One year ago today.

One year ago today, we woke up at K's parents' place in Ellensburg. Not too early, not too rushed. We were scheduled to meet Matt, our realtor, at Mela for coffee around eleven. It was an hour, maybe an hour and a half, over Blewett Pass to Wenatchee. Parking on The Ave, we grabbed Squish and hurried across the street for coffee. Though it was the main drag through town, and it was Saturday morning, we parked right across from the shop and didn't really have to hurry because there wasn't much traffic.

Matt was immediately likable, although he didn't offer to pick up our coffee tab. Rookie mistake. He was new, and we could tell. But adorable in a we-would-invite-you-over-for-dinner kind of way. He had a folder with printouts of the four houses we had arranged with him to walk through. It was sunny and golden. The air was crisp.

With a restless toddler, we didn't linger at Mela. Headed back across The Ave to our RAV (yeah, that rhymes, I realize), Matt to his Subaru. We followed him, up Orondo, across Miller, left on Lambert. Saddle Rock loomed overhead. We didn't know where we were. This was the outskirts of town, the first house on our list, the one we liked the best.

The one, we didn't know of course at the time, we'd end up buying, moving into, and a year later, from where we'd start this blog.

Back to first coming up to the house, though, I remember Matt couldn't get us in. The door was stuck. I think he may have called the listing agent while we wandered around outside. Blue skies. Eventually, we were inside, Squish coming in behind us, walking over to the crazy red staircase, and chucking the toy truck we had found for him the night before at Just Between Friends down to the basement floor. Crash! The stairs were metal, and it was loud. Okay, no more toys for the toddler.

K took a lot of photos. Funny, in hindsight, she didn't take a single one of the other three houses we would look at that day. Guess it was a sign. Although this house I remember wasn't a favorite of K's. I think it was interesting to her, but that's all. On the other hand, I loved it. From the photos online, I could picture us living in it. Getting up in the morning upstairs, clambering downstairs into the kitchen, bright and open, to make coffee. I could smell the aroma, even. Crazy. It just felt right. Like our house in Puyallup felt right the first time I walked through, and the first night I spent in it, so long ago.

Then she walked into the master bedroom.

I don't remember what she exclaimed, I guess it doesn't really matter. What matters, what mattered a year ago today, was the bedroom sold her on the house. It had a fireplace, its own balcony, an expansive view north up the Columbia and east over to Badger Mountain. A washer and dryer. A ginormous soaking tub.

As we walked through, another couple showed up with a guy from the listing agent's office. We think it was a ploy, clever and all, by the woman who became our arch-nemesis, the One Who Shall Remain Unspoken, the listing agent. Sure, send an agent from your office with his daughter and son-in-law to look interested in the house and pressure us into making a decision. Clever girl, that one. K and I, not wanting to be in their way, hastily left, picking up Squish's toys and loading back into our little Toyota, following Matt through town to the next house on our list. Then the next, and the next.

By early afternoon, we were finished. It was still sunny. We were hanging out on the porch of the last house, closer under Saddle Rock, just off the road to Mission Ridge, chatting with Matt about our options. Squish played with the cat outside. It was warm out, for the end of October. Or at least that's how it seemed to us, more accustomed to the west side of the mountains, where we each had lived for a really long time. K, since she was born. Me, for twenty years or so. Yeah, a long time. We told Matt we'd be in touch.

He headed out, leading us in our car to a park nearby where we'd let Squish run around, play. Clouds were moving in. Did we want to do this? Move to Wenatchee, across the mountains, three hours from K's work, and her parents? For some reason, I don't and at the same time do know why it was a no-brainer. It just seemed natural. We called Matt and told him to put in our offer. Then we drove to a little coffee shop, Lisa Bees, already closed less than a year later, up north along the Columbia near Rocky Reach. By then it was cloudy. While splitting a BLT, I did my best to fill out the forms on my phone. We each got a coffee for the drive back to Ellensburg, and another night there away from home. Home, the place we had put so much work into, the place we had made so many memories, the place that would only be ours for another month or so.

Natural or not, no-brainer even, little did we know what we were getting ourselves into...