We've been blogging pretty regularly for a while and sharing pictures and stories about things we've done. I've definitely enjoyed blogging and I'm very glad we've been doing it. The only problem is that we've been so active doing things and taking pictures that it's been kind of time consuming to post about it all. We've ended up with a backlog of quite a few pictures that we haven't shared and posts that we want to write, but we haven't been able to stay caught up. We've spent several hours over the last few days to get caught up and are trying to figure out how to reduce the time it takes while still posting a lot. We joke about trying to stay inside next weekend so that we don't have so much to post about. I don't feel like it's an obligation, though, I like writing about everything. I used to have a personal blog for several years and enjoyed that, so I'm glad that now we have this blog to write on. I am looking forward to writing a lot and sharing pictures in the future.

One of the many reasons we moved here was because we wanted to do a lot of things outside and the Northwest is a great place for outdoor activities. It's gotten warmer recently and we knew this past Saturday was going to be a nice day, so we planned to go on our first real hike. I asked someone at work what a good easy hike would be to go on and he mentioned Little Si, about 30 miles east of Seattle near North Bend. It's a 2.5 mile hike up a small mountain with an elevation of 1,500 feet. We packed some water, granola bars, and a banana for our hike and headed out after we went on the food tour at Pike Place Market. There were quite a few other people there and the trail was somewhat busy. It was hard to get going at first since we're not in shape and not used to walking up steep hills with rocks and tree roots blocking the way. But after a while, we got some energy going and finally made it to the top after hiking for about an hour and 15 minutes. We had a nice view of North Bend and Mount Si (elevation 4,100 feet), a much bigger version of Little Si. We sat at the top for a while and ate our snacks. Going down was much easier on our legs and faster, but it was a little harder to find our footing and not fall. I'd say it was a very good hike, about the right difficulty for us, considering our shape. We're a little sore today, but not that bad. Troy's feet hurt yesterday though, which prompted us to go buy him some new semi-hiking shoes. We'll definitely have to go on some more hikes and gradually work our way up to bigger hikes.

After our hike we drove through North Bend looking for the diner made famous by the TV show Twin Peaks. We weren't hungry enough to go inside to have any of the cherry pie, but we plan to go back sometime this summer to have some.

Pike Place Market is a 100-year-old farmer's market here in downtown Seattle and is one of the oldest continuously-operating farmer's markets in the country. It's a major tourist attraction, but is also a place where locals go to buy fresh fruits & seafood, cheap flowers, and a variety of good foods. We'd been to the market a few times before but weren't really familiar with it and haven't bought much there. We read about a food tour of the market and it got really high reviews. Even though it was expensive, we thought that it would be a good way to learn our way around the market and get samples of some of the food.

So, we headed out early Saturday morning and met up with the tour group. Our first stop was a donut place in the market. The donuts were really good but really greasy. We also stopped by a place that sells spices and tea, we tasted some fish, had some grapes, and drank a shot of hot dark chocolate. The next three stops were the best, we stopped at a cherry place which had great chocolate-covered cherries. Then, we stopped at a cheese place, which had great cheese and very tasty macaroni and cheese. The next stop was at a Russian bakery, which tasted as great as it smelled. Our final stop gave us some coconut cream pie. After the tour we got a coupon for 10% off of any of the places we stopped at, so I'm definitely looking forward to going back this week to eat more food. I hope to visit Pike Place Market more frequently in the future and incorporate its great variety of fresh and tasty foods into our regular diets.

