Our Move to Seattle

In conclusion

2011-11-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

Back in 2006, we first had the idea of moving away from our longtime home area in Texas and little did we know how that idea would change our lives. We chose Seattle from cities across the country that we thought would fit us best and visited it that year. Our visit only persuaded us further that the Pacific Northwest was the right place for us and we worked together to realize our goal of moving here.

We started this blog to share our plans and after months of job searching, researching, and planning, we finally actually moved - driving 2,600 miles in a week. This time of moving and the following months exploring Seattle were the most exciting time of our lives so far. There was so much new for us to experience and discover.

While the process of moving to Seattle is no longer fresh on our minds, we are still benefiting from our decision to move here. There have been some sacrifices and challenges along the way, but we have settled into the lifestyles we've wanted to establish for ourselves in a city that we love.

We are formally concluding this chapter in our lives with this, the 1,000th post, and looking to challenges ahead. We are leaving this blog as a reference and inspiration to all those who share the dream we have realized.

Posts to reference if you're thinking of moving here

2011-10-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Since we started our blog, it has been viewed almost 100,000 times, it's gotten dozens of comments from people interested in moving, and we've received several emails from people planning their move to Seattle.

It's been fun for us to write this blog, but I get the feeling that it's been really helpful for others. It's actually not that uncommon for people to want to move from one part of the country to the other, and Seattle is a popular destination. If you are thinking about or planning to move to Seattle, here are some of the posts we've written that I think are most helpful:

Cost of Living in Seattle - It is more expensive here than many parts of the country and here's an overview of the differences for us.

How we chose Seattle - Explains the process we went through to find Seattle - this may be helpful for people looking for their place in the world.

How to Move to Seattle - Step-by-step guidance on how to move here based on our experience.

Lessons Learned in Job Searching - Some things that I learned while looking for a job here.

There is also a lot of information scattered across the posts we've written. Some specific labels that may be helpful include:

differences - Posts about the differences between Texas and Seattle, some may be more applicable to your situation than others.

observations - Little discoveries and observations about Seattle.

weather - Our reports and experiences of the local weather conditions and climate.

urban - Our experiences and information about the city.

planning to move - All the things we wrote about while trying to get a job and planning to move.

moving - Posts narrating the actual steps and events of when we moved here.

For people who are interested in moving to Seattle and wondering which of Seattle's neighborhoods is the best fit for them, we explored some of the city's neighborhoods and posted about them:

Capitol Hill

First Hill

Belltown

Lower Queen Anne

Fremont

Ballard

Wallingford

U District

Hopefully that's enough to get you started, and feel free to use the search box at the top and links on the left sidebar to look around. If you have any questions, feel free to email Lesley and me.

What we like about Seattle after 3.5 years

2011-10-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

After living here for three and a half years, we have a more nuanced understanding of the city than we did when we first moved here. Here are the main things we like, and don't like about living in Seattle.

Walking and busing - Seattle is the 6th most walkable city in the country and it's possible to get around a lot of places by walking. Public transportation can be a pretty convenient way to get around, as well, so you don't have to drive your own car to get around the city.

In contrast: Roads and drivers - We don't drive a whole lot here and haven't found traffic as bad as its reputation. However, when we do drive, the local roads are often in poor condition. There are many inner city roads with potholes or other ruts or bumps that make driving a little bouncy and uncomfortable. And, the drivers that drive below the speed limit in all lanes of the freeway do get in the way of an efficient driver like myself.

Natural beauty - This is one of the most beautiful parts of the country and an idealized landscape with snow-capped mountain ranges, majestic pine trees, and shimmering bodies of water basically everywhere. Other places may be nice, too, but the Pacific Northwest has more than its fair share of natural beauty.

Outdoor activities - I learned to love to walk and spend time in parks from my dad, and there are lots of great parks in the city, as well as great hiking trails outside the city, and other outdoor activities all over the area.

Moderate weather - The weather on the West Coast is more moderate than most parts of the country, which spares us from the hot summer weather that affects most of the country, as well as the snowy winter weather that affects much of the country. It's usually not too uncomfortable to go outside in any season.

In contrast: Clouds - This is the biggest complaint for a lot of people who say that winter here lasts for 9 months. That's certainly not true, but Seattle does have more cloudy days than most parts of the country, which make the summertime that much more special.

Character - Seattle preserves its history better than many cities and has many old buildings with character occupied by unique restaurants and cafes, along with some interesting characters.

In contrast: Cost of Living - While it's great to have hundreds of unique, organic, fresh, natural, boutique local restaurants, sometimes it's nice to be able to get a relatively cheap sandwich to go (not Subway). We do pay more here, but sometimes you do get what you pay for.

Neighborhoods - There are many unique neighborhoods here, each a little different, with their own things to see and do. Each neighborhood is like a town within the city, filling Seattle with lots of areas to experience and explore.

Culture - People here tend to be conscientious and non-judgmental. It's also a pretty casual place and people seem to be authentic, if a little distant.
- In contrast: Cultural Elitism - A feeling of cultural superiority and a lack of political diversity are two things that could be off-putting in parts of Texas, and those same two characteristics are not uncommon here, though the culture and the beliefs are very different between the two places. The culture on this part of the "Left Coast" can be a little too homogeneous.

Sounders FC - We've become pretty big soccer fans since moving here because we've been drawn into the sport by the Sounders and their fans. Going to a soccer game with 35,000 fans is an experience that is unique in America and one that has made us appreciate and enjoy the game so much more than we did before moving here. The Sounders were an expansion team in Major League Soccer shortly after we moved here and we have enjoyed going to games and watching them on TV since their inaugural MLS season.

In contrast: Sports culture and losers - While the Sounders sell out their games and the Seahawks are known for having a loud crowd, I'm not sure where those people come from, because the vast majority of people I know here care little for sports. Worse, the Seahawks and Mariners have been pretty bad since we moved here. Unfortunately, because the Seahawks are in the Pacific Time Zone and in the same conference as my team the Dallas Cowboys, I often can't watch Cowboys games because the Seahawks game is on instead.

Another thing to add, and probably the worst part of living here is the distance from the rest of our family and many of our friends. This isn't the city's fault, except that the weather and cost of living discourages family from moving here.

There are plenty of other good and bad things about Seattle but the good outweighs the bad for us.

Reflection on moving here

2011-10-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

Three and a half years ago, we relocated our lives to Seattle from our longtime home in Texas. When we left, we saw moving to Seattle as an opportunity to live in a city whose culture and values were more in line with ours, and while that has proven to be true, there is much more that we have learned.

Moving here was about more than just where we lived. Looking back on it now, it was our way to express our individuality and to make a change in our life to prove to ourselves that we could do this. I hope that the challenge of moving here inspires us to dream bigger in the future.

In moving here we benefited from the discovery and exploration of moving here as much as the things we like about the city itself. We're different, and I believe better, people than we would've been if we had not moved here. We have become wiser and more independent by moving here and figuring out more things on our own as our understanding of the world has been expanded. Seattle also seems to have nurtured our desire to live a healthy and sustainable lifestyle, something that can be done anywhere, but that may be more challenging in other parts of the country.

However, I've learned that Seattle (or any city) isn't for everybody. I've met many people here who love the city and are happy to have moved here. I've also listened to people who don't live here and are happy with where they do live, some of whom used to live here and didn't like it. Seattle is great if it fits you, and is a good place for us.

Your city is as good as you make it, in a way; it's not a key to happiness, but it is an environment that shapes you and that you can shape. For us, Seattle has been wonderful, and there's nowhere in the country I'd rather live.

Saw the Sounders win their third straight US Open Cup

2011-10-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

This year, like the previous two, the Sounders advanced to the final of the US Open Cup (a historic US soccer tournament separate from MLS). We decided to go to the game this past Tuesday night along with a crowd of over 35,000.

It was a great game, with plenty of good chances by the Sounders, and a couple by the other team, the Chicago Fire. There was no score after the first half, and the longer the game went on without a score, the more anxious I got that the Sounders would have a hard time winning. Still, the crowd was very into it with chants and cheers.

Then, in the 77th minute (of a total of 90), the Sounders' star striker, Fredy Montero, scored a goal off a rebound from the goalkeeper. The crowd went wild with cheering and high fives. After that, the crowd was even more energetic for the rest of the game. The Fire had some more chances, but then at the very end of the game, the Sounders scored a remarkable goal, as the star midfielder, Osvaldo Alonso, ran around the defenders and the goalkeeper to score an awesome goal to end the game.

With that, the crowd was even more excited and after the game ended, the Sounders team celebrated in the middle of the field before being awarded their third straight US Open Cup.

It was awesome to be able to see them win and was probably the best experience I've had at a Sounders game yet, of the five or so we've been to so far.

Rick Steves Travel Class

2011-10-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

We're planning on traveling to Europe next year and have been interested in several countries, including England, Ireland, France, and Spain. We decided to look to Rick Steves for good advice, information, and tips on European travel since he seems to be a great expert. He's actually a local guy from Edmonds who has been traveling to Europe the past 30 years and written several books about each country and even has his own TV show about European travel.

This past weekend we went to one of his free travel classes about Paris and the Heart of France at the Edmonds Theater near his travel office. He wasn't actually there, but the guy who presented seemed to be just as knowledgeable. This guy lives in France for 3 months out of the year and has been to multiple places in France with Rick.

The presentation was fast paced and filled with lots of good information and beautiful photos. It lasted two hours and could have lasted several more. He talked in great detail about how he would take a 5 day trip to Paris, and then add a day or two each for Normandy, the Loire Valley, and Burgundy to name a few areas. He also talked in general about traveling to France, money saving tips, and how to get around on the excellent public transit system they have.

Going to this class definitely made us want to visit France even more than before. I'm looking forward to going to another class next weekend about Spain.

Have composting again

2011-09-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

When we moved to this apartment back in February, one of the things we missed was the ability to compost like we did at our previous apartment. However, the city of Seattle has required all apartment buildings to offer composting, so now we can compost again. The apartment building also provided us a bin to put our compostables in, something that would have been nice to have had at our old place. It will take a few days before I get back in the habit, but it will be nice not to waste all the vegetable scraps we create and tea bags we go through.

Hiked to Cascade Pass...and beyond

2011-09-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

Cascade Pass is our favorite hike in the Pacific Northwest so far, and one that we have done two previous times. We didn't go last summer, so I wanted to make sure to go this summer. We had planned to go last weekend, but the weather was wet, and I feared that we may not have another chance to go hike with sunny and warm summer weather. Fortunately, though, we had beautiful 70 degrees this past Saturday.

It's almost a 3 hour drive to the trailhead, so we left at 7:30 and ate some bagels on the way. The sky was clear and it was a nice sunny morning. The trail starts by ascending for a mile or so through forest. We did this part of the hike with relative ease, it seemed like, I guess because we've been hiking all summer and are in decent shape.

This part of the hike seemed a little longer than we remembered, but eventually the trees thinned out as we approached the treeline. Then we walked along the side of a mountain, over a rocky section. This part reminded me of the Highline Trail we did in Glacier. And, we made it to the Pass at around noon.

Normally we'd eat here and then turn back, but this time we wanted to go farther. I was feeling very good at this point. It seemed like we made good time and I wasn't tired at all.

So, we continued on toward the Sahale Arm that led higher on the mountain toward a glacier and a camp. This part of the trail was at about 5,400 feet and had a very steep ascent. Lesley didn't seem to have much trouble hiking uphill over uneven and loose rocks, but I had to stop a couple times to rest. The view from here was one of the best of the day as we passed through meadows of wildflowers.

After a while we made it to the crest of the slope we were on and could see to the North. There were more mountains on this side, as well as a small lake a couple hundred feet below us called Doubtful Lake.

We weren't planning to go all the way to the camp at the end of the trail, but wanted to go far enough to enjoy some of the better views. Eventually we had a good view to the west as well as the east found a good rock to sit on. We had some of our snacks and water before heading back down.

The walk down seemed longer than the way up, but the views were still great, though some clouds had come in. Lesley was pretty exhausted and sore, but we made it back to the car and through the long ride back home.

We walked about 10 miles and ascended nearly 3,000 feet in elevation, taking five and a half hours, so this was probably the most challenging hike we've ever done. It was definitely a good workout, and I look forward to doing additional challenging hikes in the future.

New radar on Washington coast

2011-09-23T13:09:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago, I posted about a new radar on Washington's coast near Aberdeen proposed by the National Weather service. Now, more than two years later, the new radar will finally be up and running next Friday. The only other radars in this region are one in Portland and one Camano Island, which is partially blocked by the Olympic Mountain range. Now we'll have more accurate predictions for how much rain will fall on short notice. This kind of accuracy could have helped people prepare better for the Chehalis River floods in 2007. The radar can take readings as far away as 240 miles off the coast. It is also a dual radar, the first in the nation, which can measure incoming clouds vertically as well as horizontally. It cost $9 million, $2 million more than the proposed cost.

It's fitting, since today is the first day of fall and our rainy season will start in the coming months. We've been warned that this could be another La Niña year, with a wetter and colder winter, but we'll see what happens. For now, we'll enjoy the new fall weather.

Returned from National Parks road trip

2011-09-08T20:43:00.000-07:00

One thing that's often apparent when looking at a US map is how many less roads and people there are in the western half of the country, particularly states like Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. What's sometimes not apparent from maps is the natural beauty that makes these places more remarkable than their population counts or locations would indicate.

These three states - Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, are where we took our latest vacation - a road trip of over 2500 miles to see the country's greatest National Parks. We visited Glacier National Park in Montana, and Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks in Wyoming. We also stopped at the Craters of the Moon National Monument and the Sawtooth and Boise National Forests. We were out and on the road for 10 days and 10 nights, and two of our friends were able to join us for the best parts.

We saw a lot of wildlife and scenic beauty, did some hiking, and also did a lot of driving. Overall, it was one of the best vacations we've had and makes me want to spend more time in the outdoors.

Sunny summer Saturday

2011-08-21T09:40:00.001-07:00

Summer is beautiful yet short in Seattle, so it's important to make the most of it. Yesterday was one of those perfect sunny and 70-80 degree Seattle summer days. Lesley had chosen to work overtime on Saturday morning, giving me time to start our slow-cooker meal that we'd have for dinner.

I walked downtown and met Lesley there after she got off work. We took the light rail down to Columbia City, one of Seattle's more ethnnically diverse neighborhoods, where there was a "Summer Streets" event that closed the main street to cars.

When we arrived, people were lined up on both sides of the street watching a parade of marching bands, break dancers, and city council campaigners.

We were hungry so we stopped in at a Caribbean food place for lunch called Island Soul Caribbean Cuisine. It was happy hour so we had rum punch and an appetizer to start, then Lesley had the Jamaican Jerk chicken and I had the curry. We could see some of the parade from inside the restaurant, and the parade was over by the time we were done eating.

We then walked in the roadway, stopping to listen to music and then browsing through a local bookstore. On our way back to the rail station, we went to the historic public library building where we picked up a few brand new travel guides for our upcoming trip to Yellowstone and the trip we're planning to Europe for next year.

We then took the crowded train back home and rested there for a while, reading through our books outside on the deck.

Soon, the Sounders game was on and they were playing FC Dallas for second place in the conference. We ate our slow cooker recipe, which included potatoes, carrots, onion, butternut squash, and chicken during the game. The game itself was exciting as the Sounders went ahead early but Dallas had plenty of chances. In the end the Sounders won, so that was good.

After the game we walked to get a custard sundae nearby, which was very good. Then we decided to drive up to Kerry Park and enjoy the nighttime view of the skyline along with a mug of hot tea.

It was a beautiful day and it's a shame it had to end, but hopefully we'll have a few more great weekend days before summer ends.

