Pining for the Fjords

If you missed the first part of the moving adventure, be sure to click here to catch up! When last we blogged, I'd hopped a flight back to the LBC, leaving Chris alone in the Bro-partment in Northeast Scottsdale.  He spent the week reconnecting with his buddies at Gore and making himself fancy dinners with ingredients from Whole Foods; in California, I was doing my best to clean out the pantry and fridge (my meals were...interesting), while continuing to separate the things we couldn't part with from the items the movers could take and hide away in storage for a few months. On Wednesday, I met with my non-fiction book club for the final time to say a fond adieu to everyone, and they sent me off in style; they prepared tons of good food and gifted me with all sorts of amazing presents from books (of course) to earrings to new scarves!  I was honored to be part of their family during the time we lived in Long Beach. I also kept this little maniac entertained: "M

Sorry for the hiatus from blogging, but as you might have seen on Facebook, we've been busy lately! Zoe wants to know why these plants are so angry A quick recap - although we really enjoyed living in Long Beach and absolutely loved being near Dad and Risa, the strain of a hellacious commute (generally, 30 miles in 90 minutes - each way - gotta love the 405!) coupled with a less than accommodating work culture wore Chris down over the past three years, and we decided the best thing for our family was to look elsewhere.  Thankfully, Chris' old firm, W.L. Gore and Associates, was happy to have him return, so it was back to AZ for the Olsen clan! Over the past six weeks, we've worked with several dozen sets of packers, movers, drivers of various and sundry trucking vehicles, realtors, and the like as we relocated our household from the LBC back to the Phoenix metro area.  We started in early January, when Chris formally accepted the position with Gore, and the planni