We went to some pretty places over our anniversary weekend and took some pretty pictures. We took some video as well which isn't as clear as the pictures but might give a better feel for what it was like. My favorite part of the video is the last part when you can hear the sound of the river at Deception Pass. The music for this video is from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Hope you enjoy our video:

After a good night's sleep in our very soft and comfortable bed, we got up and opened bay windows in our room for a scenic view of water and nearby mountains. Having never stayed in a bed and breakfast, it felt a little weird to wake up in someone's house and come down to have breakfast with strangers at someone's table. It wasn't uncomfortable for long, though, at the breakfast table as the couple that we had breakfast with was very talkative and friendly. That's good because I don't have much to say in the mornings and Lesley definitely doesn't say much in the mornings. The couple we ate with was from a town a couple hours away and gave a few recommendations on things to do near Seattle. The owner/host/cook came out and greeted us, since we had not met her the night before. She was very friendly and offered a few cooking tips. Breakfast was very good. I probably had my expectations set too high, but still breakfast was pretty good. After breakfast, we chatted with the host a little bit more and then got ready to go. The bed and breakfast was a nice, comfortable place and I enjoyed staying there, but we didn't want to hang around too long because we had other, more exciting things to do.

The guy we had breakfast with strongly recommended nearby Deception Pass, so we decided to check it out. On our way there, it started raining a little bit, but it was just light rain and nothing to worry about. Then, suddenly within a few seconds of driving, the roads suddenly got slushy. I barely had time to slow down before I could feel the car starting to lose its firm grip on the road. Fortunately the car and road stayed straight and we got out of the unseasonable snow within a couple minutes. Still, it made me kind of nervous. However, we had no more weather problems on the rest of the 45 minute drive to Deception Pass and once we got there we realized why our fellow guest had recommended it so strongly.

Deception pass was beautiful. Like many parts of the pacific Northwest, the area was covered in lush greenery and tall trees. The pass itself is marked by a few-hundred-foot wide gap between steeply-sloping rock where blue water enters Puget Sound. There is a bridge spanning the gap that is dwarfed by the hills on both sides. We walked along one of the trails on one side of the bridge, stopping frequently to take pictures. Then, we walked across the bridge, stopping to admire the view and take pictures of islands, water, and distant land. Once we got to the other side, we found several other trails, each of which looked promising. We decided to walk down to the beach, though, which could be seen from one side of the bridge. The walk wasn't too long but once we got down to the beach we rested on one of the logs. It was a little windy and we had done enough walking for the day, so we decided not to do much more walking. Deception pass was amazing and rivaled Hawaii in its beauty, but again the pictures below don't quite capture the feeling of being there. It was a great place to go on our anniversary and I look forward to going back.

After that, we drove to the nearby town of La Conner (also recommended by our breakfast partners) for lunch. The town was very touristy and filled with people and we found a bakery for lunch. After a short wait where we sat and admired the desserts, we were seated and ordered a very good lunch. Somehow we found room afterward for the best apple dumplings ever. It was a great end to a great weekend. Our anniversary trip was the best short trip that I've ever been on and was a great way to celebrate a wonderful first year together. It will be hard to take another trip that tops this one, or have another year that tops this one, but I'm looking forward to trying with my sweetheart.

The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival runs all of April, so we decided to make that the main event for our first wedding anniversary. We arrived around 1:00 and looked at several tulip fields for the next three hours. From the road you could see just fields and fields of solid colors, it was pretty cool. You could see mountains in the distance too and small houses and barns dotted the landscape. Some of my co-workers had gone to the Festival earlier in April and complained that most of the tulips had not bloomed yet. The entire Northwest region has had a colder spring than normal this year, about 10 degrees below average. I was a little afraid that the tulips wouldn't have bloomed yet, but thankfully most of the tulips had bloomed. It rained/sleeted a few times Saturday afternoon and the fields were very muddy from the rain they had gotten recently. In fact, our pants legs had mud on them. But it gave me a chance to use the umbrella my sister had sent to me. It was pretty cold, but at least it wasn't nearly as crowded as it usually is. The tulips were very pretty, as you can tell from the pictures. We ended up buying a bunch of purple tulips (10 in a bunch) for $4.50.

After we spent several hours taking pictures and video of the tulips, we took the scenic drive we mentioned in the previous post and then ate a nice steak dinner at a local place in Burlington, WA called Max Dale's. After that we went back to the B&B for the night.

Here are a lot of pictures, video will come soon.