Hiked the Lime Kiln Trail again

2011-08-14T20:04:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we hiked the Lilm Kiln Trail for the second time. We hiked it for the first time almost three years ago, in October 2008. I remember really liking the trail because of all the neat old artifacts and how it was relatively flat without much change in elevation. We also really liked sitting at the Stillaguamish River at the end of the trail.

Last weekend we had a pretty different experience. I didn't remember horses being allowed on the first part of the trail, but we found lots of evidence they had been there this time. The entire trail was overgrown too, with wild invasive blackberry in several places, which scratched us a few times. The bugs were probably the most annoying part though, which I never thought I'd say since we rarely see bugs in the Pacific Northwest. I guess a hike on a sunny, slightly muggy day in August is bound to include bugs.

It was a good workout and took about 3 hours to complete the 6 mile out and back trail. We sat at the end on the river shore again, which was really nice. Here's a video of the river.

Stillaguamish River at Lime Kiln Trail on Vimeo.

Birthday weekend

2011-08-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

I turned 28 years old on Saturday. Troy took me to the Dahlia Lounge on Friday for dinner and the food was excellent. We started with a glass of wine each and some shrimp potstickers and bread. For the main course, I had the dungeness crab cakes with potato salad, tomatoes, pickles, and a few chips. It was put together very well and tasted great together. Troy had some sort of pasta with zucchini and sun dried tomatoes. Then for dessert I had the doughnuts, fried to order with vanilla mascarpone and apricot jam. Troy had the creme caramel. Both were so delicious! My dessert was free because they knew it was my birthday, so that was nice. Dahlia Lounge is one of the best restaurants I've been to in Seattle. Tom Douglas, the chef, definitely deserves the local fame he gets.

Saturday Troy gave me my birthday presents - Sim City 4 and a butterfly necklace. Then we headed out for the day to Mount Rainier. But first, we stopped to get bagels at Noah's on Mercer Island. We decided to go the opposite way we normally go to Rainier and went through the Northeast corner instead of the Southwest. We got a late start to the day, so we didn't arrive at our first stop until around 11. We went to Ohanapecosh and hiked about 1.5 miles to Silver Falls. The trail was pretty busy, but that was to be expected since the weather was perfect and it was a Saturday in the summer. The trail had a little elevation gain and wound its way through the old growth forest, with several creeks and small waterfalls along the way. We eventually made it to Silver Falls and it was just beautiful. The falls were rushing so fast with white foam and the water was a clear blue-green color.

We continued on another .7 miles to the Grove of the Patriarchs where we saw some old growth forest trees that were estimated to be over 1,000 years old. There was a neat small bridge over the river (the same river that continues down and becomes Silver Falls) to the grove. We were pretty hungry by the time we started to head back, but we forgot to bring a backpack and left all our snacks in the car. I guess we didn't realize how long the hike would take.

Anyway, we finally got back to the car and ate our snacks on a picnic table nearby. We had an apple, strawberries, trail mix, a granola bar, some cashews, and drinks. By the time we were done, it was after 3:00, so we headed out toward Paradise. We stopped at a few viewpoints along the way for some photos, but basically continued on without stopping very long. There were lots of wildflowers along the Stevens Canyon Road. I would have liked to do another short hike at Longmire, but it was getting late and we didn't want to be eating dinner at 9:00 at night. We got home around 7:00 and ordered Pagliacci pizza for dinner and watched Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring the rest of the night. We also had some chocolate cake with chocolate icing that Troy had made for my birthday.

Hiked at Middle Fork Snoqualmie River Trail

2011-07-26T21:32:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we decided to hike at Middle Fork Snoqualmie River Trail. We had done this trail one other time, but it started to rain on us shortly after we started, so we didn't end up going very far. With temperatures forecast in the mid to upper 70s, Saturday was a great day to go hike there again.

The trailhead is almost an hour off the freeway, much of it along a pothole-filled gravel road. The trail starts by crossing the river over a nice wood suspension bridge and then follows closely alongside the river. This first part of the trail along the river is the best part, in my opinion. The trail then diverges away from the river for a couple miles. This trail has some ups and downs, but nowhere is it very difficult. Some of the hardest part may be avoiding the mud that sometimes covers the trail while not getting scraped by branches encroaching on the trail.

In a few spots, there are bridges or rocks that provide a path over small streams. This trail may be too wet to do earlier in the year, but most of these streams were pretty small. After a few miles of hiking through the forest, the trail returns back to the river. This would have been a good place to stop and rest and then turn around, but we decided to keep going. Our hiking book showed a waterfall not too much farther ahead. After hiking through more mud and thorny brambles, we eventually realized that there was no waterfall (at least not at this time of year) and decided to turn around. After a brief stop at the river, we walked the three miles or so back to the trailhead.

We hiked probably a total of 8 miles, and while the mud was a little annoying, overall it was a pleasant hike with a good amount of solitude on the trail.

Snoqualmie River on Vimeo.

Tacoma day trip

2011-07-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

We didn't really have any major plans this weekend, but we did decide to go to Tacoma for a day on Saturday. We went to Noah's bagels for breakfast on Mercer Island. The three bagels we had were really fresh and tasty and the weather was great, so we ate them outside. Then we headed to Tacoma and had a clear view of Mount Rainier.

We had bought some Groupons for the Museum of Glass that we weren't able to use when we had visitors this summer, so we decided to use two of the four tickets we had bought. In the hot shop at the museum, they're usually making something. This time they were blowing glass elephants, which we watched for a little while before looking at the rest of the exhibits. There was an exhibit on glass objects that were made based on children's drawings, which was cute. There was also a piece made up of hundreds of pieces of glass all arranged together to depict a forest scene with a river and waterfall. It was really impressive. Unfortunately they say you can't take pictures in the gallery, so we didn't. Even though we've seen blown glass a few times the last couple years, the Museum of Glass was still pretty interesting and impressive.

After that we headed to eat some lunch at Tatanka Take-Out, which has bison meat burgers and vegetarian food too, believe it or not. It wasn't that great actually, so we probably won't be going back. At least it was on the way to Point Defiance Park. The weather was beautiful, completely clear and highs in the mid-70s. We parked inside the park and hiked a solid 3-5 miles around the perimeter of the park, stopping at a couple of scenic viewpoints. We could see the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Gig Harbor, and Vashon Island.

I saw they had a rose garden on the park map, so we decided to check it out. We were very pleasantly surprised when we arrived and saw several dozen rose bushes all blooming! They must be blooming late since we had a cold spring. They were very beautiful, all the pinks, reds, yellows, and oranges. We spent almost an hour at the rose garden and then headed to dinner.

We stopped at a place called The Rock: Wood Fired Pizza and Spirits, where we got a 12" pepperoni and pineapple pizza. We also got the beer sampler and the apple crisp with ice cream dessert to share. I don't like beer much at all usually, but a couple were actually not too bad. The pizza was really good and the atmosphere was neat, with all kinds of rock and roll memorabilia around. After dinner we took the streetcar through downtown, which was pretty dead, so we went back to the car and drove home. Overall it was a good day.

Pictures and Video from parents' visit

2011-07-03T12:15:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from my parents' and Uncle's visit to Seattle a few weeks ago. We didn't take that many pictures because we've been to most of the places we went to before. Troy took several at Fort Casey and I took a few at the aquarium.

Here's a video of the tufted puffin at the aquarium:

Tufted Puffin on Vimeo.

Days 5 and 6 of my parents' and Uncle's visit

2011-07-01T16:00:00.000-07:00

Troy had to work on Monday, but I took the day off. I picked everyone up from the hotel and we went to the Seattle Aquarium for a couple of hours. I'd never been there, so it was nice to see what all they had. Near the entrance we saw a huge water tank with a suited diver inside feeding the fish, which was pretty cool. The aquarium focuses on the northern Pacific Ocean and Puget Sound, but they also had recently added some information about the Deep Water Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. That was probably the most interesting part for me. We also saw a tufted puffin going crazy flapping and splashing his wings in the water and some sea otters being fed.

We tried to go to Paseo for lunch, but apparently they're closed on Monday, which was unfortunate because they have the best sandwich I've ever had there and I wanted everyone to try it. Instead of went to Ezell's, which serves fried chicken that Oprah Winfrey says is her favorite. The chicken was moist and flavorful, the sides were decent, and the rolls were yummy.

After lunch we decided to walk off some calories at Seward Park. The weather was really nice and we all enjoyed walking a couple miles around the perimeter of the park.

Then we drove down to Pike Place market to pick up some souvenirs. Troy met us there after he got off work and we went to eat dinner at Laredos. Troy and I shared the fajitas and nachos. It's definitely the best Tex-Mex we've had so far in Seattle.

After dinner we took a ferry boat ride to Bainbridge and back. Mount Rainier was finally showing itself and we could see it pretty well from the boat. We went to Kerry Park as the sun was setting to end the last full day of the visit.

Both Troy and I had to work Tuesday, but I was able to take an early lunch and meet my parents and Uncle at the Westlake Center. I was able to chat with them a few more minutes and then showed them where to take the Link light rail to the airport. Unfortunately their flight out was delayed due to electrical problems on the plane. They eventually made it home at about 1:00 in the morning after a connecting flight in Denver.

We had a good time visiting with them and wish it could have been longer. Hopefully they'll be able to come back soon.

Day 4 of my parents' and Uncle's visit

2011-06-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning, Lesley's dad took the bus from their hotel to pick up the car he rented for our drive to Deception Pass. We all had a very good breakfast at 5 Spot on Queen Anne Hill. Lesley had some very sweet and very good cinnamon French toast as well as some fresh fruit. It was Father's Day so we gave Lesley's dad his present.

We headed north toward the Pass, and even though the weather was drizzly with low clouds, it was still quite scenic. At the Pass, we all walked part-way across the bridge and then down to the beach. Lesley and I continued for a longer walk along the beach and in the forest.

We all headed onward through Whidbey Island to Fort Casey. We stopped there for a picnic with several snacks we'd brought with us. While the weather didn't get much better, I really enjoyed exploring the remains of the military base that had been there. We also went inside the lighthouse and climbed to the top.

We continued through Whidbey Island and took the ferry back to Mukilteo. That evening, we ordered Pagliacci pizza and salad for dinner, played some games, and had some ice cream.

Day 3 of my parents' and Uncle's visit

2011-06-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

We slept in a little late Saturday, which was nice. We went to Top Pot for breakfast and it was really crowded, but thankfully we found a table in the upper level. Troy and I had our usual donuts - the chocolate bar and old fashioned glazed - which were both awesome. As we've said before, Top Pot donuts are our favorite.

Despite the cloudy, misty weather, we decided to go to Snoqualmie Falls in North Bend. Since my parents last visited, there have been some renovations to the viewpoints along the river that made it a lot nicer. The waterfall had the most water flowing over it we've ever seen there. We've had warmer temperatures lately which has melted a lot of the mountain snow and caused the river to swell. It was pretty impressive.

After that, we went to check out the Snoqualmie Casino just a few miles away. Troy and I had never been there, so it was interesting to see. We had actually never played the slot machines, even though we have been to Las Vegas before. I lost all the money I bet after about 30 minutes. Troy hesitantly played with $1 and lost it in about 15 minutes. Sometimes he only bet 1 cent at a time, so that's how it lasted so long. Thankfully we were able to play in a decent sized non-smoking section. It was a fun experience, but I don't think we will be going back any time soon.

We skipped lunch since we had donuts for a late breakfast, so we were pretty hungry for dinner. We went to my Dad's favorite restaurant, Palisade. We were able to get a table close to the glass and some of us had a nice view of the city and the bay. I had the salmon and Troy had the prime rib and both were delicious.

After dinner, we drove over to Fremont to show my Uncle the Troll and Gas Works Park. Then we went back to the apartment for more pie. My Uncle had mentioned playing some old video games like we used to play together when I was a kid, so we played Donkey Kong Country for a while. I also introduced him to Mario Kart Wii, which he actually played pretty decently.

Day 2 of my parents' and Uncle's visit

2011-06-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

Lesley and I both took Friday off from work. She went with her parents to Cafe Besalu for breakfast, where they had quiche, croissants, and hot tea, which was quite good, I'm told. After my morning doctor's appointment, we all met up at the Olympic Sculpture Park. People were setting up for an event, but we were able to walk through the park and enjoy the waterfront view. Afterward, we went to Discovery Park and went for a brief but very enjoyable walk through the forest.

On our way to lunch, we stopped at a western viewpoint in Magnolia to enjoy the view of the sunlit sound and Olympic Mountains. We went to the Space Needle for lunch, which everyone enjoyed.

After lunch, we came back to our apartment where Lesley and her uncle played more games and her dad and I walked to the grocery store to get some peanuts before the baseball game.

We left early and took a bus through the ride free area to the game. We were one of the first 20,000 fans so we received the Ichiro jersey that was being handed out beforehand. Our seats were along the first baseline fairly close to the action and far too many Phillies fans. It was a pretty good game and it was exciting to see the Mariners win and the Philadelphia team lose.

We took the light rail back downtown and then I drove Lesley's family back to their hotel.

Day 1 of my parents' and Uncle's visit

2011-06-23T18:15:00.001-07:00

My parents visited us for the second time this past weekend. My Uncle Bob was able to come with them, which was really nice. They took an early flight and arrived in Seattle in the morning. They took the Light Rail to downtown from the airport and said it was a nice, cheap way to go. Once downtown they took a cab to their hotel in Lower Queen Anne and then rode the Monorail back downtown. I took a half day off work and was able to leave at 11 to meet them.

We had really good weather that first day and they were very happy that they were in our 65 degree weather instead of 100 degrees in Texas. The first thing we did was walk to Pike Place market to eat lunch at Beecher's. We each had grilled panini's and my parents shared some of the famous mac n' cheese. We saw the flying fish, the gum wall, and all the flowers and fruit for sale. My parents bought some white nectarines and some Taylor gold pears to eat for later. They also got a few piroshky pastries from Piroshky Piroshky.

Then we walked by my office building so I could show my Uncle where I work. After that we made the long trek to our apartment on foot. Everyone seemed to like our apartment, especially more living room space and the deck. After hanging out for a bit, we took them to their hotel so they could check in and get settled. We picked them up around 5:30 to go to Djan's Thai restaurant in Wallingford. My parents had been to Djan's on their first trip here and liked it. Unfortunately the traffic was very bad on Mercer and it took about 20 minutes to go maybe 3 blocks. Needless to say, we were all pretty hungry once we got to the restaurant.

I got the yellow curry and Troy got some kind of noodle dish. My Dad and Uncle both got the pineapple fried rice, which I had a bite of and it tasted awesome. My Mom got the cashew nut dish with chicken like she got last time. It was all very good food. Now I want to go back again soon and get my own pineapple fried rice.

We took a slight detour on the way to Alki Beach through the U District to show them the University of Washington and Husky Stadium. The view from Alki was really nice, so we walked around there for a little bit before heading back to the apartment. I made an apple pie and a blueberry pie for them, so we had a few pieces of pie before we called it a night. It was a fun first day and a great start to their trip.

Enjoying SIFF again this year

2011-06-07T20:55:00.000-07:00

Seattle has the largest international film festival in the United States and we've attended a few films at each year's festival since we've been here. Some films have been quite good and a few have been disappointments, but they've always been interesting.

The first movie we'd planned to see this year was called Page One: Inside the New York Times. We had purchased our passes ahead of time and wanted to get to the theater 30 minutes early. This was our first time to the Egyptian theater, which is a few blocks from where we live. When we got there, the line was halfway around the block - hundreds of people had tickets and were in line to get in. We got a seat in the balcony and as people entered the theater to fill all the seats, the palpable energy of the audience reminded me again that this festival is a much bigger deal than just going to see another movie.

