We're moving to Lake Tahoe!

When we decided that Corwin would be accepting a job with Zephyr Associates on the shores of Lake Tahoe in Nevada, I created this Treasury with Lake Tahoe and Reno Etsy artists work in it. I thought it made a good opener. After a couple months of searching in Houston, Corwin turned his job hunt national. He quickly had many more interviews a couple offers to choose from. If we were going to move out of Houston, we wanted to make sure that we moved to someplace that we would enjoy. What could be better than a resort town? It has hikes of all challenge levels, beautiful views, skiing in the Winter, Craft and Art Fairs in the Summer, clean air, and little traffic. Since it is a resort town, it also has more culture than you would expect from a small town. It has a Shakespeare Festival in the Summer. Corwin and Gabriel just attended a Salmon Run Festival where Gabriel got to play the boy Salmon in the audience participation play. It has boutiques that I can market my stuff to. It is a three to four hour drive to San Francisco (bonus!) and a one hour drive to Reno, which has the closest airport.

Corwin accepted the job on the Thursday before Hurricane Ike hit. We carefully plotted out how much time it would take to wrap things up in Houston and get up to Lake Tahoe. We set his start date as September 29. Well, that did not go according to plan. Corwin and Gabriel had to leave on the Wednesday before the 29th in order to get to Lake Tahoe by the 28th. Our power was not yet back on. We had lost a pecan tree. Our roof has been damaged. We've got some other minor repairs to complete. Our Realtor did not get power back to her office until after the 29th and could not get our house on the MLS. Here's the Treasury that the chaos of Hurricane Ike inspired:
I suppose you can tell that our plans were blown out of the water. So, here Ethan and I sit in Houston, madly trying to get our house ready to show. Some friends have been a really great help, and I'd like to give them a shout out here:

• Monica and Jeff Hartley gave me my first Internet access and spent a day helping me sort through things and get the house organized,
• Barbara Smith and her daughters, Megan and Emma, gave me several evenings of air conditioning and dinners and have periodically come by and hauled away truck loads of all kinds of things from treasures to recycling,
• Suzanne and Simon Powney provided me with hot showers, electricity and a sewing machine so I could get some work done,
• Sarah Edmonson spent a day helping me organize and store things and kept Ethan occupied while I got flowers to make the garden pretty again,
• Tiffany Tyler Kuffner hauled away a carload of recycling and helped me cull clothing and prepare consignments,
• Letitia Taitte-Lynch spent the afternoon entertaining Ethan while I cleaned,
• Amy Price came over and gave me a break and adult companionship,
• Several people had Gabriel over for played dates as he became completely bored with the hurricane-induced break, and
• Many others have provided moral support during this stressful time.

I am grateful to all of you for your help, your support and your friendship. I am really gong to miss you all.

While I slave away at the old "Pay, pack, and follow" (to which you can add "repair and sell"), Corwin and Gabriel are enjoying Lake Tahoe. Gabriel loves his new school and is busily making friends. Corwin is still getting oriented at his job, but it seems likely to be one he will enjoy for a very long time. The people he works with are all wonderful, happy, smart people who enjoy the outdoors. They are camping out in the house that we have rented. Some quirky things about Tahoe: they don't deliver mail to your house - you have to get a Post Office Box, and
trash pickup is not automatic and has to be arranged. I won't have a mailing address to give to people until after I am in Lake Tahoe. You can request that mail be delivered to your house, but you have to install a mail box at a specific point in your yard. Something to do with snow plows. I haven't lived in a place with snow since I was 10. It is with a great deal of trepidation that I move Northward. I know I'm going to love the Summers; I'm just not sure about the Winters.

Did I mention that we'll have a real live guest room in our rental house with its own bathroom? Come and visit some time. And wish us luck. Right, I'll leave you with this picture I took while on the house hunting trip:



I told you it was gorgeous, right?