As of last Monday, we had been married for one full year. It's hard to believe that it's been that long already, but it was a very good year. It took a while to figure out what exactly to do for our 1st anniversary. We only have one 1st anniversary, so I wanted it to be special. Our first idea was to go to the San Juan Islands and stay at a Bed & Breakfast there, but everyone I talked to said that it would be too early in the year to go and it would be pretty cold and cloudy. Then we thought about going to eat at the Space Needle, but I didn't know what else to do besides go eat, so we scratched that idea. The weather during the week of our anniversary turned out to be cloudy, so it would have been pointless to go up there anyway. We did get a gift card to the Space Needle from my parents though, so we plan to go some day when it's really clear outside so we can see all of downtown, the water, and mountains in the distance.

But we still didn't have any plans for our anniversary. So, I started asking people at work what romantic things there are to do around here. Finally, one lady mentioned she was going to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival and that really sounded like a nice way to spend our anniversary, so we planned to do that and stay at a Bed & Breakfast overnight.

Since our anniversary was on a Monday, we ended up not doing much on the actual day. We ordered pizza and stayed home. I brought donuts home for Troy. They were from Top Pot Donuts, about two blocks from my office. I contributed to Co-Op America for part of Troy's present and also gave him a new beanie because he'd been wanting another one to wear besides his white Cowboys beanie. He gave me a nice bouquet of white roses and pink lilies, a DVD of Seasons 1 & 2 of the TV show Perfect Strangers, and a bar of Ghirardelli caramel-filled chocolate.

On Friday, we had planned to stay home since we'd be gone the rest of the weekend to the Tulip Festival. We played a few video games and then had a 4 course meal type thing. We started with cheese and some sparkling white wine, then ate salad, then we had salmon and pasta for dinner along with the rest of the wine. For dessert we had fresh fudge brownies with French vanilla ice cream and caramel topping. It was all so delicious! We also watched Atonement that we rented from Netflix.

Then, finally our actual anniversary plans had arrived. We left our apartment around 11. It actually snowed on the way up there. Here's pictures of the drive up there and of Camano Blossom Bed & Breakfast, about 54 miles north of Seattle and 15 miles southwest of the city of Mount Vernon, WA. Also included are pictures we took from Chuckanut Drive, which is a scenic drive that starts in Burlington and goes north via highway 11 to Bellingham. We'll have pictures and video of the tulips in the next post.

So, we just finished posting 15 videos from our old apartment and our trip to Seattle. Which video was your favorite? Vote in the poll below and feel free to give your comments.

Well, we've come to the last video of our trip. This one is rather long because we recorded the entire last several minutes of the trip as we drove into Seattle. It was pretty exciting to finally get here after being "homeless" in a way for 6 days. We had finally made it and our dream had finally come true.

At one time not too long ago, I wanted to move to Portland instead of Seattle. While Portland is smaller, it has a better public transportation system, is more walkable in many ways, and seems to have more parks. However, after our visit in January, I I realized that Seattle appealed to me more since Seattle is a larger city. Still, I respect Portland and think it's a good place. Here's a minute-long video that I filmed of the city as we drove through on our way to Seattle.

After Las Vegas, there's not much to show from California. The next days, though, had the prettiest section of our entire trip as we drove through Southern Oregon. Aside from when we were leaving the Grand Canyon, this is also where we saw the most wintery weather. Anyway, we hope you enjoy the video below:

Vegas was a neat place in a lot of ways, but I thought the neatest thing there was the Bellagio Fountains. These things were huge and cool. Here's a video with parts of three songs:



note: When we recorded the first clip, we could barely hear the music since we were far away and behind glass. I wanted to post the video and decided that I needed to add music to do so. I found the song online and had to do some editing so that the version I found had the same song structure as the song played at the fountains. I didn't do very well with the editing, which is why you may hear some silence and abrupt cuts.

Saturday was a beautiful day, it was sunny and temperatures were in the upper 60s. Unfortunately after Green Festival we were tired and didn't want to walk much, so we decided to go to the park the next day. The weather on Sunday wasn't nearly as good, it was probably at least 15 degrees colder and was cloudy and misty all day. Nevertheless, we decided to go to Seward park, which is yet another large park within the city. This park is on a peninsula, so it's surrounded by water. It's really cool that there are so many big parks that are so scenic. Unfortunately the weather took away from the scenery some, but it was still a nice walk. Click below for a few pictures.