SIFF has gotten some criticism because it has so many movies, not just the very best. And with more than 3 weeks of movies playing all hours of the day, every day, at 7 theaters in the region, it's amazing that so many of them generate the crowd we saw at the Egyptian and at other theaters other times we've gone.

This movie looked at how the Times operates and documented how the print media industry is struggling to react to the growth of online media sources. The documentary focused on some rather interesting news stories that the Times was covering, people with unique personalities, and a fairly balanced, if shallow, touch on the issues. It was was one of the best films we've seen at SIFF.

Tomorrow, we'll be going to see a movie about Sushi, which sounds like a really interesting movie to me. And later we'll be seeing the only international movie we're planning to see at this year's festival - a French animated film about a cat in Paris - called A Cat in Paris.

While we do miss out on a lot of mainstream movies in theaters, we have enjoyed broadening our perspective in participating in the major event that is SIFF.

Victoria, BC Day 2

2011-06-01T17:30:00.000-07:00

We slept in on Tuesday and checked out of the hotel around 10. Thankfully they were able to hold our bags at the front desk until later in the day before our boat ride back. Victoria is the capitol city of British Columbia, so they have a Parliament building there. We took a self-guided tour of it and even sat in on a live session of the legislative assembly for a few minutes.

The next stop was my favorite part of the whole trip - Afternoon Tea at the Empress Hotel! We arrived a little early, so we took it easy and strolled around the hotel and some of the gift shops. The hotel was actually built between 1904 and 1908 by the Canadian Pacific Railway. Several British monarchs and other famous people have stayed at the hotel. We had reservations for noon and were seated a little early. We started out with a cup of strawberries with cream and then our tea came. We had a choice between several options that all sounded good. I ended up getting their Empress black tea blend, which was the best tea I've ever had.

Then we got a three-tiered food tray that started with some finger sandwiches, including a curry chicken sandwich, an egg salad croissant, some kind of cucumber sandwich, and a few others. The second tier was the best part - a currant scone with cream and strawberry jam to spread on it. It tasted so good! Finally we got to the dessert and all of us were starting to get pretty full. The dessert included cheesecake, chocolate & vanilla cake with marzipan (also known as Battenberg cake), a lemon meringue pie, a chocolate truffle, and a piece of shortbread. It was quite possibly the coolest eating experience I've ever had. It was pretty pricey, but definitely worth doing once in a lifetime.

Then we went exploring more of Government street and all the retail shops, including a specialty tea shop called Murchie's and an Irish themed store. After that we split up again and Troy and I walked around more of downtown and went by a cathedral we'd seen briefly on our city tour bus the previous day. We met up with his parents again and went to eat dinner at the Spaghetti Factory before grabbing our stored luggage and taking the Victoria Clipper back to Seattle. Fortunately there were plenty of taxis waiting for us, so we took one back to our apartment so we could pick up Troy's parents' luggage before dropping them off at their airport hotel.

Victoria is a nice small city to go to, with several great things to experience such as the Butchart Gardens and Afternoon Tea. We might go back some day, but probably not any time soon. We want to go back to Vancouver first. We had a nice trip and a nice visit with Troy's parents.

Victoria, BC Day 1

2011-05-30T19:05:00.000-07:00

We woke up really early for our ride to Victoria on the Victoria Clipper. It left at 7:30 am, so we had to be there at 6:30 am. We woke up around 5:15 am to meet Troy's parents and catch the bus to get down to Pier 69. We finally boarded and were served a decent continental breakfast which included yogurt or cereal with milk, a blueberry muffin, a small cheese wheel, crackers, and Craisins. Thankfully the weather was decent, although not totally clear. We couldn't see any of the mountains that I knew surrounded us, but at least it was partly sunny and wasn't raining.

We arrived in Victoria around 10:30 and it took forever to get through immigration. We finally got onto our tour bus around 11 and had a short tour of the city before heading to the Butchart Gardens. We happened to be there on Victoria Day, so there were lots of festivities and a parade going on near the waterfront, so the tour bus had to avoid that area unfortunately. It didn't take long to get to the gardens though. We had about two hours to meander through looking at tons and tons of nicely landscaped scrubs, bushes, and flower patches. There were tulips everywhere. At the end we stopped in the gift shop and I actually bought some souvenirs, which I don't normally do on trips. The Butchart Gardens were pretty impressive. I could have stayed there another couple of hours probably.

The tour bus dropped us off at our hotel, the Royal Scot, which is just a block away from the waterfront. It was a nice hotel, despite being a little dated. We quickly headed out again and were pretty hungry, so we went to a place I'd read about called Red Fish Blue Fish. The line to order was intimidatingly long, but we waited anyway... and waited... and waited. After about 45 minutes, we finally ordered and got our food about 15 minutes later. Troy and I shared the 2 piece halibut and chips (for $20) and it was awesome. I can't say it was worth the wait, but it came close.

After that we walked through Chinatown and the big retail area. Troy and I continued on to Beacon Hill Park while his parents took a little rest at the hotel. I enjoyed walking through the park and sitting on a bench to rest for a while. We eventually found the Mile 0 marker for the Trans-Canada Highway, which is almost a 5,000 mile long highway that stretches all across Canada to the Atlantic Ocean.

We were a little hungry by then, so we stopped for an ice cream sundae at The Soda Shoppe on Government Street. We got a scoop of cookies & cream, strawberry, and chocolate, topped with marshmallow cream, whipped cream, pecans, and two cherries. It was a little overpriced (as was pretty much everything in Victoria), but it was nice to rest a bit and the sundae actually was very good.

After that we were pretty tired, so we headed back to the hotel and played a few games of pool and shuffleboard with Troy's parents before calling it a night.

Parents' visit last weekend

2011-05-29T21:50:00.000-07:00

We were happy to spend time with my parents last weekend on their second visit to Seattle. They arrived last Saturday and we spent some time in town before visiting Leavenworth and then visiting Victoria.

They arrived around lunch time, so we went to Red Mill, our favorite burger place in town. While the music was rather loud this time, the food was good as usual. From there, we headed to Pioneer Square to walk around and take the Underground Tour. This was Lesley's and my third time to take the Underground Tour. Each tour guide has his or her own stories to tell and different areas to show so it hasn't gotten old yet. We also spent a good amount of time at the Gold Rush Museum, which is a rather interesting and well-done museum.

We then visited the Central Library, which is an interesting architectural landmark. We visited the red floor and traveled along the lime green escalators before going to our apartment. There, we ordered Pagliacci Pizza and watched our Netflix rental (The Verdict) together before taking my parents back to their hotel for the evening.

The next day, we met for breakfast near their hotel before heading to Leavenworth. We rented a car for a more comfortable ride for everyone and then made the 2+ hour scenic drive over the mountains to the Bavarian village east of the Cascades. We enjoyed the town and had German food for lunch before heading back and visiting Bellevue Square. That evening we had apple pie that Lesley made and had a light taco dinner at a place called Tacos Guaymas in our neighborhood.

The next couple days we visited Victoria, British Columbia, which we'll write about separately. I'm happy my parents were able to come and really enjoyed visiting with them.

Seattle Cheese Festival

2011-05-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

We went to the annual cheese festival at Pike Place Market on Saturday. The weather was amazing all day with highs in the lower 60s and mostly sunny skies. We met some friends from church there and walked around sampling all the different cheeses. It seemed like there were fewer stands this year than prior years, but there were still plenty to choose from. I generally like milder softer cheeses and Troy likes the stronger harder cheeses. We each got a cheese we wanted and we also bought a wedge of Cougar Gold, which we buy every year. I got a cream cheese from Sierra Nevada Creamery that I also bought last year and Troy got a Fontina cheese from Oregon. There were so many different kinds I liked, but we knew we had to limit ourselves.

While at the market, we also bought some flowers and some really good Taylor's Gold pears. We also browsed through a Spanish store that had a huge selection of wines from Spain, Argentina, Portugal, and several other countries. After that we went to our friends' apartment, which is just down the street from the market and hung out for a while. We played Super Mario Brothers Wii for an hour or so. We also enjoyed looking out their windows at the amazing view of Elliott Bay and had a chance to see some of the tugboats out there for the Maritime Festival.

After a while we were a little hungry for lunch, so we decided to head down to the waterfront for a Chowder cookoff, which is part of the Maritime Festival. After trying clam chowder at 7 different restaurants, we all decided that Anthony's had the best. It wasn't too thick or thin, wasn't too buttery or peppery, it was just right. I think it will be a while before I want to have chowder again.

Once we got home, we took the car to get its annual washing and vacuuming in preparation for our visitors that are coming soon. Now it almost looks like a brand new car with a nice dark green paint job. Then we watched the Sounders-Timbers game, which ended in a tie unfortunately.

It was nice to hang out with some friends and have a chance to enjoy the nice weather on Saturday.

Upcoming Events

2011-05-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

Not much has been going on that's been post worthy, but I thought I would mention a few things coming up over the next few months:

7th Annual Cheese Festival - We're going to the cheese festival today and might be meeting some friends there. It's free to get in and all the booths have free samples of their cheeses to taste. We're planning on buying two or three different kinds of cheese. I've been looking forward to this for months.

Visitors - Troy's parents are visiting us very soon and we're planning on going to Leavenworth, WA and Victoria, British Columbia. We've never been to Victoria, but I've heard a lot of good things about it, especially the Butchart Gardens. They'll also get to see our new apartment and neighborhood.

Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) - Seattle has one of the best film festivals in the country. We've gone to a couple movies every year during the month-long event. Not sure what we'll see this year, but there's tons of options to choose from.

Northwest Folklife Festival - This happens on Memorial Day weekend at the Seattle Center. Lots of good food is available, as well as crafts, live music, and other things going on.

Mariners game - We'll be going to the Memorial Day game against the Orioles. We haven't been to a baseball game yet this season, so it should be fun. Hopefully the weather is much nicer by then.

Sounders-Whitecaps game - We'll be going to the first regular season match between the Sounders and the Whitecaps on June 11. The Sounders, Portland Timbers, and Vancouver Whitecaps will probably form a strong rivalry due to their close proximity to each other in the region.

More visitors - My parents and Uncle will be visiting us in mid-June for about 5 days. We're planning on going to a Mariners game and also scenic Deception Pass. I'm really looking forward to hanging out with them and showing them our apartment.

Bite of Seattle - This is probably my favorite Seattle festival. Last year we were able to go with our visiting friends and had a lot of fun. It's similar to Folklife, except even more restaurants and types of food to choose from. We'll be going to this in mid-July.

Hiking? - Hopefully we'll start hiking more as the weather gets better. We've had a really cold, wet spring so far, with high temperatures well below normal. My foot is also slowly improving, so it will be nice to hike again. Hopefully I won't have to wear my night splint forever.

So, we'll be pretty busy the next couple of months and it will be nice to have visitors. The summers are always the best time of the year in Seattle.

Tex-Mex food in Seattle

2011-05-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

We posted recently about our favorite places for Latin American food and since then have been to another place called Laredo's. The ambiance in this place reminded me very much of Texas and the food was pretty good too. This was the closest to Tex-Mex that I've had here. The first important step to good Tex-Mex is good chips and salsa and Laredo's had that. We also had an avocado margarita, which is something I hadn't heard of before, but tasted pretty much like a regular margarita. I had some kind of taco dish and Lesley had enchiladas, both of which came with pinto beans and rice. Overall the food was pretty good and I'm looking forward to going back.

Trip 2 to San Francisco: Monday

2011-05-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

Our last day in San Francisco began with drizzly weather, very Seattle-like. Appropriately, Lesley and I started the day at Starbucks. We didn't really have any plans for the morning. We walked around Union Square and then took the streetcar down to the Ferry building. On the way back, we stopped at a cool toy store, and then went to the mall downtown.

Since we had to check out of our hotel, we dropped off our bags at our friend's apartment. Our friend wasn't feeling particularly well, so Lesley and I went to a sandwich shop in the Castro. It had apparently changed locations and the old address didn't show the new address, so it took us a little while to find it. We took our sandwiches to nearby Dolores Park and fortunately by this time the rain had stopped and the sky had started to clear up. It was still quite windy, so we had to keep our food from blowing away. Our sandwiches were pretty good.

After lunch, we walked to the Mission district. The weather by this time was beautifully sunny and the walk was very pleasant. We walked a ways down Mission St and our friend met up with us. We then took a bus over to the Noe Valley to walk around some more historic San Francisco homes. We had a very nice walk and then stopped for a drink before heading back in the direction of our friend's apartment. We had some frozen yogurt before getting our bags from our friend's apartment and saying goodbye. It was unfortunate that our friend had felt sick during the trip, but we still were able to have a good time together.

We took BART to the airport. Our plane was flying out of a new terminal, which had better food than typical airport fast food. We shared a tomato bisque soup, which was actually not bad, before heading back to Seattle.

Trip 2 to San Francisco: Sunday

2011-05-03T17:30:00.000-07:00

One aspect of unfortunate timing was that both Lesley and our friend happened to be feeling a little sick during our visit. While we were still able to get out and do a lot of things, we had been taking things a little easy. Unfortunately, people wasn't feeling well enough to attend a Easter Sunday church service.

Later, Lesley and I did stroll through Chinatown as well as through North Beach. We found an Italian place for lunch in North Beach, though were hoping to be a little more impressed by the food.

After lunch, we took a couple buses to get to the upscale neighborhood of Nob Hill. San Francisco has a very good public transportation system and maps are posted at many of the bus stops, which helped us find our way around. Also, unlike Seattle, buses come very frequently, it seems like our average wait time for a bus was under 5 minutes.

We walked around Nob Hill, enjoying the upscale atmosphere. We ran across a classic car show near the Fairmont hotel. After that, we found the nearby Cable Car Museum, which was actually pretty interesting. The cable car system is operated by the motors in that building, which keep the cables moving at around 10 mph throughout the city. The museum also showed how the cable cars work and told the history of the cable cars. There used to be a lot more cable car lines operated by different companies, but the great fire of 1906 destroyed most of them. Later, the whole system was in danger of being scrapped in the name of progress, but was saved due to the work of citizen activists.

After this, we met up with our friend and his girlfriend at the grocery store to buy food for Easter dinner. Our friend's girlfriend made most of the food and we had a nice dinner with green beans, carrots, potatoes, and chicken.

We hung out at our friend's apartment the rest of the day and played some Mario Kart, then played Ticket to Ride again, as well as a game of Uno. This day was probably my favorite day of the trip thanks to the good weather and fun Lesley and I had, as well as the friendly Easter dinner we had.

Trip 2 to San Francisco: Saturday

2011-05-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning we had a small bite to eat from the hotel continental breakfast and headed out to Golden Gate Park to see the Conservatory of Flowers. The current exhibit was called "Wicked Plants: Botanical Rogues and Assassins" and they had all kinds of poisonous or otherwise deadly plants such as poison ivy, the tobacco plant, and others. It was very interesting reading all the stories about each of the plants and how they killed people over the past 150 years. The rest of the conservatory was pretty cool too, with all kinds of weird looking leaves and flowers. We saw some lily pads that were probably 2 feet wide that were pretty cool.

We continued walking through Golden Gate Park and enjoyed the great weather. It was mostly sunny and in the 60s. After the park, we took the bus to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was really crowded, but once we got out onto the bridge the people thinned out. We walked about halfway across and were able to see pretty far in every direction. Last time we were here, it was foggy all around us and we couldn't hardly see anything. Going to the Golden Gate Bridge is probably my favorite thing to do in San Francisco.

It was about time for lunch, so we headed to Fisherman's Wharf by bus and ate at Boudin. Their sourdough bread bowls with clam chowder and tomato bisque soup were excellent. Not too far from there was a place called Musée Mécanique where they had all kinds of old arcade and carnival games. Some looked to be almost 100 years old. We played a few of them, including an Indiana Jones pinball machine.

