I'm Singing in the Rain!

Wow! It's been a while since my last post. Kayle has now been at Microsoft for 1.5 weeks and seems to be enjoying it immensely. We took a bike ride to Kayle's work on Sunday, and I was surprised to see that they have a pool table (to let off some steam during the work day) and free beverages all day (pretty much anything you could ever want!). Since then, Kayle has been riding his bike to work everyday and I have been able to have the car and run errands. It's only about 3 miles to his building, and there's sidewalks and bike trails the whole way. In fact, I think you can get almost ANYWHERE in Redmond on a bike trail or sidewalk. Apparently they live up to their title: "Bicycle Capital of the World." Kayle really likes his co-workers and now has his work computer all set up. The whole team is de-bugging before an upcoming deadline, and Kayle says he feels like he understands the overall project a lot better now. I can see why Kayle likes work so much: so many perks! Sometimes I wonder how much work he gets done at work. Yesterday, Coldstone came in and gave all the guys free ice cream. Today, half the day is cancelled for a development division BBQ and tomorrow we have an open house (also during work) to sign up for our medical/dental/etc benefits. Hmm...I think this week is unusual, but still!

Meanwhile, Angie has been running all over town. On Tuesday, I went to Kohl's, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Great Clips (got a shoulder-length haircut), the mechanic, Kinko's, the post office, and the grocery store. Yesterday, I spent 2.5 hours at the mechanic. He's so nice, though. Since I had to bring it back for the same problem (the check-engine light came back on), he repaired everything and re-checked it several times without charging me for labor at all. I only had to pay $36 (for the part he special-ordered), and they worked on it for about 2 hours! He was apologetic for my "inconvenience" but I am very grateful to have such an honest mechanic. (And he explains in detail exactly what is wrong with your car every time...drawing pictures and everything!) :)

Yesterday was also fun because Brenda (a new friend) came over in the morning to hang out with me. We grabbed smoothies and headed to Kirkland's beach on Lake Washington. To our surprise, Wednesday is concert day in that park, and they had a singing cowboy (who sort of sounded like Elvis) and tons of moms with their young kids (and their free popsicles). It was a happy crowd, to say the least. Then, we walked around downtown Kirkland, browsing the boutiques and chatting. It was a great morning! Brenda told me they had a movie in the park right near our house at night, so Kayle and I went to an outdoor set-up with our pillows and blankets to see "Singing in the Rain". What a wonderful event! They had the local dance troop tap-dancing while we waited for it to get dark enough and an ice cream truck was there. We had fun and went to bed tired. The parks here are so central to community life and so fun!

Well, I think that's all for this past week. I've been working on a scrapbook of our trip out West and Em J showed me a really easy and cool program to take digital photos and make a book on your computer: http://mypublisher.com/. Check it out! She's going to use it to make my wedding photo album too.

We miss you all!
Angie and Kayle