Moving to Seattle

Yes, it's official. The Kobersteins are pulling up stakes and moving out of state!


 I will be leaving Google Mountain View and heading to the Seattle office to work for Cloud Billing. Danielle has been looking at houses for what seems like the past 4 years straight. In the end we decided to try our luck in a new state. It was a joint decision with the family to make the move out of the area to somewhere it might be a little easier to raise our 4 kids. While I am very excited for the change I am also very sad to be leaving behind my childhood home here in the Bay Area. I will miss frequent visits from Mom and Dad Koberstein and Severson and our various siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, and friends in the area. You will all be missed!


 It has been a hard decision to move. We ended up choosing Seattle because we are able to find a place there that meets everything that we wanted. We really did try to find a way to stay in California. Everything we looked at in the Bay Area area required us to compromise something important to us. Long commute, worse schools, or tiny run down house. We chose an area in Redmond, WA that has all the good things we were looking for: schools like Danville, a commute like Palo Alto, and housing prices like Newark.


 It's odd when you make a decision like moving. You try your best to figure out how it will change your life but I find it nearly impossible to actually know if a big life change is going to be better or worse. It seems like the things that have the biggest effect on your life are often so small that you cannot anticipate them fully. Maybe your neighbor just doesn't get along with you. Maybe your new job will be much more rewarding. Maybe your children will fall into a circle of friends who are up to no good. Hard to say. That said we are fairly confident that we are going to love Washington. So far it has been great every time we have visited. I already have a long list of things I want to do in the area and the people I have met have been nothing but kind. The excitement we feel about our new home makes the sadness we feel about leaving our old home easier to deal with.


 It has been a lot of fun living in the Bay Area. I remember when Dr. Ng, my professor at BYU, suggested that I apply to Stanford because I had a good chance getting accepted and it was close to home. I then had to ask where it was located and was surprised to find out it was in Palo Alto! After being accepted for a Computer Science masters program, Danielle and I moved back to the Bay Area for grad school, never thinking we would stay long past graduation.  All we could "afford" here was one bedroom at my in-laws house! But the housing bubble popped at just the right time for us to take advantage of, and thanks to generous support from family, we bought our first house.  And I found out the hard way that you shouldn't move into a new home without your wife. Danielle still teases me about moving into our first home without her!


 A lot has happened since we moved into our Juniper Ave. home. We have had two additional kids born! Each a delight to our family.  I've had jobs at two big companies, each one teaching me and helping me progress. I have learned how to rock climb and found a life long belay partner in Devon Child! I became a long-distance runner and conquered multiple marathons and even a 50-mile ultra! -- dragging my brothers Lynn and Weston along for the ride (and even Danielle a little bit). We have loved together, laughed together and cried together.  It has been a great home for us.


 And so, with many fond memories and dear associations, we bid farewell to California, looking ahead with excitement and some anxiety for what we will be like as Washingtonians!


 And if you ever find yourself in the Seattle area please, come by for a visit. We would love to have you over and have a guest room at our new house just for you!



Jon


 PS: For those interested I am planning on biking from here to Seattle 100% self supported. I'm a little nervous about the audacious goal I have set for myself so I would not object to a few Strava kudos to encourage me to keep on pedaling and not quit half way there.


 Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/11123959
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkoberstein/

Happy Birthday baby!

It's been a big year for my birthday girls. Xochitl turned 8 in April; Dawna turned 12 last week, and Jade turned 5! My mind is spinning with big kids!!

My five-year-old Jade is imaginative, loving, and absolutely adorable! She's been looking forward to her birthday all year. Every time we go to any store and she sees something that strikes her fancy, she says, "Get this for me on my birthday!" Unfortunately, I couldn't buy out Target, Party City, Michael's, and Toys-R-Us for my daughter's birthday, so we had to pick and choose just a few things. Still, the night before her birthday, she told me exactly how her morning should play out:

"When I wake up, I'm going to open the window covers and then I will see a beautiful unicorn in the window.  You could tape it if you want, or you can just lean it in there. Then, I will come out and see my breakfast and my birthday presents."