We walked over to Ghirardelli Square next and ate an ice cream sundae called "The Cable Car" while sitting on a bench looking out to the bay. It had three scoops of ice cream - rocky road, vanilla chocolate chip, and chocolate - topped with whipped cream, nuts, hot fudge, a cherry, and a milk chocolate square bar. It was really good.

After that we walked along the pier and eventually made our way to the Embarcadero via a historic streetcar. AT&T Park where the Giants play wasn't too far away, so we decided to go check it out to see if there was anything new on or near the stadium about them being World Series champs. We actually showed up just after a game had ended, so the place was swarming with orange and black. We didn't hang around too long because of the crowds, so we headed on back to the hotel to rest a bit.

We wanted to go to an A's game since we'd already been to a Giants game the last time we came here. Unfortunately the A's were out of town - oddly enough playing in Seattle, so we didn't see any baseball games.

We ate dinner at a place our friend recommended that was really close to our hotel called Bangkok Noodles & Thai. After dinner we went to hang out with our friends and played a few games of Mario Kart. We also played two new games called Carcassonne and Quiddler.

Trip 2 to San Francisco: Friday

2011-04-28T18:50:00.000-07:00

The first thing we did Friday morning was ride the cable car, which picked us up at the end of the Powell-Hyde/Powell-Mason line, less than 2 blocks from our hotel. It was pretty full and we were stuck inside the car, so we didn't have much of a chance to look out of the car. We were trying to get to Mama's, a breakfast cafe I'd heard about located in North Beach. We accidentally took the cable car that went farther west, so we got off at the top of Nob Hill and walked down to Washington Square to the east. The Powell-Mason cable car would have taken us almost straight there.

We gradually made our way to the restaurant and the line of people out the door was almost too intimidating. We decided to stick it out and waited almost an hour in line, which seemed really long despite getting there around 9am on a weekday. While I waited in line, Troy explored the neighborhood a little bit and even went up to the steps of Coit Tower. Our friend met us there for breakfast, which turned out to be pretty good and not too expensive. I had an omlette and Troy had the french toast sampler with fruit. It was a neat little restaurant, but I can't say I'd go out of my way to eat there again.

After breakfast, we continued exploring North Beach, which is a neighborhood we didn't visit at all on our last trip. It was probably my favorite neighborhood we visited. There was so much to look at and all the cafes looked cool. Several of them had outdoor sidewalk seating. We stopped briefly at a bookstore and a couple ornate cathedrals.

The next stop was Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world. We went to it on the last trip, but only at night, so we couldn't really see it that well. Troy and I walked all the way to the top and took some pictures of the nice view. It was pretty crowded with tourists, so we didn't stay too long.

We were all pretty tired after all that walking, so we decided to head back to our friend's apartment. After visiting a little, we decided to play a board game called Ticket to Ride. Basically it's a game where you try to claim different train routes displayed on a US and Canada map. Major cities are linked by anywhere from 1 to 6 car-length trains of different colors. You get extra points for the longest train and for completing routes that you receive randomly at the start of the game. For example, I got a route card for New York City to Atlanta (with stops along the way) and it took me 3 yellow cars, 2 black cars, and 2 red cars. You can only draw two train car cards per turn and you have to wait until you have enough cards of the same color car before you can turn them in and claim a route. It took me a while to figure out a strategy. Troy eventually won after playing about an hour.

We waited a while for our friend's girlfriend to get home and ordered pizza for dinner from a place nearby. We took it easy the rest of the night and went back to our hotel a little early to rest up for the next day.

Trip 2 to San Francisco: Introduction

2011-04-27T08:30:00.000-07:00

Living on the West Coast means that we're able to visit other cities on the West Coast and flights cost less for us than for much of the country. We have a good friend who lives in San Francisco, so we wanted to visit him again. We last visited him more than two and a half years ago, so we thought it'd be good to go to San Francisco again.

We had been looking for airfare for several weeks and the prices kept rising after we started looking. Fortunately, a new flight was made available at a good time, so we were able to book our tickets and book a hotel near Union Square.

Since we have a limited amount of time off, we planned our trip over a weekend and flew out from work on Thursday after work. We grabbed a bite to eat at Seatac and then flew out via Virgin Airlines. The flight was quite full and departed late from the gate for some reason. Then, when we were about ready to take off, we had to turn around because a person in the exit row had taken a sleeping pill or something. I'm not really sure what the deal was, but we arrived in SF like an hour late.

Otherwise, the flight was good. Every seat had a screen for watching certain TV shows or listening to music for free. They also had movies and other entertainment you could purchase to watch. We enjoyed watching some Comedy Central, which made the flight go by much more quickly.

After we landed, we took the shuttle to the BART station and then took BART to our hotel and prepared for the next few days in the city.

Made a carrot cake

2011-04-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

I really like carrot cake, it's probably my favorite kind of cake after chocolate. I decided to make one from scratch last Saturday and used a recipe from AllRecipes.com. It said it would make two 10" round layers, and I only have 9" pans, so I modified the recipe and cut it to 12 servings instead of 16. It was quite a lot of work, especially shredding the carrots. That part alone took over an hour. My cousin said I need to invest in a food processor, which is definitely true.

After shredding the carrots, the rest was pretty easy. I beat the eggs, added sugar and oil, mixed in the flour/spice mixture and added the walnuts. I was pouring it in the pans when Troy realized I hadn't added the raisins, which would have been disastrous. Not really, but it would have been irritating to do all that work and forget an ingredient. So I mixed them in as best I could once the batter was in the pans.

I baked it for the original amount of time, not realizing that I should reduce the cook time because I reduced the recipe size. It came out a little overcooked and crusty, which was disappointing at the time.

I made my own cream cheese frosting, which was much easier than I thought. It only requires butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, and a little vanilla. I went ahead and iced the cake and we both had a piece. It was ok, but not as good as I was hoping for.

So I covered it and put it in the fridge. Then on Sunday we had some more of it and it was actually a lot better. I guess the icing helped soften it and keep some moisture in it. It's actually pretty good. Perhaps I'll go to all the trouble again and reduce the cook time next time. It wasn't the best carrot cake I've had, but it was comparable.

Favorite restaurants serving food south of the (US) border

2011-04-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

Our diet back in Texas was made up of a lot of Latin flavors, especially Tex-Mex. Here, Mexican food is a little harder to come by, but we've gotten around to a few places. Lesley's parents are visiting us soon and are interested in trying Mexican food, so we're trying to figure out where to take them. Here are the places Lesley and I have tried that serve food from Spanish-speaking countries, ordered basically from our favorite to least favorite:

Paseo - Caribbean sandwich shop that was worth the 45 minute wait. The last time I went, I had possibly the second best sandwich in my life, having had the best one on my previous visit.

La Carta de Oaxaca - Mexican food that was at one time my favorite restaurant in Seattle. No longer impresses me, but serves good food with the flavors of southern Mexico.

La Isla - Puerto Rican food. Like most places to eat in Seattle, it's not a bargain. Still it has good food.

Cactus - Northwest-inspired Tex-Mex style food, with dishes like butternut squash enchiladas. I wasn't particularly impressed, but the food was pretty good and I would try it again.

Mexico - Lesley has been here and says it's "decent, but kind of overpriced, and the service is kind of slow." That describes pretty much every other place on the list, but Mexico's claim to fame is that they give you free chips and salsa. In Texas, that's normal. In Seattle, that's remarkable.

El Mestizo - We walked here a few weeks ago. We weren't thrilled with Lesley's mole enchiladas, but that's probably because neither of us is a big fan of mole. The service was slow, but I thought the food had pretty good flavor and would probably give it another try.

Taqueria El Rinconsito - Outside the city limits where more people of Mexican and Central American origin live. An inexpensive fast-food style place that serves dishes covered with cheese and, unlike everything else on this list, accompanied them with fried rice and refried pinto beans on the side, something that is the standard of Tex-Mex. I liked it and would go back.

Dos Amigos - Lesley went there once and doesn't remember being impressed. It's similar to Rosa's Cafe in DFW, so fairly inexpensive and nothing too special.

Agua Verde - One of the first Mexican places I tried in Seattle on the lake near UW. Perhaps I went in with unfair expectations, but their margaritas were too lime-flavored and the food was mediocre. Next time I'll skip the food and just rent a kayak, which is what they're better known for.

Anyway, we hope to try a few more places over the next few weeks, but aren't expecting any of them to blow us away. Still, it's nice that we've found at least a few places we like.

Planned a couple upcoming vacations

2011-04-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

This past week we have been busy planning a few upcoming trips. First, we are planning to visit our friend in San Francisco. We had a good visit with him a couple years ago and enjoyed the city immensely, so we've wanted to go back. While driving to San Francisco would take like 13 hours, it's not too long or expensive of a flight, so I'm glad we'll be able to go again to spend more time with our friend and experience more of the city. We weren't sure if we'd be able to do this trip, as airfare prices had risen by almost $100 since we started looking. Fortunately, we caught a break, and seem to have gotten a good deal on a hotel. We'll be going within a month from now.

We're also planning a big national park road trip this summer. We'll be driving to three national parks: Glacier, Yellowstone, and Grand Tetons. We really enjoyed our road trip up here from Texas and haven't gone on another one since then. This drive will be about as long of a drive as that road trip and hopefully it will be as good. Hotels in the national parks had already started selling out, so we had to book this one quickly to be able to go. There aren't very many hotels in the parks and the ones that are there are often rather dated and due to the high demand prices aren't as cheap as we'd hoped. We're really hoping to be able to do this trip with some friends as well, but regardless it should be fun.

Each of our parents will be visiting us in the next few months, too, so we've been planning some activities around that as well. It seems like we'll have more opportunities this year to spend time with family and some of our good friends from Texas than we have the past couple years, so I'm excited about that and about these trips coming up.

How we like our new apartment

2011-04-04T17:45:00.000-07:00

So we've been in our new apartment for a over a month now. Our boxes have all been out of the way for a few weeks and while there is some furniture and other decorations that we're interested in, we're completely settled in now.

I'd say that living in a new place has been a nice change with some minor advantages and drawbacks. The larger size of the unit was one reason we moved, and while the layout is not as ideal as at our older, smaller apartment, the bigger living area and separate bedroom is nice. The way we have things arranged makes it so that we eat at our dining table a lot more than we did at our old place, so that's kind of nice.

I did like getting the afternoon sun at our old place, and we haven't gotten as much sunlight in our unit here, but that's more due to the weather. When the sun is out, we get enough light in here. Our view isn't as great as from our old place, and there are other apartments across the alley so we do keep our blinds closed more often.

The office staff and maintenance here have been good and things have been taken care of quickly.

While I'd rather not have to use our heater, standing in front of the heater is a nice way to warm up.

The bathroom is small, but we've found a pretty good way to organize everything and Lesley has gotten used to the size. The washer and dryer are smaller than at our old place, so she has been doing laundry a lot more often here.

We do like our new neighborhood. I really like the historic residential area immediately around us. Also, I've enjoyed being able to walk to the grocery store and we haven't had any problems with that. The main commercial streets nearby aren't particularly clean, but there are lots of places to eat along them and we've barely tried any so far. The nicer weather that will be coming up will hopefully give us more of a chance to explore our neighborhood, so I'm looking forward to that.

Our commutes to work aren't substantially different. Lesley's walk is a little longer, but my overall commute time is a little shorter. Most of our walk is through downtown, so that makes it more interesting, though more difficult to jaywalk. The walk home from the bus for me has been a little annoying because the signals aren't synced particularly well.

Overall, there's nothing too different about living here versus at our old place, and it's just kind of fun living somewhere different.

Loud crows outside window

2011-04-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

Every weekend morning, we have the privilege of sleeping in later than we do during the week. Unfortunately, our new place has crows outside the window, so their obnoxious calls are the first thing we hear as we are woken up. There aren't any trees directly in front of our window, but there are some trees in the area, so there must be some crows nests nearby. These birds are probably more annoying than the recording studio was outside of our old place, because at least the recording studio didn't interrupt our sleep.

Anyway, I suppose the birds were here before I was, but their calls are really quite annoying, so it would be nice if there were something legal and ethical I could do about it. I've heard of using lasers to drive away birds, but I don't know exactly where the birds are to shine the lasers at, so I'm not sure that would work (or be legal). I also think a hawk could be effective at chasing the crows off, but I don't exactly have any birds of prey of my own. And shotgun blasts or other loud noises are probably out of the question, as they would annoy the neighbors.

So, I don't know if we have to resign ourselves to getting earplugs or just dealing with it, but I'm not sure what else we can do about it.

Furniture we want

2011-03-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

Besides decorating our place, we've also been wanting to find some new furniture for the dining area and living room.

Dining room chairs - We only had two chairs for our dining table, so we knew we had to buy at least two more to have enough seating since our families are coming to visit us in a few months. We weren't really crazy about our current chairs. I wanted to get a whole new set, but so far we hadn't found anything that we like much at all. We eventually decided to go back to IKEA to get some chairs that would match with our table. They're a little bigger and heavier than our other two and they go fairly well together. It will have to be a temporary solution until we find a full set that we like. We probably won't be looking again for a while though.

Wine rack/pantry - I also would like a wine rack/pantry so that we would have a place to store our wine and put extra food. Currently our cabinets are really full of food and we don't have much room to store everything. It would also be nice if it had a shelf we could put our microwave on so it doesn't have to take up space on the kitchen counter. I haven't had any luck finding something that could satisfy all three requirements though.

Clock - We want a new clock for the living room. We have a small blue one that I've had forever, but we want a bigger, nicer one. We found a cool one at Kasala that Troy liked a lot. It was a little expensive though and required two D batteries to operate. We haven't found anything else we like as much as that one.

Entertainment center - We also want a new entertainment center for the TV, DVD collection, and gaming systems. We are still using my old small cabinet that doesn't have much space in it for anything. The bottom drawer is actually a file drawer, so we haven't been able to put much of anything but files in there. We haven't seriously looked into our options yet.

End table - I would like a new end table to put next to the couch. The one we have is really small and low to the ground. It would be nice to get a matching coffee table and two end tables, but I'm not sure when we'll find something we like.

Patio furniture - Eventually we'll be getting patio furniture for our deck so we can sit outside in the summer.

Much lower on the list is a new comforter set for our bed, a better couch with more support and foot rests, and even new bedroom furniture. I'm sure a lot of that will have to wait a while.

Using 75% more electricity at our new place

2011-03-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

One of the features that helped convince me to move into our old apartment building was that it was a LEED certified building. Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) certification verifies that a building is constructed in a way that achieves "energy savings, water efficiency, CO₂ emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts."

One benefit of this is that LEED certified buildings are healthier to be in, use less energy, and cost less to operate. The benefit to us at our old apartment was that we hardly ever used our heater and that our appliances cost less to use.

Our current apartment building was constructed a couple decades earlier, so it's not as efficient. Our unit is also larger, so there's more air that needs to be kept warm in the winter. And we face east, so we don't get the afternoon sun to keep us warm. All that means that we are using our heater a lot more than at our old place. At our old place, we needed to turn our heater on for about one week out of the entire year. At our current place, we're running the heater pretty much every day.

Also, the washer and drier at our current apartment are about half the size or 2/3 the size of our old ones, so we're having to run them a lot more often. We do have a deck, so we may look at drying some things outside in the summer.

Anyway, we've now gotten our first electric bill here and our energy use per day is about 75% more than what we used at our old place - we're using about 14 kWh per day instead of the 8 kWH we used at our old place. Fortunately, we'll be using our heater less in the coming months so our energy use should decrease. Also, our energy only costs about 4.6 cents per kWh, so electricity still isn't going to be much more than $30 per month.

