Since June...we've gone from this:
To this:
Christian's hotel opened this week, finally, and we are so relieved. After months of delays, five or six opening dates that came and went, we are soooooo excited to finally have the doors open. He has been working non stop for weeks preparing! The journey has been long. After his interview in June (picture shown above of hotel still in progress) we grew really excited. I have been wanting to get back to seattle for a long time and felt this was the perfect chance.
Weeks went by and we heard no confirmation about whether he would get the job or not. All we knew was that no one else had been hired or interviewed. So, we took a chance. With our lease in Moscow about to be up at the end of July we drove to Seattle on 4th of July weekend, picked an apartment and signed a lease. Blind faith. It felt right.
Five minutes after we signed our lease, as we were about to drive back to Idaho, Christian got a phone call from his boss asking if he could take over a hotel property in Bridge City Texas. We had already turned down the offer once. Without hesitation we took the opportunity. With no deadline on the Seattle hotel in sight a job was better than nothing. We decided Chris would fly to Texas in a couple days and work there and I would move everything to Seattle and hope for the best. I had no job prospects waiting. Everyone said we were insane. They would ask, why don't I just go to texas? Because there are alligators and high humidity that would make my hair curl in an instant.
With the help of some very good friends I packed our house in two weeks and moved to an apartment north of Seattle. Within a week I had several promising interviews which landed me a full time, with benefits job not even two full weeks later. It was a lot of commuting, I spent 2-2 1/2 hours a day in the car and 8.5-10 at work. I hardly had a chance to talk to chris and when I did it was mostly "what have you heard about the seattle job?" Usually the answer was "nothing." Eventually it sounded like Seattle had fallen through. At that point all we could really hope for was that there would be enough hotels needing a manager that Chris could bounce to until he could find something around Seattle. We embraced the possibility that we might not see eachother for six-eight months.
Finally, in October, after they assigned him to a hotel in Pheonix Arizona, and after I quit the job I was commuting to they changed their minds and said he would get the Seattle job. We were sooo relieved. Now, after months of set backs we are so proud to see this place completed and already housing guests. Here are photos of the new hotel!! I feel like sometimes you have to trust that feeling that says "you are exactly where you should be." I felt that here, and knew that moving was the right choice. Thankfully, it has been!