Day 3 of our trip included probably the most exciting stop - Las Vegas. I've been to Las Vegas twice before, but Troy had never been, so it was his first time to see the Strip and all the huge mega hotels. I've stayed at the Excalibur and the Paris before and this time we stayed at Bally's. We worked for over 3 hours on this video, getting the clips, fade outs, music, and captions just right. We start out with showing the Strip from the car going South to North, then we show a few clips from the sidewalk, and then some scenes at night. I think this is the best video we have to show people, so we hope you enjoy it.

I'm looking forward to going to a Seattle Seahawks game and a Washington Huskies game sometime this fall. It'll be something fun to do, especially since I've been more interested in football the past several years. I guess that's because I watch all the Cowboys games with Troy. Qwest Field is one of the loudest stadiums in the NFL, so going to a game in person sounds like a lot of fun. We may go to a game against either the Packers, Eagles, or 49ers.

As for the Huskies, I think somehow they manage to sell out all of their football games, despite being a pretty bad team, but hopefully we can find some tickets somehow. It's a big stadium, perhaps bigger than Amon Carter. We watched more college football last season than we ever did before, so it would be cool to experience another college team and stadium in person.

We posted a few weeks ago about how there are a lot of trees all over the city that are covered in pink flowers, and while a lot of the flowers have died, there are still some nearby. I took a few more pictures of these flowers recently (the last 5 pictures in the gallery below are new):

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama was in town over the weekend and it was a big deal, locally. Especially since China and Tibet have been in the news lately due to recent conflicts caused by Tibet's quest for freedom. He was in the newspaper every day while he was in town, giving speeches. Anyway, I thought his presence was kind of neat, but it didn't really matter a whole lot to me, that is, until we ran across him.

We walking on our way to the Green Festival when a motorcycle convoy passed in front of us and blocked all traffic across the street. It was annoying at first, since we wanted to cross the street, but we realized that it was for the Dalai Lama, who was staying at a hotel next to the convention center. After a few minutes of waiting, the Dalai Lama came out (or maybe it was just two people dressed like him) and then the convoy passed by. Anyway, that was pretty neat.

Click the image below for a few pictures:

As Lesley mentioned earlier, we signed up to volunteer at Green Festival. I've been wanting to get out and do more things in the city that potentially involve more people than just ourselves. Green Festival sounded kind of familiar since I worked at environmental events in college and it seemed like something easy and potentially fun to do. So, we signed up and went this past Saturday. The event took place at the convention center and filled up the exhibition hall.

The check-in process was a little disorganized and we weren't given a lot of direction on where to go, but we eventually found our way to the food court where we then had to try to figure out who to talk to so that we could figure out what we were supposed to be doing. We found out that we would be cleaning up the tables at the food court, which we already figured. Most people cleaned up their own areas, but we had to pick up things that were left and also we offered to take peoples' food if they were done. Then, there were four bins where we could put things: recycle, compost, mixed paper, and landfill. It was a little confusing at first to figure out which went where, especially since most of the plastic-looking items were made from corn and were biodegradable.

Once we got the hang of it, it was pretty easy. Since we started at 1:00, at first it was really busy as people were eating lunch, and it pretty difficult to get around to clean things up. Before we had the chance to clean up a lot of messes, people would sit down. But, things slowed down and then we were able to do a lot of cleaning. There were plenty of other volunteers, too, so we didn't have to do that much. It was actually really boring, since we just walked around trying to clean. The only time we talked to anyone was when someone asked us a question (which we usually didn't know the answer to). It seemed like it took forever for the first hour to end - and we signed up for 4 hours! But, since we weren't that busy, we took frequent breaks to get water and check out some of the exhibits.