No colds this winter

2011-03-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

For as long as I can remember (at least the last 5 years), I've gotten the common cold 2 times every winter. This has been eerily consistent, despite all the protective measures I've put in place (washing my hands regularly, using hand sanitizer, trying to avoid sick people) - on top of all my regular healthy habits (drinking plenty of fluid, taking vitamins, getting enough sleep).

So, it's rather surprising that suddenly this year I went the entire winter without coming down with a cold. I suppose it could just be luck, though I think this is the first year I've been taking a vitamin D supplement every day. I've also been getting less exercise than I had the past couple years (because I've been walking outside less). I know they say that there are thousands of strains of the common cold, but maybe they miscounted and I've actually gotten and become immune to all of them.

Tried Eltana Bagels

2011-03-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

I mentioned a few weeks ago that the Noah's we went to all the time is temporarily closed while the building is redone. Last weekend we decided to try Eltana based on a few recommendations. It was actually pouring down rain, which would normally be abnormal for Seattle if we hadn't been having torrential rain the past few weeks. Anyway, we walked there in about 15 minutes. It was insanely crowded with tons of people and a lot of families, which was surprising. Of course we didn't get there until after 10 and there was also an article recently published in the Seattle Times about it, which might have drawn even more people than normal. Along with Noah's being closed, everyone who wanted bagels was going to try Eltana.

So, we waited in line for 10 minutes and ordered 4 bagels to go. We got sesame, salt, everything, and wheat and carried them home in the rain since there was no way we were going to eat them in that crowded place. We could have ordered cream cheese to go with it, but the cream cheese there is twice as expensive as Noah's, so we passed.

First impressions were average at best. The bagels were smaller than Noah's, which is why we got 4. They were also a little bland, especially the wheat and sesame ones. The salt and everything tasted a little better, but couldn't hold a candle to Noah's asiago cheese or super onion.

I'd probably go back since we don't plan on driving to another Noah's location every weekend, but it's just not going to be the same...

Decorating our apartment

2011-03-17T18:40:00.000-07:00

We've been trying to figure out how to decorate our new apartment since we moved in. Decorating isn't really mine or Troy's strong suit, so it's been time consuming trying to figure out what we like and where to find it. The walls were generally blank until last weekend.

One big difference between this apartment and our old one is that we have a long white wall behind the couch that extends into the dining area. It's at least 20 feet long. We were thinking of buying some art or a mirror or something to take up some of the space. Then we realized that it would take a long time to find exactly what we want, so we figured we should put up something in the meantime. We hung some of our pictures we've taken from our vacations including Australia and Hawaii. The other two pictures are of Hurricane Ridge and Mount Rainier. We still have a big wall space behind the couch to fill though. We might go back to a place we've looked before called Kasala to buy a mirror for behind the couch.

We painted the other main wall in the living room a light green color, which is nice because all the other walls are white. We hung up our framed Hawaiian hale drawing and we also bought a set of 24 leaves we could position on the wall in whatever way we wanted. The leaves are a brown color, which looks good against the green wall. We hung them on top and to the left of our door out to the deck in a way that it looks like they're being blown down from the top of the door.

Hopefully we can find more things to put on the walls as decoration soon. Maybe we'll buy some new 8x10 pictures from our trip to the Oregon coast to replace Hurricane Ridge and Mount Rainier. So far I think we've made a lot of progress, especially for having moved in barely 3 weeks ago.

I love Indian food

2011-03-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

I don't think I had Indian food until we moved to Seattle. I didn't realize what I was missing out on. Granted I've only had maybe two types of Indian dishes, but I'd have to say it's one of my favorite types of food. I really like chicken tikka masala and usually get that whenever we go to an Indian restaurant. I've had tikka masala from Taste of India, Laadla, and Chutney's. They've all been very good. Naan is also excellent when it's hot and fresh. We've gotten it plain and also with something in it, like potato or cheese. Maybe we can find an Indian restaurant that's close to our new apartment.

Bought a new microwave

2011-03-11T12:00:00.000-08:00

Old loaner microwave

New GE microwave

We had a microwave already installed above the stove in our old apartment, but our current apartment doesn't have one. We asked if we could install our own above the stove, but the manager said it would be a lot of work and we realized how expensive they are. Then they said they would let us borrow a microwave, so we said sure.

The one they lent to us was old, dirty, and pretty small. We used it a few times and made a few bags on popcorn in it. It left several more kernels un-popped than the microwave at our old apartment, which was annoying. So, I decided to buy our own and we went looking a few weeks ago.

We found one at Best Buy that we really liked and got good reviews, but they only had a black version in the store. I wanted white so it would match the rest of our appliances. So we had to order it special delivery online. I ordered it Feb 26th and it arrived this last Wednesday. I had to meet the delivery guy at the apartment, which was a little annoying, but I'm glad we have a new microwave now. We popped our first bag of popcorn in it the night we got it and it turned out great.

Using our heaters

2011-03-10T16:00:00.000-08:00

We couldn't use the heaters at our old apartment because we blocked them with furniture. Our bed area was so small that the bed covered up the vent and our bookcase was in the way of the heater in the living area. We only needed to run them maybe a week or so out of the whole year anyway, so it wasn't a big deal.

But now at our new place, we are able to keep the heaters free since we have more room. It's been cold lately too, so we've had to use them quite a bit. Our new building doesn't seem as well insulated as old our apartment building either, so I'm curious to see how much our electric bill will go up. We've been running the heat daily. They generate some pretty hot air, which is nice to sit in front of if I'm cold. Hopefully it will get a little warmer soon so we don't have to run it as much.

Found a new hair salon

2011-03-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

It's been six months since my last haircut, so I figured it was time to get it cut. It had gotten really thick and heavy at the bottom and too long. I had to find a new place to go to since we've moved away from South Lake Union. I used to go to a lady right on the lake, but that's too far for me to walk now.

I searched online and quickly found a salon that was highly rated just a few blocks from our new apartment. It was very convenient and the lady spent an hour and a half on my hair. I decided to have her cut it above my shoulder, layer it, and thin it out quite a bit. She was also a lot cheaper than the other lady I was using, $30 instead of $50. Overall it was a great experience and I'll probably use them from now on. It's great that we can walk to places like the hair salon and save money at the same time.

Walking to the Grocery Store

2011-03-08T16:00:00.000-08:00

One of the things that most excited me about our new neighborhood is that we would be less than 10 minutes away from an everyday grocery store. Since we've been here, we've been able to walk to the store a couple times and haven't had to make any special driving trips to a grocery store.

There are a lot of people that live in this area, so it's common to see other people walking to and from the grocery store. So far we haven't wanted to purchase a lot of heavy things, so we've been able to evenly distribute our groceries across the bags we carry to make it pretty easy to carry them for the 7 minutes back to our apartment.

One nice thing is that there are no traffic lights or major roads that separate us from the grocery store. In our old neighborhood we were fairly close to a Whole Foods, but it just felt farther away because of the busy streets, hills, and the environment of the walk.

We don't yet have a good plan for what to do next time Dr Pepper is on sale because we're not equipped to carry a lot of heavy stuff. We realize that we may have to walk to the store more often since we can't carry as much at a time, but right now that doesn't seem like it'll be a problem.

Out and about this weekend

2011-03-07T11:00:00.000-08:00

We've been busy the past few weekends with moving, but we had a little more time this past weekend to go out and do things.

We had to exchange something at The Container Store in downtown Bellevue, so we did that on Friday after work. We also tried a Taiwanese restaurant there. Neither of us had ever had Taiwanese food, but this place was rated highly on yelp and sounded more appealing than the higher-profile chains in the area. When we got there after 6, the restaurant was packed, but after a bit of a wait, we got a table and ordered small plates of pork burger and sweet potato dumpling to go along with our main meal of chow mein, and pork fried rice. After dinner, we got some tea and wandered around Crate & Barrel.

On Saturday, we were blessed with a beautifully sunny day. While it was fairly cold outside, the sun was shining, which made for a big contrast from previous cloudy and wet weekends. After our bagel adventure, we took a nice walk through downtown to the Cinerama, which had been remodeled a few months ago. Despite having won Best Picture just a week before, there were plenty of seats inside the huge Cinerama theater. The picture and sound at the theater was quite good, and we both enjoyed the movie. We could really feel how stuttering impacted this man's life and the nerves of people around him.

After the movie, we took a bus down to a furniture outlet store in SODO. We didn't see any particular furniture that we wanted to get, but we did buy some decorative leaves to put on our green wall. While SODO has been a rather industrial area, there are also some furniture and design stores in the area. We also stopped at a Starbucks for tea and then went to Krispy Kreme to have a few donuts to tide us over until dinner. We then made the bus that would take us back home.

It was definitely nice to be able to get out and do things this weekend.

Noah's on Capitol Hill is closed

2011-03-06T13:15:00.000-08:00

We've had a tradition the last several years of going to eat bagels almost every Saturday. Usually we get three bagels and split them. Depending on what looks good we get a combination of asiago, sesame, and super onion. We've been going to the Noah's Bagels on Capitol Hill, which was pretty convenient by the #8 bus or just walking up the hill from our old South Lake Union apartment.

Since we moved a few weeks ago, we've been too busy to go get bagels on the weekend. But yesterday we finally made it a point to walk slightly less than a mile to Noah's from our new apartment.

When we got there, we saw a big sign on the door that said that location was closed. I was pretty disappointed. We knew it would be closing for a little while at some point because the building it was in is being torn down and rebuilt with condos on the upper floors.

We weren't sure what to do yesterday. We were really hungry and I still wanted bagels. We ended up going to the Mercer Island location and it was after 10:30 by the time we got there. It was packed with people and we had to wait in line for 15 minutes. There were no two-person tables available, so we had to sit at a big, awkward table with other customers. At least they were some of the freshest bagels we've had in a while. The Mercer Island location is pretty far away, but most of the drive is on the freeway.

The only other locations we could go to are ones in Queen Anne and the U-District. I don't care for the Queen Anne location because it's hard to get to from where we live now and it's always swamped with tons of people, including families with screaming kids. Parking there is also a hassle.

The U-District location would probably be the best one to go to since it's not too far away. Unfortunately there aren't any convenient buses that would take us there, so we would have to drive every Saturday morning just to get bagels. We've tried a few other bagel places in the city, but have not really cared much for any of them. I guess we'll have to figure out something for a year or two until the Capitol Hill location is open again.

Got some new shoes

2011-03-04T14:15:00.000-08:00

I'm still battling my plantar fasciitis. It's been a few months since I went to the doctor. It seems to have gotten better wearing my gel inserts and tennis shoes all the time, but the problem is still there. It had been a while since I got new tennis shoes, so we went to REI and looked for some walking shoes. I bought a pair from them and tried them for a few days. They rubbed my feet raw in a few places, so I had to return them. They definitely had more padding and support though.

Then last night we tried a place called Roadrunner Sports, which a coworker recommended. They did all the same type of tests on my feet and said I have high arches, which I already knew. I told them I walk a mile to and from work every day and then some around town on the weekends, and they called me an athelete, which was kind of cool.

Despite the fact that I told them I already have inserts and orthotics, they molded some for me. I ended up buying the inserts and new Saucony tennis shoes and they felt much better on my feet. They have a lot of padding and support in the heel, so hopefully that will help with my plantar fasciitis.

The customer service was great. I had someone helping me the whole time and they seemed to know what they were talking about. I might end up returning the inserts though since they weren't cheap. But I guess if they feel better than my other inserts, maybe I'll keep them.

The frustrating thing about this whole deal is that I just don't know who to listen to or who's right. I heard different stories from my podiatrist and my orthopedic surgeon. They each recommended something different. It's the same with buying shoes. One store says one thing and another says something else. It's been a lot of trial and error, trying to see what works and what helps my feet. Hopefully these new tennis shoes will be a big improvement.

Favorite places to eat in Seattle after 3 years

2011-03-01T16:00:00.001-08:00

We've lived in Seattle for three years now and have eaten at many restaurants here. We don't eat out very much and when we do, we prefer to eat at places we know are going to be good. It's hard to spend money going to new places all the time and take the risk that we might not like it. Nevertheless, our favorite restaurant list for this year includes two new places. Both Djan's Thai and Noah's Bagels dropped off the list after two straight years. Red Mill and Pagliacci are the only ones that have made the cut all three years.

Top Pot Doughnuts - We've mentioned Top Pot several times before, so we thought it deserved its own spot in our top 5. These donuts aren't just any regular donuts, they're "hand-forged" sugary goodness. My favorites are the apple fritter, chocolate bar, and cinnamon sugar rings. Troy loves the old fashioned glazed and the old fashioned devils food.

Paseo Caribbean - Wow, what a sandwich! We tried this place about six months ago and need to go back. The sandwiches were very filling and had a lot of meat. The sandwich I got had roast pork with sweet banana peppers, smoked ham & Swiss cheese melted between a hot press. It was really good!

Red Mill Burgers (Interbay) - yummy burgers and onion rings. This is a classic place that everyone should go to at least once if they like burgers. The onion rings are awesome and the shakes are good too.

Café Besalu - Best croissants and quiche in the city. We tried this place about six months ago as well and I was blown away by the food. On a cold morning, these quiches and croissants will warm you up fast. It's definitely worth waiting in the long line for this breakfast.

Pagliacci Pizza - totally awesome pizza. I've had a lot of different pizzas in my life and this has everything beat. My favorites are the pepperoni and Hawaiian. They also make really good vegetarian-style pizzas with special toppings like artichoke and goat cheese. It may be a little expensive, but it's worth it. Troy and I can usually eat off of a large pizza twice.

Here are our restaurant rankings the past two years:
Year 1
Year 2

Cleaning old apartment

2011-02-28T16:00:00.000-08:00

One of the more time consuming things about moving is that we had to clean our old apartment. I was off work last Monday for President's Day, so I was able to get a lot of cleaning done. I went over there around noon and worked for about four hours. The place was dirtier than I thought. I started by vacuuming everywhere, even around the baseboards. Then I cleaned the bathroom, including all the drawers and the bathtub.

After that I moved into the kitchen and started cleaning the refrigerator. We had magnets on it that had left a black residue, so I had to clean that off. The vegetable drawers were also dirty, but I could pull those out and clean them easily in the sink. The microwave wasn't too bad since we had cleaned it fairly recently. And I didn't bother trying to clean the drip pans because they're so bad it would take at least an hour to scrub the grime off. I tried to clean them once before and they never did come completely clean. We'll just pay for new ones. That's pretty much where I stopped.

Then on Saturday we cleaned the kitchen counters, sink, and under the sink. Troy also took down all the stuff from the walls, including our curtains and all the nails. It was pretty hard to take the curtains down though because we didn't have anything to stand on. Troy had to get up on the windowsill to reach, which looked difficult. It took another couple hours to get everything completely out and cleaned. We didn't have time to clean the oven because the self-cleaning feature would have taken over four hours. Unfortunately it costs $25 for the apartments to clean it for us, which means our deposit will be even less than I was hoping for.

It felt weird to be in our empty old apartment. Here are some pictures of it while we were packing, moving, and after it was all emptied. We'll miss it.

Thoughts on the new apartment

2011-02-27T18:07:00.000-08:00

After three years of living in our original apartment we found when we first moved to Seattle, we started looking for a new apartment. We made a list of what we liked and didn't like about our old apartment and neighborhood and decided it would be a good idea to move. Our lease would have increased at our old place anyway, so it was good we had already resigned ourselves to moving.

Moving was a lot of work, but everything worked out well and we've put almost everything away. We really like having more space in the living room and an actual bedroom. The location is great and is still within walking distance to my work. It's actually a shorter bus ride for Troy from his work too. It's even a little cheaper than what we were paying for our old place. And we're about a 6 minute walk from the grocery store and tons of restaurants. The main drawback is that the bathroom is tiny and there isn't much storage or counter space. Otherwise I think we're pretty happy with it and are looking forward to making it feel more like home. Here are some pictures of the new apartment, during the move and after.

