A year in Snoqualmie

Definitely a great move for us, not only to the Northwest, but to the Snoqualmie Ridge area. I literally don't have a single complaint about this community, with the exception that it's growing fast and traffic will be a pain before too long.

Housing prices in this community continue to rise quickly; up 25% in the past year according to Zillow. One upside to buying a way, way overpriced house is that the 25% contributes directly to equity and net worth. Maybe not liquid, but as I discussed with Amy, we could sell our house now, move back to Michigan City and pay cash for the house we had there! Definitely a lesson in real estate investment as well, as most of the advice I've read is "buy in attractive areas," and that's panned out true here. I just wish I could afford to invest more in this area.

Snoqualmie Ridge is undergoing quite a bit of growth as well. A new retail block is being built (our neighbor will have a scrapbooking business in one of the new spaces), a new phase is being built off Snoqualmie Parkway, another retail strip is being built down the parkway close to Snoqualmie, and it appears they are starting constructing on the I-90/Snoqualmie Parkway interchange upgrade, with the first section being widening of the road to extend the four lanes all the way down the interstate.

Work, especially the product launch, has consumed a lot of my time, and I haven't been able to vanpool like I was. Going on 2.5 months of back to driving myself, which is noticeable on our expenses (gas and parking). The vanpool is literally free (it costs money but Amazon covers the expense).

Good news is that I will be migrating to a new position in a new group in Amazon over the next week. Amazon Web Services will be my new home, and I'm excited about the opportunity to work in such a leading edge group and spread my wings. Already I feel I've made a bigger impact in that group than I have in the past year, and I haven't even officially started yet! I have even started another blog to keep my professional blogging separate from my personal blogging.

Looking forward to the possibility of spending the next 20 years in Snoqualmie Ridge. Can't imagine what home prices will be then... :)