After our shift was over, we bought some food from the food court and ate there. The food was actually pretty good, and thanks to the helpful volunteers, we didn't even have to get up to get rid of our plates. Even though we were tired from standing for 4 hours, we walked around the festival a little bit. There were mostly booths from environmentally-conscious businesses, including mattress manufacturers, clothing makers, and organic food producers. There was a lot of stuff there for pets and babies. We stopped by the table for the Snow Leopard Trust, which Lesley is a member of, and the table for Co-op America, which is the group that was partly responsible for setting up the Green Festival and is the group Lesley gave money to as an anniversary present to me.

Anyway, the festival itself wasn't that interesting, but even though it was boring and I don't feel like I got much out of it, I'm glad we did it because I guess it was good of us to volunteer and it was something sort of different to do.

Here is a picture of the food court:

We stopped at Hoover Dam on our way to Las Vegas. It was neat, I guess, but I'm sure watching an educational video about it would be more interesting than actually being there. This video probably shows the coolest part of the dam.

Here's our dam video:

After exploring the rim of the Grand Canyon, we were caught in a sudden snowstorm. It was a pretty strange experience, as the snow was pretty heavy. It wasn't too unsafe to drive in because we were going slow and fairly straight, but it was hard to stop in. I was worried that the snow would last too long and we wouldn't be able to leave the next morning, but fortunately the roads were treated so that we could drive out. It was a beautiful winter scene on the way out.

Here's a few clips of the Grand Canyon. Everyone should see the Grand Canyon at least once in their life. I've seen it once before, but this was Troy's first time to see it. I just wish the weather had been better because the sunlight makes a big difference in how colorful the Canyon looks. We'll definitely have to go back again some day during late spring or early summer. I'd like to watch the sunset and/or sunrise there again.

After driving through desert and rock formations for the last several hours, we ascended a mountain and the scenery changed. We saw a lot of mountains on our trip including the one in this video.

Day 2 of our trip started with leaving Albuquerque and heading for the Grand Canyon. This video shows a lot of colorful rock formations in New Mexico, which was actually some of the prettier scenery we saw. I kind of wish we could have driven through more of it, but we were on a tight driving schedule. We'll have to take another driving trip sometime because even though driving for 6 days and over 2,400 miles is a lot, it still didn't seem like that long of a trip.

After 10+ hours of driving, we were finally at the first stop of our trip - Albuquerque. We wanted to leave early enough so we could make it in time to see the sunset from Sandia Peak, which is about 5-10 miles away from Albuquerque. We took the tram up to the top of the peak and had about an hour to look around and see the scenery and sunset. There was a ton of snow on the ground and it was pretty cold and very windy close to the edge. So, here's one of our videos from Sandia Peak.

Cousins BBQ has Thomas Kemper root beer on tap, so I tried it one time and really liked it. I'm not a huge root beer drinker, but it's nice to have for a change. Thomas Kemper is my favorite brand and so when I saw it at the store recently, I got Troy to splurge and we got a 12 pack that contains two of each of the 6 flavors you see in the picture. They have root beer, vanilla cream, orange cream, ginger ale, grape, and black cherry. I've had the root beer and vanilla cream and they're pretty good. I'm looking forward to trying the other flavors.

Thomas Kemper was actually first brewed on Bainbridge Island (right across the Sound from Seattle) in 1990, pretty cool. It was recently sold to a company in Portland, OR and continues to make the sodas.

We went out to eat at an Italian place in the University District tonight and it was really good. We both liked it a lot, so it might qualify as our favorite restaurant, at least so far.

Here's a short clip from northwest Texas, which had the flattest land on our trip.
We drove through land like this for several hours. I think it's pretty in a way and personally liked it a lot more than our drive through California. Anyway, this is just a short clip because most people don't find this terrain as neat as I do. At the end of this clip I just zoom in on some random abandoned house thing that looked interesting.

Troy and I decided to volunteer for the Green Festival this year in Seattle. Green Festival is hosted by two nonprofit organizations that are concerned with sustainable living and preserving the environment. Here's a brief description of what it is from their website: "For two days, Green Festival attendees will explore the latest in clean technology, green building, socially responsible investing, eco-fashion, renewable energy, green careers and green collar jobs, natural foods, groundbreaking films, eco-tourism, and more."