Here's a video tour:

First Hill Apartment on Vimeo.

Highlights of Year 3

2011-02-24T12:45:00.000-08:00

Today is the start of our fourth year in Seattle. It's hard to believe we've already been here three years. The past year hasn't been as rewarding as previous years due to my plantar fasciitis, but overall we've done some pretty cool things.

After going to Vancouver for the Olympics last February, we didn't do much until the end of May when my friend Megan came to visit us over Memorial Day weekend. We went to Ken Griffey Jr.'s last Mariners game, the Museum of Flight, and the Boeing manufacturing plant.

In July, we took a day trip to the Bavarian-themed tourist town of Leavenworth on the other side of the Cascade Mountains.

One of the best highlights of the year was when our friends David and Karen visited us for a week later in July. We went to Mount Rainier for a day, Bite of Seattle, and just enjoyed hanging out and playing video games.

Troy and I went blueberry picking for the first time and it was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I made some really good blueberry pie with all the blueberries we picked.

We saw a concert paying tribute to Paul McCartney at Benaroya Hall. It was nice to finally go see the Seattle Symphony, I'd like to go again sometime soon.

The only trip we took this year (other than to Texas) was to the Oregon Coast in September. We really enjoyed being on the coast, seeing the beautiful scenery, and just relaxing on the beach. I liked seeing all the lighthouses and going to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We even took a dune buggy ride on the sand dunes! The weather was the best we could hope for that late in the summer. I'd definitely like to go back.

We didn't do much in the fall or winter. We went to a pumpkin patch for the first time, which was neat. We also started receiving produce boxes from Full Circle Farm and have enjoyed trying new vegetables and fruits. And we took a three hour Thai cooking class to learn more about the ingredients and ways to cook Thai food on our own.

Finding a new apartment and moving has taken up a lot of our time in January and February.

I'm excited about what this coming year has in store for us. Both of our parents and my Uncle are coming to visit early this summer. We might also be going on a week-long National Park road trip with David and Karen. We'd like to take a few short trips as well, perhaps to San Francisco and Vancouver. As for things in Seattle, we'll have another summer full of great food to eat, festivals to go to, and hiking to do.

Moved last weekend

2011-02-23T11:00:00.000-08:00

We're finally mostly settled in our new apartment. Last week and weekend was really busy with all the packing we had to do to get ready. Thankfully we still had most of the boxes we used to move here, including four big wardrobe boxes and boxes for our kitchen dishware and appliances. We signed the lease on Thursday and moved in some small things that night and Friday night.

We had originally wanted to have the movers come Saturday morning around 8 or 8:30, but our old apartment wouldn't give us the elevator key to use because the office didn't open until 10. So we ended up changing our move time to the afternoon, which had a big start window of 12-4. We used Gentle Giant, which I read good things about and checked on the BBB website. It ended up working out well that they came later because we were still busy packing up things and getting furniture emptied. Three big, strong guys showed up at the old apartment around 12 and took about an hour and a half to get everything padded, wrapped, and in the truck. I was impressed with how fast and hard they worked.

The only thing that got broken was a cheap picture frame that fell off the wall when they were lifting the mattress. To compensate, they didn't charge us for the packing materials used to wrap the mattress (which we weren't told about in the beginning, but I guess it didn't matter). It seemed to take longer for them to move everything into the new place. The couch looked especially difficult to fit through the door. They ended up finishing around 3:45.

After they left, we spent the next several days unpacking and putting things away. The place was quite a mess for a few days with boxes everywhere. We still have some piles of stuff here and there that we don't know what to do with or where to put, but it's starting to look like a home now. We hope to have some pictures up by this weekend.

We're moving this Saturday!

2011-02-15T20:50:00.000-08:00

We're finally moving this weekend after several weeks of searching for the right apartment, packing, getting rid of stuff we don't want, and waiting until the big day. We'll be able to move in small things and boxes Thursday and Friday. Then the movers will move the bigger furniture Saturday sometime between 12 and 4. The forecast currently looks very favorable for Saturday: sunny skies with 0% chance of rain, while all the surrounding days have a chance of rain/snow. Hopefully the move goes smoothly!

New Camera

2011-02-12T11:00:00.000-08:00

The camera we bought shortly after we moved here has had some photo quality issues lately. It looked like there was something on the lens, even after we had carefully cleaned it.

We decided to buy a new point-and-shoot camera that would take higher quality photos. So far, I like it. My favorite thing about it is that it has a wider-angle lens, meaning essentially that it can zoom out farther than other cameras and capture more of a scene. This is especially helpful for indoor shots and self-portraits. It also has image stabilization and is smaller than our previous camera. It came in multiple colors and Lesley chose a greenish color.

Started packing

2011-02-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we started going through stuff trying to reduce what we have. We have a lot of stuff from when we were kids that we can't really get rid of, like school yearbooks and stuffed animals. We got rid of a lot of clothes we never wear in preparation for going down to 5' of closet space in our bedroom. We'll have to store more clothes in the chest of drawers, which we've been using to store random stuff. It was quite a mess in the apartment with all our boxes out in the hallway and living room.

We're planning on packing a lot more stuff this weekend, our last full weekend in our current apartment. It's kind of sad to be leaving it, after being there almost three years. We'll miss being close to Whole Foods and REI. We'll also miss the view we have of Queen Anne Hill and the sunset to the west, even though it is partially blocked by Amazon buildings.

We'll probably go out to eat at a few more places nearby before we move. I want to order take out from Laadla Indian restaurant again and we might to go Seastar this weekend. I'd also like to walk to Lake Union Park again.

It's definitely become our home, but I guess it's time to move on. Our new place will be bigger and cheaper. It's also in an area we aren't very familiar with, so we'll get to explore a whole new neighborhood and try out all the restaurants in the area.

Deciding on a color

2011-02-04T07:00:00.000-08:00

As we look forward to moving into our new place, we're trying to think of where we want to put all of our furniture and how we want to decorate. The place we're moving into has white paint over the walls and kitchen cabinets, so we want to add a little touch of color by painting a wall in a different color. We've never had anything painted before, so we're picking up color swatches and trying to figure out what color we want to use.

We're thinking of a shade of green, as everything else is very neutral - the walls are white, the carpet is brown-ish, and the closet doors are grey. There are so many different shades of green, though. Our current color scheme has some green in it, so we want the wall to match. I don't want the wall to be too grey-colored, because we get plenty of that from the sky. I think a green with some yellow in it would be nice, but we don't want it to be an olive color. So, we're going to go back to the unit and see what shades of green would look best.

We're also thinking of painting parts of other rooms like the bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom, but I don't know if we'll do that. At our current apartment, the bathroom is already painted in a neutral tan color, which I think helps the feel of the room. So, anyway, hopefully we pick a good color for the living room and any other rooms - there are a lot of options.

Nice dinner at Daniel's Broiler

2011-01-31T18:30:00.000-08:00

Last Friday we decided to celebrate being done with apartment searching and went out to eat at Daniel's Broiler, a very nice steak restaurant right on the south end of Lake Union. It's just a 10 minute walk from where we live, though we've never been there. It was a really nice place and still seemed fairly casual. The view of the lake and Queen Anne hill was amazing at night.

We started with the bacon wrapped scallops as an appetizer and they gave us fresh warm bread with butter. I had the 8 oz petite filet mignon with a baked potato and Troy had the prime rib with a baked potato. The steak was cooked perfectly and had a good flavor. It was a lot of food, but somehow we still had room for dessert. We got the creme brulee with fresh berries and drizzled caramel.

All the food was excellent. The service was a little slow, but I suppose nice steak places tend to be a relaxed experience. Since we're moving out of the area, going out to dinner on the lake was kind of our way of saying goodbye to our neighborhood.

Applied for a new place

2011-01-29T14:30:00.000-08:00

After weeks of searching and visiting 14 different buildings, we finally applied for a new apartment. We thought we found "the one" last week in a building on First Hill, but it was gone before we could apply. Then Thursday night, we thought we'd found "the one" in a building on 8th Ave. But yesterday, we ended up applying for another unit in that first building on First Hill. While this unit isn't as big as we had hoped for, it's still bigger than what we have now and costs less than what we're paying now.

This wasn't in the plan - as of Thursday night we expected to apply to a building on 8th Avenue that we saw that day. It had the best floor plan of any that we'd seen, including plenty of storage space, and the building had a super amazing rooftop deck with a view of downtown, Mount Rainier, and the Cascades to the east. However, we found out later that the unit we'd be getting would be smaller than the unit we'd seen on Thursday. We also found out that the first apartment building on First Hill we had tried to apply to last week still had a unit available, though it was smaller than the one we'd tried to apply to, it was about the same size of the unit we'd be getting on 8th Ave and much cheaper.

After some analysis and discussion throughout the day on Friday, we decided to take a look at the less expensive unit on First Hill. It's not the ideal floor plan, as there is not as much bathroom counter space and storage as we wanted, but the living room is much bigger than what we have now. We also have a better view from this unit than we would have had at any other place we'd looked at (though not nearly as good as what we have now). I also like the location better, as we're close to downtown, close to the grocery store, and in a rather quiet residential area.

We applied for that unit and then returned home to find a note under our door that our current rent would increase 7% if we wanted to sign a new lease where we are now. So, that helped to reaffirm our decision. We're excited to be done with the searching and looking forward to moving into our new home.

Apartment searching

2011-01-25T19:58:00.000-08:00

Our lease ends next month and we are looking for a larger apartment. We really like our current apartment building, but we have decided that we want more room in the bedroom and living room. Ideally, we'd like a little more space but without paying a lot more.

There's not a lot available in our current building and what is available seems to cost a lot more. We've spent the last few weeks looking up available apartments on HotPads and PadMapper. Things are a little difficult because we have very strict criteria. We'd like to stay within reasonable walking distance to downtown and Lesley's work. That rules out a few neighborhoods we like, like Ballard and the U District, but I think we would quickly tire of a longer commute. Specifically, we're looking at apartments in upper Belltown, Capitol Hill, and First Hill. We want a one bedroom apartment in good condition without being too pricey.

We had found a place that we liked and almost applied for it, but it was leased right before we got there to submit the application. So, we are still looking for a place we would like. We have to give notice by early February to our current apartments if we are planning to move out by the end of the month. If we can't find anything, we may sign another 6 month lease here or go month-to-month until we find something.

Walking Pioneer Square

2011-01-22T12:15:00.000-08:00

Note: This post comes from Walking in Seattle.

This exploration of Pioneer Square takes you through one of the most walkable neighborhoods in the city, full of character and history.

Click here to continue reading.

Top likes and dislikes of apartment and neighborhood

2011-01-17T14:30:00.000-08:00

With our lease ending in February, we're going to be deciding soon whether to renew our lease or to move elsewhere. In the years since we've moved here, this location has grown on me and overall I'm pretty satisfied with the neighborhood and the apartment building itself.

Things I like about our apartment

The positive impressions we had when we moved in were pretty spot-on and there is still a lot to like.

There are no major complaints - the neighbors are fine, it's pretty quiet overall, and there are no regular inconveniences or other issues.

Our unit was designed well and makes good use of the space. For being only 555 square feet, the kitchen and bathrooms are adequately sized.

The apartment building is pretty nice. People respect the public spaces and the apartment keeps things in good condition.

Even though we lost the best part of our view, we can still see some mountains, Queen Anne Hill, and quite a bit of sky.

I love the afternoon sun that comes in and brightens up the place

We almost never have to use our heater (which is good because we have furniture blocking it right now). It's nice that we usually get enough heat from surrounding units during the winter and can use our windows to cool things off most of the rest of the year.

We can compost our food scraps. Maybe this is available in all apartments, I don't know, but it's nice to be able to do it.

Our trash and recycling room is just down the hall.

Things I don't like about our apartment

The grill on the balcony below us puts smoke in our apartment if we have our window open. This is very annoying on a nice day when we want to feel the cooler outside air.

The balcony below us can get kind of loud if there's a party, or people at nearby clubs and bars. Also, the recording studio across the alley is really annoying.

It would be nice if some rooms were bigger, particularly the bedroom.

We face the west and it does get warm in here for about a week or two every summer.

We've had to add some lights to get it to be bright enough in here, as there are not enough light fixtures built into the unit.

Things I like about our neighborhood

The neighborhood has changed and improved since we moved in. Now that some workers in Amazon's headquarters have moved in this year, more restaurants have opened and there is more to walk to in the area. Check out this color-coded view of the area from the Space Needle.

It's nice to have some restaurants and retail within walking distance. We try to take advantage of it when we can. Also, Whole Foods is nearby.

We're about a 15 minute walk from downtown, which is convenient for Lesley's work and if we want to go downtown to shop or eat or run errands. This is a lot more convenient than having to drive downtown or take a bus like most people do.

Lake Union Park opened late this summer and is one of Seattle's great urban parks. Even though the weather got cooler and wetter right after it opened, we've been there several times already.

We are close to several bus routes that can take us to many parts of the city, at least in the northern part of Seattle. For going to any neighborhood north of here, we can get to a bus pretty easily and I enjoy doing that on the weekends.

The farmers market outside our building is a fun place to buy fruit and flowers, among many other things, though it may not continue next year.

Things I don't like about our neighborhood

It's a 10 minute walk to Whole Foods, which isn't that far, but the walk is across a busy street and up a hill. It would be nice to live closer to somewhere where we could regularly shop for more affordable groceries.

The streets that surround this area are a deterrent to walking.

While there is a lot to walk to in this area, there aren't as many places to walk to as I would like. Few other Seattle neighborhoods are more walkable, though.

Being a neglected mostly-industrial part of town for decades means that it will take some time for this area to feel have a cozy neighborhood feel that other areas have.

It will be hard to find a new place with as many positives as where we live now, but we're planning to look into our options and will see what we can find.

Walking Wallingford

2011-01-15T12:00:00.000-08:00

Note: This post comes from Walking in Seattle.

Stroll by the eclectic retail and historic buildings in one of Seattle’s most walkable family-friendly neighborhoods.

Click here to continue reading.

Involved in personnel committee at church

2011-01-13T16:00:00.000-08:00

I've been on the personnel committee at church for over a year now (called the Committee on Staff-Parish Relations). There are about ten of us who meet monthly to review how things are going with the church staff, hire new staff as needed, and organize staff appreciation events and whatever else comes up.

It's been a good experience to see how a church operates, to gain experience with the hiring process, and to be able to provide input. Since July I've been the co-chair of this committee, so I've had more things to do in addition to the monthly meeting. There actually seems to be quite a bit going on, such as the budget process that we've been working through for the past couple months. I also have to represent the committee at the church's monthly administrative council meetings. It will be nice when things slow down soon, but overall I've enjoyed the experience.

Seahawks upset Saints in Wild Card game

2011-01-11T07:00:00.000-08:00

As I'm sure everyone has heard by now, the Seattle Seahawks upset the defending Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints 41-36 this past weekend in the Wild Card game. One play in particular was pretty awesome - Marshawn Lynch ran 67 yards and broke at least 8 tackles to score a touchdown late in the 4th quarter. Qwest Field erupted so loudly that the ground shook enough to register on a seismic monitor about 100 yards away.

I had briefly considered actually going to the game since tickets were still available as late as Friday and were only about $60 each. Neither of us has ever been to an NFL playoff game, but I figured the Saints would win though and I didn't feel like sitting in 35º weather for 4 hours. As it turns out, it was one of the best, most exciting NFL games I've seen in a long time. And finally, Seattle can be proud of something sports related! Now if only we could beat the Bears this coming weekend...

Walking Union Bay Natural Area

2011-01-09T15:17:00.000-08:00

Note: This post comes from Walking in Seattle.

