Work! Apartments! Tattoos! What?!

SOoooo many new developments in my little life since I last took the time to blog.

First off, Leigh and I are still workin' our fannies off. This is ultimately a good thing because we are leaving for Anchorage in 12 DAYS! Our trip North will include 5 overnight stops, camping each night, enjoying local cuisine at Mom'n'Pop places, hot springs and wildlife viewed [hopefully] from the safety of our cars rather than from the inside of our tent!

We applied for a kick ass apartment earlier this week at a complex in Anchorage. The rents are a little steep, especially compared to cities like Buffalo, but we figured since all Anchorage housing is pricey we may as well live somewhere with a lot of cool stuff. The place we decided on has a health club on site, a laundry room that uses prepaid cards and not coins, nice floorplans, etc. This morning I got a call from the leasing agent saying we'd been approved! Yay! The best part is we can move in the day we arrive in Anchorage! So basically we arrive in town, park in the parking lot and drag our stuff inside- Voila! Moved in! Plus now we can arrange to mail ourselves a bunch of [non-breakable] stuff instead of packing my little car to the gills, thereby risking a flat tire in the middle of the Yukon.

Tattoos, you say? Yep, my uncle lives here in Seattle and ever since I was 17 we've had a tendency to go on "tattoo dates" when I'm in town. This year is no different. I went back and forth between two designs and ultimately chose the one that I felt best commemorated my time in France. It's going to be a grape vine draped over my right shoulder complete with bunches of grapes and three bells to symbolize the bells at Taize and their ringing 3 times per day.

Inspiration for the bells. Inspiration for the grapevine.

My uncle is getting an old fashioned bicycle poster tattooed on his leg. He already has one and wants to eventually have three in a row going around his leg. The one he has now was beautifully done by the artist we are meeting with on Friday to get our ideas sketched up. Then sometime next week we're going back for the actual tattooing. This will be my fourth tattoo and my third tattoo with my uncle. Some family traditions are just too cool.

So, yeah, probably not going to accomplish most of the things on my Seattle List like seeing a Mariner's game, but this summer is proving to be both useful and memorable. With that said, Leigh and I are totally ready to start this new chapter of our lives in Alaska and see where that takes us.