his best week in a while! Now that doesn't mean that this isn't a manifestation of the therapy that he's had, I am not ready to completely write off his home program, I just think it's been good for him to have some time off to process and not feel such a large amount of stress on a daily basis. Our aide was back on Monday, and yesterday and today have not been good. The only way we've been able to make it through the days is by getting in the wagon and going for walks. He seems to tolerate her okay if we're outside, although she still can't push him on the swing or be anywhere near him when he's climbing anywhere. Sigh - if only I knew whether or not him being so pushed out of his comfort zone was doing him any good at all. I tend to think if it doesn't improve soon then we will have to reevaluate. Our entire family got to join him at preschool on Monday for a picnic! It was really nice to see him in his class environment again, and he even got to be the Special Helper:). His preschool teachers really love him and have done such a great job with him. He even let Kyla ride on the teeter totter with him when I was standing right there - I don't think I've ever seen him let anyone do anything like that with him when I've been around before. Oh and he pedaled the tricycle when he was there that day! He just got on and decided to try it, and like with so many things, when he cared enough to try it, he could do it! I just know there are many more things out there that he is so capable of, but the struggle is getting him to care enough to try them instead of just shaking his bubble stick!

Lynsey has been so emotional lately - I feel like this is all I ever write about her! But it's such a big part of where we're at with her! She cries and cries and it can be so hard to deal with sometimes. I have been doing a lot of reading about big emotions in kids, and all the positive parenting advice leads in the direction of letting her have her feelings. Don't tell her to stop crying, to get over it, etc. because that will only teach her to cover up her feelings and that she's not safe to express them, and hence will not pay off in the end. This is a lot harder than it sounds. After the 10th outburst in one day, my empathy is really being stretched to the limit. However, I completely buy into positive parenting and am committed to it, even when all I want to do is scream at her to just stop it and get over it! Getting to that point usually has more to do with me and my own issues, so it's not fair for me to project that onto her anyway. She is just a very emotional 5 year old that still has a lot of learning to do when it comes to dealing with these huge, overwhelming emotions. I will continue to try my best to be patient and empathetic! She is such a wonderful kid, she just needs some help sometimes. Don't we all?:)