This trail through grassland takes you near wetlands that are popular with bird-watchers.

Click here to continue reading.

Hikes to do this year

2011-01-06T16:00:00.000-08:00

With Lesley's foot hopefully on the mend, I'd like to fit two year's worth of hikes into this summer, since we weren't able to hike much last year. Here are the top trails I want to hit:

Rattlesnake Ledge - A moderately difficult hike that's not too far away and offers beautiful views. Probably my favorite trail in the nearby area.

Iron Goat Trail - Not sure if we'll do this one again, as it's kind of far away, but it's one of my favorite hikes we've done in the past few years.

Cascade Pass - We've gone twice before and it's been one of our favorite hikes. We'd like to go earlier in the season so that we can see all the wildflowers.

Lime Kiln Trail - One of my favorite hikes we did our first year here, it's a little far away but I'd like to go again.

Twin Falls - Another enjoyable trail that can get rather busy

Cougar Mountain - We've been here many times as it's closer than all these other options. There are many different trails of easy to moderate difficulty. I hope we can go here several times.

Olympic Peninsula - We went here with Lesley's parents a couple years ago, but the weather was rather hot. I'd like to go back and do some longer hikes in different parts of the park.

Back from 9-day trip to Texas

2011-01-03T21:05:00.000-08:00

We just returned from our 9-day-long visit to Fort Worth for the holidays. This was the longest trip back to Texas since we moved to Seattle almost three years ago, so we had more time to see our families than we have since before we moved away.

This trip has seemed different from others. The first few trips back we were very excited to be back and see people and we noticed the many differences between Seattle and Texas. However, this trip, things have felt more like what I remember when we used to live here. This trip was maybe a little too long, but we did many different things to make the most of our time there.

We spent a lot of quality time with our parents, other relatives, and our friends in the area. We went to several of our old favorite restaurants and enjoyed good Tex-Mex and barbeque. We ate at pretty much every place that we wanted to eat at, though it did get expensive eating out so much. There were a few fun family activities, such as the normal Christmas gatherings and going to church with Lesley's grandmother for the first time. I got to see an uncle and a cousin that I don't normally see and spent some time with my brother and saw the apartment he'd moved into. We also had a good time with my parents playing their Wii and other games, going to the mall, and walking at the park with my dad. We also played games and walked in the neighborhood with Lesley's mom and went to a Dallas Stars hockey game and the zoo with Lesley's parents.

I was happy to be able to tour Cowboys Stadium to see the giant high-def screen and walk on the field - it's an awesome stadium. We also celebrated the new year with some of my friends in the area and had a lot of fun playing games and hanging out with some of our best friends that we hardly ever get to see. We saw several movies when we were there, including True Grit and Despicable Me, as well as seeing Tangled while eating lunch at a Movie Tavern.

I also got to explore a lot of the interesting parts of the Metroplex. My parents drove us around new development in Fort Worth along West 7th, and we spent time in the Fort Worth Stockyards with my mom. Lesley and I had a mini-vacation in Dallas, staying in a hotel downtown and spending time in the city on our own. Taking Dallas' trolley to go out to dinner and a movie in Uptown was a highlight of the trip. We also went to breakfast the next day on Oak Lawn and went to NorthPark Center. The day we spent in Dallas also provided us with some welcome privacy and a break from being driven around all the time.

Taking trips back to Texas can be stressful, as we often can't spend as much time with people as they would like, and dealing with people's moods can be challenging. The stress of dealing with expectations may be why Lesley didn't feel very good on the trip.

Overall, this was one of the better trips I've had back to visit family. I really enjoyed the time we spent with people and the varied things we did. We're not yet sure when our next trip will be, but we will be going back this year for Thanksgiving or Christmas again.

Best Photos 2010

2011-01-01T12:00:00.000-08:00

Here are our favorite pictures that we took last year. Vote on your favorite below.

Go here to see our favorite pictures from 2008.
Go here to see our favorite pictures from 2009.

Eating more vegetables

2010-12-27T07:00:00.000-08:00

We've been eating a lot more vegetables over the past few months. I used to think that a meal had to have meat for it to be a meal, but as we've become better at cooking, it's become easier to make good recipes with mostly vegetables.

The vegetable box we receive also gives us plenty of things to cook that don't have to be accompanied by meat, and I'm trying new fruits and vegetables with each box we receive.

I've made a conscious decision to try to minimize the amount of meat I eat and there are some benefits of that. For example, I may live longer by eating less meat.

A minor benefit of eating less meat is that cooking less raw meat means that there are fewer times when animal blood gets on our counter top and fewer bacteria in the kitchen.

The animal food industry has a huge impact on the environment due to all the resources it takes to feed animals so we can eat them, and also treats many animals inhumanely.

We have a couple pretty good cookbooks that we use that have many meat-free recipes. Stir-fry with vegetables and sometimes tofu is a favorite of ours. We've also found some recipes online for chili, veggie sandwich, and mushroom and potato soup.

Eating some meals without meat does take some effort to find new recipes that don't include meat, but for me it has been worthwhile and for many other people who have reasons for eating less meat.

Few children in Seattle

2010-12-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

We'd mentioned before that Seattle has 45% more dogs than children, and another study confirms that Seattle has relatively few children. In fact, of all US cities, Seattle has the second lowest rate of children living in the city limits, behind San Francisco:

Less than 20 percent of all Seattle households included children younger than 18, compared with 34 percent nationally and 33 in Washington state.

While the low rate of children here is striking, it's not especially surprising, considering the high cost of living, especially for home ownership, which prices many families out of the city and into the suburbs. And, with Seattle's city limits being smaller than sprawling cities elsewhere in the country, suburban expansion long ago filled Seattle to its edges, pushing families looking for new developments into suburbs outside of Seattle. Seattle also attracts singles and young married couples like us without children who create demand for small condos and apartments.

Candy Cane Lane

2010-12-22T16:00:00.000-08:00

We've always liked looking at Christmas lights, so we went to Candy Cane Lane earlier this week. Candy Cane Lane is a short street in the Ravenna neighborhood, north of the U-District, where all the home owners put up lights and displays for everyone to enjoy during the Christmas season. It's one of the best light displays in the area with every house on the street participating. We decided to park a few streets over and walk through it as opposed to driving through like we have in past years.

Upcoming trip

2010-12-21T16:00:00.000-08:00

I have been looking forward to our next trip, as we will be returning to Texas to spend time with family. This will be one of our longer trips back to Texas - we'll be there for 9 days - but it also feels like it's been a very long time since we've been there. Last year, we weren't able to be with family during the holidays, so I'm very excited to be able to see my parents and other relatives and friends, including our baby niece.

We traveled during the holidays our first year here, which was quite an hectic experience thanks to the snow storm that moved in before we left.

While this winter is expected to be wet and cold, right now the forecast doesn't show any snow that would impact our flight out.

I'm looking forward to satisfying my currently insatiable cravings for barbecue and Tex-Mex. Lesley and I will also be spending an evening in Dallas by ourselves and going to a hockey game with her parents.

While we'll have spent more than half of our vacation time this year to go back to Texas rather than traveling somewhere new and exciting, it's good to spend holidays with family.

Had a birthday

2010-12-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

So, I had another birthday recently. Seems like it comes around more and more often. I do like to take advantage of my birthday when it happens, and I was glad to be able to do all these things that I wouldn't normally do.

Lesley took good care of me for my birthday. She bought me several doughnuts from Top Pot, including my favorite: old-fashioned glazed. I love classic country music, so she got me a Patsy Cline greatest hits. She also took me out to dinner at a nearby Ethiopian restaurant that we'd never been to before. I pass by this place sometimes on my way home and have always been intrigued, but have never stopped in. I thought the place had good ambiance and despite being in an out of the way location, it got pretty busy when we were there. We shared a vegetable platter, which was a lot of food for pretty cheap. I'm not sure when we'll go back, as neither of us are huge fans of Ethiopian food, but it was nice to try this place out and go somewhere different for my birthday.

We also went out to brunch at a cafe that had opened recently just a couple blocks from our apartment and watched a film noir (The Third Man) on our Netflix queue. We also went out to a piano bar nearby and listened to a variety of songs, including work from 70s progressive artists like Kansas and the Moody Blues, ragtime tunes, and classical pieces by Beethoven.

It was fun going to several places we hadn't been to before. And it's cool that new places are opening nearby, as we didn't have to go any farther than half a mile from where we live for me to have a good birthday.

Work Christmas Party 2010

2010-12-18T16:25:00.000-08:00

Troy and I went to my work Christmas party last night. It was held at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in downtown Seattle instead of the Hotel Andra where it was the past two years. We just barely made the bus near our apartment and arrived shortly after it started at 6 for cocktails and appetizers. They had several kinds of cheese, including Gouda, goat cheese, and aged Parmesan. They also had nuts and dried cranberries to munch on.

After about an hour we all sat down at our assigned tables and had salad, dinner, and dessert. I really liked the salad, which had thin pear slices, cheese, walnuts, and bibb lettuce with a nice vinaigrette dressing. I had a steak with mashed potatoes and green beans while Troy had a cheese ravioli pasta dish with asparagus. My steak was cooked just right, but it didn't have a very good flavor. For dessert we had a chocolate Swiss roll with cream filling and raspberries. We also had some red and white wine throughout the night.

The Fairmont is a really nice hotel and the ceilings were really high compared to the low ceilings at the Hotel Andra, which made it easier to hear people talk. We also had a live group of carolers, which is always a nice touch.

This party was a little different from the last two, not just because it was in a different hotel, but because my former boss is retiring at the end of this year. A few people said a few words and gave short speeches. She really likes Elvis, so we had an Elvis impersonator put on a show. It was a big surprise for her and pretty unexpected. He sang to several ladies, but thankfully I managed to avoid him. It probably helped that we were at a table in the very back corner of the room, although I didn't like feeling so far away from everyone else.

Overall, it was an interesting night. I liked the nice hotel, but didn't care much for the steak or where our table was located. I got tired of standing on my feet, which hurt my heel. We also had to wait in the bus terminal for quite a while to get home, which was slightly inconvenient. I'll take free food and drinks though any day.

Bonfire in Kirkland

2010-12-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago we went to a housewarming party for some friends of ours that moved to Kirkland. We were driving around and exploring the area a little bit when we came across a gigantic bonfire, probably 10 feet wide! It was on a beach close to Lake Washington. We decided to stop and check it out. There were lots of other people standing around it, keeping warm. It was cold outside, but the fire was pretty hot, even standing about 10 feet from it! Unfortunately we didn't have our cameras with us, so Troy just took a picture with his cell phone camera, which doesn't really do it justice. I'd never seen anything like it, pretty cool.

Where our electricity comes from

2010-12-15T10:35:00.000-08:00

Seattle City Light sends out a newsletter bimonthly with news and tips for saving energy and recycling electronics among other things. This issue detailed where our electricity comes from:

Hydro - 91.2%

Nuclear - 4.4%

Wind - 2.3%

Coal - 1.4%

Other - 0.7%

Early Christmas present

2010-12-11T09:45:00.000-08:00

I haven't bought a new game system since I bought my PS2 from my sister 4 years ago. I've been playing my old games quite a bit recently and have run out of ones I want to play for the 100th time. I mentioned I was interested in getting a Wii and one of my coworkers told me she would sell hers to me at a discount. She included the following items with her offer:

Wii system

4 Wii remotes

2 nunchucks

2 controllers

2 wheels

Wii bat/tennis racket/golf club

Games:

Mario Kart

Mario Party 8

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games

Wii Play

Wii Sports

She was willing to take $250 for all of those items, so I quickly accepted! I think it was a pretty sweet deal considering all of that stuff brand new would cost a lot more than that. Now I also want to buy other games, including Zelda, Donkey Kong Returns, New Super Mario Bros, and Mario Galaxy 1 & 2. Early Merry Christmas to me! :)

Fort Worth rejects streetcar

2010-12-08T18:25:00.000-08:00

We moved to Seattle largely for the walkable urban environment that is missing from our hometown of Fort Worth. So, I have been following with interest the study in Fort Worth to determine the feasibility of adding a streetcar line there.

We have a streetcar running in our neighborhood, which was controversial when it was installed. However, in the few years since it's been installed, ridership has grown significantly as has the neighborhood. Developers have responded to the streetcar investment Seattle made in this long-neglected area and the neighborhood surrounding the streetcar is the fastest growing part of the city. Like Portland's streetcar did, Seattle's streetcar has been a catalyst for the development of a good urban neighborhood.

Fort Worth has also neglected areas near its downtown and a streetcar there would have sparked private development toward creating a significant urban center city area - the studies so far had predicted millions of dollars in growth. However, Fort Worth's city council decided to stop the studies and abandon the streetcar project. Stopping the streetcar study points to a lack of vision on behalf of Fort Worth's leaders and established interests.

There has been some resistance in Seattle to the investments in Seattle's urban areas and public transportation, but Seattle has been successful at creating urban areas that people want to live in. Fort Worth hasn't and apparently doesn't care to. Consequently, the town of Fort Worth will see more people like myself who prefer walkable urban areas over drivable suburban areas leaving for cities like Seattle.

MRI results negative

2010-12-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

I had my MRI Monday morning and that went ok. I didn't know they were going to inject dye into my right arm at the elbow, so that wasn't very fun. I had my normal reaction of feeling nauseous and close to fainting. The MRI was really loud, so I had to wear ear plugs and I also had music to listen with headphones. They did short 2-3 minute tests and the machine would make all kinds of noise. I was glad when the whole thing was over, it took about an hour.

Yesterday we met with the doctor and went over the MRI results, which were negative. He didn't find any tumor, cyst, or bursitis. He said it is just chronic plantar fasciitis, so he told me to keep doing what I've been doing - stretching, wearing my night splint, icing my heel, and wearing shoes all the time. He also gave me some silicone 3/4 shoe inserts that should give me more padding than my harder orthotics. I got another coritsone shot too. Hopefully these new inserts help. He said plantar fasciitis normally goes away for most people after about a year, no matter what measures have been taken to cure it. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but I guess it's better than unnecessary surgery and having to use crutches.

Won prizes at holiday party

2010-12-06T16:45:00.000-08:00

Our apartment had their annual holiday party this past week and we decided to go. There were some finger foods and drinks, however we showed up late, so some of the food was cold or already eaten. There was also a raffle for several prizes that were donated by local businesses. There were quite a lot of other people there, but Lesley and me were each lucky enough to win a prize.

I won a free pizza from Tutta Bella and Lesley won two free tickets to the Cinerama.

We had our free pizza with a calzone this weekend and we had been wanting to go to the Cinerama since it was remodeled, so we're looking forward to seeing a movie there sometime soon.

Top Pot has the best doughnuts

2010-12-04T11:00:00.000-08:00

We've mentioned Top Pot a few times before, but it definitely deserves its own post. We woke up pretty early this morning for some reason, so I suggested we walk to Top Pot to get some doughnuts before the Conference USA championship game between SMU and UCF. I usually get them for free at work all the time, since it's only a few blocks from my office and people bring in a couple dozen almost every week it seems like. I used to only eat the apple fritter, but lately I've been trying different ones like the cinnamon sugar covered blueberry cake doughnut.

We got four doughnuts this morning. Troy got a regular and a chocolate old fashioned glazed and I got a peppermint snowdrift and a chocolate bar. I was barely able to finish the chocolate bar. Top Pot definitely has the best doughnuts I've ever had. Troy likes them more than Krispy Kreme now. I wonder if we'll ever try them all...