I, for one, was glad that she shared this vision with me, because there's NO way I could have come up with that on my own. And of course, with such specific ideas in mind, it was no problem making her birthday morning wish come true! She found a rainbow unicorn card in her window, had presents lined up along the fireplace, and delicious blueberry pancakes with bacon and apple juice!

The only trouble was timing... usually, Jade wakes up around 8:30am, just after the big girls go to school. But as a special treat on her birthday, Jade woke up at 7am... oops.  So, her breakfast wasn't really ready when she got up, but she accepted my tardiness with understanding.

She also had a perfect vision in her mind of her hair-do for the day: "I need five ponytails. In a diamond shape like a crown. Then the ponytails have to get together in the middle to one big ponytail." ... I did my best... and she seemed pleased with my efforts:

(Really can't go wrong with those awesome curls!)

We had a relaxed morning of opening and enjoying presents, with local company stopping by to read new stories together: Fancy Nancy!

Later that afternoon, we had a party! Jade had previously made arrangements with Mandy Pim to have a swim party at her backyard pool. We also found a zebra pinata at Bro. and Sis. Wiggin's Grocery Outlet store.

I am generally not a fan of pinatas... big sticks mixed with little kids scare me... so I made a "string pull pinata" game, which only lasted about 30 seconds... but at least nobody was getting swung at... and everybody loved the abundance of Air Heads and Blo-pops that filled our little striped friend.

We also had a "treasure hunt" in the pool. Jon and Jake (the dads at the party) tossed a variety of coins into the pool and the kids had to dive in and get them.  One coin had zebra stripes on it and was exchanged for a little zebra prize. Grace Ringlein found the right coin and won the game! Everyone else still got to take home a few coins. Everyone thought the game made perfect cents (sense...get it? teehee!)

Jade is showing us how grown up she is every day. She loves practicing piano, reading and writing, and counting. She loves for us to play ponies with her and enjoys sibling and friend time, especially when they are willing to join in the game! She is going to make a fabulous five-year-old and an impressive kindergarten student! I just hope I am ready for that...yikes...

My baby's not a baby.

Dawna turned 12! Oh. My. Goodness! I had a hard time sleeping the night before her birthday as I contemplated how much she had grown and changed since she was born... and how much I've changed since she was born (not a super flattering thought...)

Then... 

And Now...

Don't blink! Babies grow fast!

Dawna celebrated her birthday on Friday by taking Sara, Hope, and Lizzy to the Peak to go climbing.


Then we went out to ZenSen sushi. Sara and Hope were not taken with the food... As the girls watched the little plates go by on the conveyor belt, Dawna voraciously grabbed and devoured piece after piece... all while her friends looked on and one commented, "I'm just looking for something edible." It was a cultural experience, to put it mildly.

After sushi, we returned to the Whitfield house for watermelon cake, requested by Dawna.

The best part of Dawna's birthday celebration was Saturday morning. Sara and Mandy joined us for a trip to the Sacramento Temple for Dawna's first experience with baptisms for the dead. Incidentally, Sacramento is the only temple Dawna has been in before... as a baby, she came with me in a front pack to the open house!

Elder Grandpa Koberstein shared 7 family names with us for the day. Among them were 3 Korsch sisters from Germany and two Koberstein girls: Anne and Mary.

And after all that, I nearly blew it... I was so sure my recommend was in my wallet... but it was not! Between all our moving hustle and bustle, I must have packed it with my temple clothes. Shoot!! Temple workers saved the day by calling in to our bishop or stake clerk or someone... whew!!

It was very special to me as a mom to be with my daughter in the temple. To me, the temple is heaven on Earth, so peaceful and beautiful, the place I feel most centered and confident in understanding who I am. It is God's house. Witnessing Dawna's desire to go to the temple grow over the past year and seeing how she sacrificed climbing time this week to make sure she had time to get her recommend was very uplifting to me as a mom. Maybe I'm doing something right... or maybe (more likely) she just came that way.  Dawna has always been an angel baby and continues to be an angel baby... or angel child... but now a tween... soon a teen!!

And as a final bit of growing-up fun on Sunday... Dawna and I shaved our legs together!
Welcome to young women's!