We have drywall... but no place to exercise.

Sorry, loyal followers, if you're getting sick and tired of all our new house updates, but it's just such an exciting process for us, especially as we get closer and closer to the end.

We stopped by the house on New Year's Day, but were sad to find out that nothing had been done since the last time we were there. But so the trip wasn't a total wash, we headed up into town to check out Ridge Fitness. Blech. What a horrible gym. Small, dark, and empty, except for a few random souls plodding diligently along on the treadmills. A sad assortment of weight and cardio equipment, a lot of which faced nothing but blank walls. A tiny group fitness room that gave me immediate claustrophobia. And the whole thing is under renovation to make the space even smaller and cram everything together more. "Well," we thought, "at least it will be cheap." Not so much. Memberships are almost the same amount that we are paying at the L.A. Fitness Signature Club in Ballard! (Where we have a pool, basketball and racquetball courts, a huge group fitness room with tons of classes, and two floors of more equipment than you could ever use. All of which is surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows letting in lots of light). Going to the gym is a constant struggle for me, and I know that if Ridge Fitness is my workout option I will never exercise again. So next we're off to check out Gold's Gym in Issaquah to see if it's a better situation. If so, the extra 10 minute drive will definitely be worth it.

In any case, besides being thoroughly discouraged by the gym in our new neighborhood, we didn't get much accomplished that day. But when Stew drove up this morning to check things out, we had some progress... drywall! Stewart couldn't believe how fast they were slapping it up, and I was so excited as photos started arriving on my phone. It's starting to look like a real house!!


Yucky day outside, but you can see we have siding now...
(the houses won't both be yellow, BTW - that's just primer)

Kitchen... looking pretty small right now but they said we would feel that way at this stage...

Laundry Room.

I guess those were the rooms that had the most finished, which is why Stew took pictures of them. But the guys were working lickity split and the rest of the walls were going up insanely fast, so I'm sure the next time we visit everything will be much more complete. We're still waiting for our confirmed closing date and expect to have that any day now.

And we've had some developments with the condo sale but I don't want to jinx anything by writing about it here, so you'll have to wait a little while longer for an update on that.

If anyone has opinions on gyms near our new house, please share them with us!