Getting an MRI

2010-12-02T13:20:00.000-08:00

I had my follow up appointment with my podiatrist the day before Thanksgiving. My foot had not improved at all since my second coritsone shot (now 5 weeks ago). In fact it got considerably worse, probably the worst it's ever felt. He said it seemed that my plantar fasciitis had gone away, but that another mass had gotten bigger in a different spot on my heel. He thought it might be neuroma or bursitis. The podiatrist recommended either an MRI or surgery because he wasn't sure what was wrong. He made an MRI sound like it wouldn't really give us much information about what it is, so I was leaning toward just doing the surgery.

After talking to several people, I decided to get a second opinion, this time from an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in foot and ankle problems. He was highly recommended to me too. He said I should definitely get an MRI because it actually does give you a lot of information about your muscles and fatty tissues in the heel. It would pinpoint exactly where my pain is and what is there so that if surgery is necessary, they know exactly where to cut.

So, I decided to go with this new doctor who seems to have a lot more experience with this type of surgery. My MRI is scheduled for next Monday at 8:00am and my follow up appointment to talk about the results is Tuesday at 3:45pm.

I can't wait to hear what the doctor says about the results and what we can do from here. This problem has gone on way too long and I'm ready to get back to my normal life of walking and hiking.

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-25T16:05:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving kind of snuck up on me this year and I didn't really think about it as much as the last two years. Still, we bought everything by last weekend and I started cooking last night. I watched Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast on TV while I made the pumpkin pie, pecan pie, turkey brine, and cornbread for the dressing. It was fun watching those classic Disney movies, which are two of my favorites.

The last time I made a pecan pie it didn't turn out too well, but I decided to try to make one again for Thanksgiving. We actually had to buy a new pie plate because I only had one and that was for the pumpkin pie. I followed a recipe online and it turned out really good! I arranged the pecans on top in circles and it looked so pretty I almost didn't want to cut into it.

Then this morning, I made the green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, and the rest of the dressing. The 3 pound turkey only had to cook for 90 minutes. We also had cranberry sauce, rolls, and white wine. Everything tasted really good, especially the brined turkey. Makes me wonder why we don't cook this kind of food at other times throughout the year.

We'll probably go for a walk later after the football game and maybe watch a movie or play some games tonight. I have to work tomorrow, but we'll probably get out at 2, so that won't be so bad. Then this weekend we'll be putting up our Christmas tree! Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Cold and snowy

2010-11-23T19:45:00.000-08:00

We've had some very cold weather the last several days, which has brought snow and ice to the area. It was really windy, with gusts up to 30 miles per hour last night, which blew the snow everywhere and made roads worse. Some of my coworkers who ride the bus to work said it took them anywhere from 3 to 8 hours to get home last night.

It seems to get this cold once or twice a year, and then the rest of the winter is more mild. Here's a few numbers from our unseasonal cold and snow, which originally appeared on Ballard Komo News:

2.7" – That’s how much snowfall we received in Seattle Monday. Not a huge snowstorm, but enough for a daily record and the most snow we’ve had in the city before Thanksgiving since 1985.

89 – The number of consecutive hours that we will stay at/below freezing in Seattle. We started on Sunday evening and we won’t get above freezing until noon on Thursday.

32, 28, 30 – The high temperature from Monday, followed by the forecast for today and tomorrow. Longest cold snap in Seattle in November since mid 80s.

1985 – The last time we were this cold and snowy in mid-November. It has been a generation since we’ve seen something like this.

15 – That’s how cold we will be Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. This will likely set a new daily record for Seattle.

15" – The highest snow total I’ve seen so far. That’s from Snoqualmie Pass.

41 – The forecast high for Thanksgiving, the first day above 40 degrees since Saturday.

0 – The number of meteorologists, myself included, that saw this exact chain of events coming in advance.

Here's a video of the snow falling:

Snowing in Seattle! on Vimeo.

Tried some new restaurants

2010-11-22T16:40:00.000-08:00

The last three weeks we've tried two new restaurants. Unfortunately we didn't have our camera with us either time, so you'll have to imagine what the food looked like.

I bought a Groupon for $25 of food at Araya's, a Thai food restaurant in the U-District. There were a lot of people there since it was a Friday night. We saw several other people with the same Groupon. The service was really slow, but I liked the nice romantic atmosphere and the food was really good. We shared some fried spring veggie rolls and I had the pad thai. Troy got the green curry, which was a little spicy but good. I'd like to go back and maybe get a curry or something.

Then this last Saturday night we went out for dinner to La Isla, a Puerto Rican restaurant in Ballard. It was similar to real Mexican food. There were a lot of seafood items on the menu and some interesting appetizers. I got a Mai Tai, which was really good at first, but seemed to get too strong the more I drank it. We shared an empanadilla and had the ropa vieja which is shredded beef in abodo sauce, peppers, and onions. It came with some tostones, avocado, beans, and rice. The food wasn't as hot (as in temperature) as it could have been. We also had a yummy dessert called "Guayabitas Vivian". It was a torte with mango filling and cream cheese topping served with vanilla ice cream sprinkled with cinnamon. It was good, but a little expensive and the service was a little slow. We'd like to go back though and try more different dishes.

Produce Box #3

2010-11-18T12:55:00.000-08:00

We're getting our third produce box today and it will include these items:

Red Potatoes, Organic - 1.5 pounds
Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington

Treviso Radicchio, Organic - 1 each
Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington

Green Kale, Organic - 1 bunch
Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington

Baby White Turnips, Organic - 1 bunch
Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington

Green Beans, Organic - 0.75 pound
California Growers, California

Celery, Organic - 1 each
California Growers, California

Red Leaf Lettuce, Organic - 1 bunch
Lakeside Organic Gardens, Watsonville, California

Bunched Carrots, Organic - 1 bunch
Cal-Organics, Lamont, California

Valencia Oranges, Organic - 3 each
California Growers, California

Fuyu Persimmons, Organic - 2 each
Wild River Ranch, Marysville, California

Pomegranates, Organic - 1 each
Twin Girls Farm, San Francisco, California

Gala Apples, Organic - 3 each
Earth Conscious Organics, Brewster, Washington

We were scheduled to get more pears, but I don't care for them much and I think Troy was getting tired of them too, so we substituted them for a pomegranate. I'm looking forward to getting more oranges and apples. The celery will be useful for making dressing for Thanksgiving next week. I think we have a few recipes in mind to use the turnip, radicchio, and kale. I'm also interested in trying the persimmons since I've never had one before.

Joined church finance committee

2010-11-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

I was asked last year to join the finance committee at the church we attend. I declined because I wasn't sure if I wanted to be that involved. But then I was asked again this year to serve on it and I accepted. The term generally lasts for three years, but isn't set in stone. They meet for a couple of hours on the third Wednesday of every month, which I've been going to since July. Meetings start at 7 and normally end around 9.

Most of the time is spent reviewing the budget and or working on the annual stewardship campaign. Since I studied accounting and finance in college, I can easily understand what they're talking about when reviewing reports or budgets, which I think is pretty valuable. I'm more interested in investing, but unfortunately the church doesn't really have much in the way of stored up reserves. It's been an interesting experience and I'm glad that I'm able to lend a hand.

Walking Ravenna / Wedgwood

2010-11-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

Note: This walking route through Seattle's neighborhood of Wedgwood comes from Walking in Seattle.

This quiet residential neighborhood in Northeast Seattle is home to a large glacial boulder and the city’s first P-patch.

Click here to continue reading.

Walking Discovery Park Beaches

2010-11-12T17:00:00.000-08:00

Note: This post comes from Walking in Seattle.

Enjoy this walk through the forest and along the beaches at Discovery Park. It may be challenging for some due to the elevation change.

Click here to continue reading.

Got 2nd produce box

2010-11-09T21:00:00.000-08:00

We decided to continue trying out receiving a produce box every other week. We still had a small credit from the Groupon we bought, so that was nice. I picked up our second box last Thursday from Fare Start, a restaurant in downtown, and carried it home. It was pretty heavy, so I had to keep switching arms and the way I was carrying it. It contained the following:

Red Potatoes, Organic - 1.5 pounds
Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington

Leeks, Organic - 2 each
Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington

Spinach, Organic - 1 bunch
Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington

Red Bok Choy, Organic - 1 bunch
Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington

Brussels Sprouts On The Stalk, Organic - 1 each
Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington

Bunched Baby Carrots, Organic - 1 bunch
Full Circle Farm, Carnation, Washington

Green Leaf Lettuce, Organic - 1 bunch
Siri and Sons, Clackamas, Oregon

Gala Apples, Organic - 3 each
Earth Conscious Organics, Brewster, Washington

Valencia Oranges, Organic - 4 each
California Growers, California

Red Flame Grapes, Organic - 0.75 pound
Delano Farms, Delano, California

Bartlett Pears, Organic - 3 each
Washington Growers, Washington

We'd never had brussels sprouts until we cooked them tonight with some pasta. We tossed them in some olive oil, salt, and pepper and then roasted them in the oven. They didn't taste like anything we'd had before. Apparently they're supposed to taste sweet if you roast them long enough. We might have them again some day, but probably won't go out of our way to get them.

I've already eaten three of the four oranges and they were the best oranges I've had in a long time. They were easy to peel and tasted really sweet and like citrus at the same time. The grapes and gala apples are juicy and sweet too.

Getting organic food is really good for you because there are no pesticides or other chemicals sprayed on them. Everything we've gotten has been fresh and locally grown, mostly in Washington. Even though it can be a little more expensive, it tastes much better than regular produce at the grocery store and is much higher quality. We might continue to get a produce box every other week and see how we like it.

Walking South Lake Union

2010-11-06T16:00:00.000-07:00

Note: This walking route through the neighborhood we live in comes from Walking in Seattle.

This part of Seattle has been transformed over the last several years and this nice long walk takes you on a tour to see the history, the public spaces, and the recent development that this area has to offer.

Click here to continue reading.

Waterfront might get a ferris wheel

2010-11-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

According to a news article and video on King5.com, the Seattle waterfront might be getting a ferris wheel soon. The owner of Pier 57 has applied for a permit for a 175-foot tall ferris wheel. There is currently an arcade with an old-style merry-go-round on the pier. The Alaskan Way Viaduct will eventually be torn down with a tunnel being built and the waterfront will be revitalized in the next few years. A ferris wheel would be an interesting addition to the touristy area of the city. I'm not sure how much I like it being part of the already beautiful skyline, but I suppose I could get used to it.

Thai cooking class

2010-11-04T16:00:00.001-07:00

A couple weeks ago we saw a flier in our building for cooking classes in the area. The classes covered a variety of food - Spanish tapas and paella, soups, and dim sum. We had talked about taking a cooking class before and decided to sign up for the class on Thai food, since it's one of our favorite foods to eat but one that we don't know how to make well.

Last Thursday night we walked the couple blocks to class. The class was hands-on and about 14 of us stood around a table and all participated in making the food. There were a lot of ingredients that we weren't familiar with, like Thai eggplant, fish sauce, and tamarind concentrate. We started by identifying all the exotic components and then started preparing food.

We all had a chance to make spring rolls, and helped make pad thai, papaya salad, peanut sauce, and green and red curry. We finished off with some sweet coconut rice. The recipes included ingredients completely from scratch and were more complicated than we're used to cooking at home. However, the food was pretty good, and it was helpful to see how these dishes are made. At the end we were full and tired, but it was a fun experience.

I'm not sure when we'll have a chance to round up all the exotic ingredients it took for some of these recipes, but we'll probably try to make one of these recipes at home this week.

Initiatives on the ballot

2010-11-03T16:00:00.001-07:00

It's time for another election and that means more initiatives to vote on. Unlike Texas, any initiative can make the ballot if it receives enough signatures before the election.

So, in addition to the hotly-contested, high-profile race for state Senator and the low-profile and mostly uncontested races for various judge positions, there are several interesting initiatives that we can vote on.

One initiative would establish a state income tax for high-income individuals. Another two initiatives would both privatize liquor sales and remove some regulations (liquor is currently only sold in state-run stores). We can also vote to repeal taxes that were recently placed on sales of candy and soda.

Many of these initiatives are heavily supported by various industries, so we're seeing commercials in favor and opposed to many of these initiatives. It's nice to have the opportunity to vote on fairly significant potential changes to state laws, though it can be challenging to make the right decision.

Short trip to Texas

2010-11-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I was able to go to Game 3 of the World Series and visit my family in Texas, thanks to my friend Megan's buddy pass to fly stand-by for Southwest Airlines. I wasn't guaranteed a seat, so I wanted to get to the airport fairly early. I took a half day off work on Friday and made my way to the airport via the Link Light Rail. It was really nice and took me straight there in about 35 minutes. Getting into the terminal took no time at all and I was able to get a boarding pass while waiting for the flight since it wasn't very full. I can see how flying on stand-by would normally be stressful if the flights you're trying to get onto are pretty full. I lucked out with all my flights since there were at least 20 seats left on all four I took. I got a window seat every time and no one next to me in the middle seat until the last leg from Albuquerque to Seattle.

Megan picked me up from Love Field, which I'd never been to, and we went to Uncle Julio's for dinner. It was really good - we shared the nachos and combination fajitas. It was a lot of food! I enjoyed catching up with her and hanging out. Then she dropped me off at my parents house for the night.

Saturday morning I woke up pretty early so we could go eat bagels at Einstein Brothers bagels, which owns Noah's, our favorite bagel place in Seattle. I got a sesame bagel and some hot tea. We picked up my grandma and took her with us to breakfast too. Then my Uncle Bob met us there so he could see me for a little bit.

After that, we dropped my grandma off and went to my sister's house so I could see my niece, Evie! We spent about 3 hours there and I took lots of video and pictures of her! She was so cute! She's already able to walk around a coffee table while holding onto it. She can even let go and still stand there for a few seconds on her own! I got to see her room too and it was really cute. My sister fed her while we were there too, so I got to see her eat solid foods. I'm looking forward to seeing her and my sister again during our Christmas trip. We're going to babysit her one night so my sister and brother-in-law can go out and eat dinner and have a fun night out.

My parents and I went to Cousins for an early dinner after that. I got a chopped brisket sandwich, fresh hot okra, and the potato salad. It was really good.

Unfortunately, my Dad couldn't get a third ticket for my Mom to go, so it was just my Dad and I at the game. I felt bad using her ticket, but she kept telling me it was ok and that she was just glad to see me. We left really early to get to the game about 2 hours before it started. I'd never seen so many people at the Ballpark. The game set an attendance record of 52,419. My Dad waited in line to get some souvenirs for an hour and a half. The lines everywhere were so long. It was really cool seeing Nolan Ryan throw out the ceremonial first pitch to Pudge. The game went by really fast and the Rangers won 4-2. It was exciting seeing all the home runs and watching the fireworks go off. I still can't believe I was able to go to Game 3 of the World Series! It's one of those once in a lifetime things you can't pass up if you have a chance to go.

We stayed up a little bit once we got back to the house and watched some tv shows my Dad had recorded about Seattle and a little bit of the UW-Stanford game. We had to get up early Sunday to get to the airport for my 9:10 am flight. There were plenty of seats available on the flights, so I had no trouble at all. It was a really short trip, but it was worth it to see my niece and the game. We'll be back soon too for Christmas in a couple months. Thanks again to Megan for getting me the plane ticket and my Mom for giving up her game ticket for me! :)

Writing for Walking in Seattle

2010-10-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

For the past few months I've been writing for Walking in Seattle, a blog that focuses on news and issues relevant to pedestrians and other walkers in the city.

When I started the blog, I expected to mostly use it to share various walking routes in the city as a way to get me to go out and discover new places to walk and then to share them with others. As the blog has evolved it has included more references to content from local news sources.

It takes a lot of time to write for Walking in Seattle, but it's something I've enjoyed doing. Also, the content fills a niche, as the number of subscribers in Google Reader has grown above 30 (this blog by comparison has 9).

Over the next few months I will be making some improvements to Walking in Seattle and hope to continue to deliver good content for people interested in walking in Seattle.