Community Chat

[SeaMaiden]

@Annabellethecat66   We have THE BEST WEATHER HERE in Washington State.....we just want peopke to THINK it rains all the time so they stay away.....it doesn't rain all the time....it is UTOPIA. 🙂

[Pearlee]

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@colleena wrote:

@Pearlee I'm in Washington State about 20 miles south of the Canadian border.  The kids & I are getting ready for church, I was getting out of the bathtub & the tub/water in it literally shook so I yelled at the kids what the heck are you doing.  Later during the service the minister mentioned that Mount Saint Helens had blew.

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@colleena   I have a very good friend who lives in Blaine - she sees Canada from her back yard!  Homeland Security is at the end of her street.  The nearest town she goes to shop is Bellingham. Do you know that area?

@RetRN   When I was a kid, I used to think "Puget" Sound was the funniest name!  We would say it  P.U. get sound.  

I'm really enjoying reading eveyone's stories who experienced it firsthand and thanks for posting them.

[J Town Girl]

@Annabellethecat66 . I moved from Northern Virginia to California and then on to Seattle.  I enjoy living in WA but many times I regret ever leaving Virginia.   I found the people there to be so pleasant and welcoming.     

The first week we moved in the neighbors on each side brought us homemade bread and a basket of fruit.  

I grew up in PA and always thought people were nice there but nothing like I experienced in Virginia.     Even though we were considered northern and not southern VA I always felt that the entire state had that southern hospitality attitude

You're smart to stay in Virginia.

[colleena]

@Pearlee I'm born & raised in Bellingham almost 67 years ago - I like that we don't have extremes weather wise and are close to Vancouver BC, Seattle, the mountains & the water.  

In remembering Mt St Helens, it reminded me that we had our own explosion here maybe 10 years ago - the Olympic Pipeline blew - some kids were playing at Whatcom Creek, a young man was fishing further upstream from them & there was a lighter used by one of them which somehow caught fire from the pipeline into the creek coming down towards town.  The 3 kids died, there was ash like residue around the creek area for days but the town was lucky as it could have been so much worse.

Just have to remember to count our blessings.

[Annabellethecat66]

@J Town Girl  I enjoyed reading your post.  I mentioned my best friend's son (who lives on an Island in Washington state).  He is like a son to me.  He met his now husband after he moved to Washington (he lived here in Northern Va all of his life).

I couldn't travel to Washington state because I'd just received my 2 new knees and the trip would have been way too difficult.  It wasn't just getting to Washington.  You had to go on a ferry and that was 5 hours in addition.  We did face time, etc and it was almost like I was there.

He loves living on this island.  I'm not familiar with the little islands from Washington, but I understand it's wonderful living there.  We always laughed because he was a world traveler and he married a guy (he's Gay) who is a real homebody.  They have a small farm and could write a book on how to be happy.  Ha!

Anyway, if you lived in Va you are probably familiar with how THINGS are divided here.  I live further down from 'the city'.  

If you want to insult someone from Va call us the DMV (DC/Maryland/Virgina).  We in Va do not like being included in Maryland or DC.  Snobs?  Probably!  Ha!

You could take a sharpie pen and draw a line right down Virgina as to more Conservative (not over the top...but way more than upward toward the 'city').

My late husband was born in Washington state but his family (father's side) is from Virginia.  They quickly moved back to Va after he was born.  In fact there's an entire town with my late husband's last name on it.  There are schools with his last name on them.  His ancestory goes all of the way back to the beginning.

With me, well, my great grandmother was American Indian.  I never knew her but my grandmother (her daughter) raised me from 3 months on.  Still all are from Virginia (even on my mother's side).  You can see where we are deeply ingrained into Va's history...Ha!  Not the fru-fru side (is that a word?  I think not).

I always say I could live anywhere in the world but I'd never move from Va (except maybe home in Florida in Winter).  My late husband had finally gotten me to agree to buy and live in Florida in the Winter.  I didn't want to leave where my girls lived (in Va).

Funny how things work out because after he died, the youngest moved to Colorado and the middle (with husband and family) moved to Florida.  I still have my oldest living near me in Fairfax (where they're more ummmm....liberal(?)  Ha!  There's that pen drawing that line down Virginia..(Ha).

What part of Va did you live in?  If you don't want to say, I understand.  I think with me, well, for $9.99 you can find out everything about me anyway....Ha!  (That's true, unfortunately).

[Annabellethecat66]

@SeaMaiden You made me smile.  I liked your post.  THAT's what my friend's son always says when people ask him about all of the rain.  Thanks for the smile.

[Pearlee]

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@SeaMaiden wrote:

@Annabellethecat66   We have THE BEST WEATHER HERE in Washington State.....we just want peopke to THINK it rains all the time so they stay away.....it doesn't rain all the time....it is UTOPIA. 🙂

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@SeaMaiden   My friend in Blaine says about the same.   She doesn't understand the "rains a lot" reputation and loves the weather in WA.

[RainCityWoman]

I live in Seattle, which is not near it, but I remember the day it happened. I was at the University District Street Fair and the sky looked ominous. Everyone was talking about it and wondering what was going to happen in the aftermath. The odd thing is, we thought Seattle would be covered in thick ash, but it ended up moving in the air currents to eastern Washington and covering them in ash 300 miles away from the mountain and bypassing Seattle for the most part. They later had a time lapse you could watch as the ash plume passed across the state. Many products have been manufactured from the ash, including beautiful hand blown Christmas ornaments. It is certainly a testimony to the power and destruction of nature. My friends who used to camp at Spirit Lake by the mountain were devastated when it all disappeared in a matter of minutes. Had they been there that day, they too would have disappeared.

[aubnwa01]

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@Pearlee wrote:

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@RetRN   When I was a kid, I used to think "Puget" Sound was the funniest name!  We would say it  P.U. get sound.  

I thought the Strait Of Juan de Fuca was pretty fun to say as a kid!

[J Town Girl]

@Annabellethecat66  During our time in Virginia we lived in Fairfax County.  My husband was stationed at Fort Belvoir.    We lived there for approximately three years then we relocated to CA.  

I really enjoyed CA during the time we were there but I have friends who still live there and say it isn't the same place any longer.    Extremely expensive and so much crime.  

In sort of a coincidence, we just had new neighbors move into our neighborhood.  They're a young Coast Guard family.   Both of them grew up in the town almost right next door to mine in PA.     They just moved here from his last duty station in VA.  

It was fun to sit and talk to them about growing up in PA and our experiences in VA.

The son of your friend is very lucky to live on the island.  There's a few of them and they are beautiful.    The San Juans are just gorgeous.   I would love to live there.  The only drawback for me would be having to travel in and out by ferry.   The people who live though there don't seem to mind that little inconvenience at all.   They feel the solitude and beauty are well worth any difficulties.  

I enjoyed living in different states and meeting so many nice people.   However, I don't see us moving from the Seattle area now.   It's become our home.