Oak Harbor to Bothell: 1977 - 1995 (September 2010)

From September 19, 2010

Though it was kind of cool living on an island at first, as a restless teenager I soon learned that there wasn't really a lot to do other than get into mischief with other teenagers.

My favorite memories of Oak Harbor actually have very little to do with the island itself but more with school and friends.  Directly across the street from our first Oak Harbor house another girl my age (10th grade) moved in from California at about the same time.  She came from the far south and I came from the far north.  She had never seen snow and was told that in Washington there was two months of darkness every winter.  I had some stories for her!

Since we had almost every class together we quickly became best friends and were known around school as the inseparable unit  "Kim and Katie."  We had way too much fun to ever post in a journal -- public or private -- but some memories include setting a specific time to sneak out of the house and sneak into Kim's bedroom (through her window) where we would usually eat popcorn, and talk and laugh for at least a couple hours before I'd sneak back home.  I think her dad finally found out somehow.  Might have something to do with the constant laughter in the middle of the night.

 My circle of friends was a pretty small one while in Oak Harbor and most of the time I stayed in the background behind Kim's shadow, which was perfectly fine with me.  We had so much fun that a year later we were the only juniors who dreaded our senior year because we didn't want to stop having so much fun in school.  However, my senior year didn't go as planned when the Oak Harbor school district deemed most of my 9th grade Canadian credits invalid.  I didn't have enough credits to graduate and in spite of some attempts to gain extra credit and take some local classes at Skagit Valley College, I got tired of the run around and just stopped going.  I did return a few times to visit during lunch and to get my senior annual signed.

Eventually, Kim got married and moved away and my circle of friends changed.  By the time I left the island myself, I was married with a toddler in tow-- having spent 8 years on the island.

The one good thing I took from Oak Harbor: Stephanie.

In March of 1985 my little family moved to Lynnwood, WA, very near Mill Creek and Bothell.  We lived in that house for nearly 10 years-- the longest I had stayed in any one house during my entire life.  During that time I went to school at nights at Shoreline Community College in Seattle while pursuing a degree as a Registered Nurse.   I loved learning but was determined not to let it affect my main job as a mom and spent my days devoted to my little kids-- and my nights to my schooling.

There is nothing really good to report about living in Lynnwood other than the three beautiful babies I had while living there and that it was a nice little neighborhood at the time.  Now it is an industrial neighborhood.  I always hated the traffic and the time spent in commute even going to a place a mile away. I also disliked the constant overcast skies, the drizzle, the fog, the rain, the declining school system, and the rising crime.

The night before Ryan was born, Stephanie and Ernie determined that the baby was still alive and kicking. 

My son

Before he knew it, Ryan was a Trekkie.  He went as Spock for Halloween.

 

Callie, 1991 and Jennifer, 1994.

So these are my three best reasons for living in Lynnwood (four, counting Stephanie).  When we outgrew that little house we moved 3/4 of a mile around the corner to a much larger house in Bothell, where we lived from  1994 to 1995.  What I remember most about that 2600 square foot house was being attacked by fleas when we moved in.  The previous tenant had six cats and our legs were black with fleas.  I spent the first night holding Jennifer (the newest baby) in a chair with my knees up so my feet wouldn't be on the floor -- we had to leave for a few days to get that problem taken care of.

One of the perks of living near Seattle was the ease of heading out on the highway to visit my parents in the little red Mazda.  Their house was the last one on the street that ended at the ocean where the kids and I fed the Seagulls and flew many kites.

After the ice cream man who regularly patrolled our street in Bothell was arrested for luring a 9-year-old boy into the back of his ice cream truck I decided I'd had enough of "city life."  I wanted something simpler and safer for my family.  I also needed to simplify my marriage and this seemed like the best way to keep things in tact.  Why it was always up to me to keep things in tact, I'll never know.  But I made the decision to leave school (with only one year to go) and move further east.  It was just time to go.  I could always finish school elsewhere.  I looked at a map and kept heading further east till I found a place that had both a booming economy and still natural beauty, no traffic, and almost no crime... Montana....