This is the first time that Green Festival has come to Seattle, so it's cool that we'll be a part of it. The other cities include Chicago, Washington DC, and San Francisco. We volunteered for the food court area this Saturday from 1 to 5:30, so we'll be cleaning tables and throwing trash away I suppose.

We've been here a little more than six weeks and have eaten 44 lunches here and 44 dinners. Unfortunately, while most of those meals have been pretty good, we still haven't found a favorite restaurant. Some food we've eaten out has been disappointing and some has been pretty good, but none of it has been good enough or a good enough value for us to strongly want to go back. There was a sushi place that we liked, but with all the sushi places around, I'd probably like to try somewhere else next time we have sushi.

We're already looking forward to people visiting in a few months and we want to be able to take them somewhere that we think they'll really like, but there's nowhere yet that we really like. I think part of the problem is that to save money we've been eating at home the vast majority of the time so we haven't been able to try that many different places. Still, though, the places we've been to have been places that have been recommended to us or highly reviewed. Maybe we're just too critical when it comes to food and regular-priced restaurants don't cut it anymore. Or, maybe we have this memory of food tasting better in Texas than it actually did and nothing here can match that. I really don't know what the deal is, but I think we're going to have to eat out some more over the next several weeks until we can find a favorite restaurant.

On Saturday we went to Green Lake, which is just a few miles from where we live. The perimeter of the lake is only 3.2 miles so we were able to walk the whole way around. It was really busy when we went and most people were going the opposite direction so we had to dodge people the whole time. Anyway, here are some pictures in the album below:

Here's a video that was taken a few days before the movers came to take our stuff. We had over 55 boxes of stuff, which is still way less than what most people have. It took a long time and a lot of work to pack everything and the apartment was a big mess for a month. Anyway, enjoy the video of our old apartment, it was a good first apartment.

We've been sort of wondering why not many people comment on our blog but then we realized that a lot of people out there might not be familiar with how to comment. To start with, anyone is allowed to comment on our blog without registering or signing up for anything and the whole process requires just three clicks. To comment, just click on the Post a Comment link at the bottom of each post. Next, type your comment in the box. Then, click on the circle for Name/URL and type your name (no URL required). After that, click on Publish Your Comment and your comment will appear on the blog.

We appreciate comments from anyone, they're almost as exciting to us as getting an email. If you're hesitant to comment, don't be afraid to leave a quick note. Everyone that we know who reads this is either a family member of close personal friend. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't bother commenting, but otherwise we'd love to hear from you.

I know I just posted about how we can't make food, but we actually made something pretty good tonight - broccoli cheese soup. The recipe called for a double broiler, which we don't have, so we had to improvise and put one of our smaller pots into our huge pot. It's better to boil water around the smaller pot in order to melt cheese because otherwise it really sticks to the bottom of the pot. So, we followed the recipe (actually, Troy's grandmother's recipe) and it turned out really good. I now have leftovers to take to work too and it wasn't that expensive to make.

Several times since Troy and I have been married, we've wished we knew more about how to cook. I've wished I could make desserts from scratch like apple pie, pumpkin pie, cobbler, and other pastries. I wish I knew how to cook and season things properly. For instance, I've tried several times to cook zucchini and squash in a frying pan with butter and other seasonings, but it always turns out either way too buttery, too seasoned, or not seasoned enough. I just can't seem to get it right. I wish I could come up with more delicious meals to make and not have trouble following recipes. We have several cook books that have step by step recipes, but the food never turns out how the picture shows and it's not that great.

So, I came up with the idea to take a cooking class and mentioned it to Troy. I was surprised and glad when he seemed very interested in the idea and wanted to do it with me. I'm sure there are series' of cooking classes we could take or even individual classes like how to make your own sushi. Hopefully soon we can figure out what exactly we want to learn the most and what class would fit us best. I've always wanted to cook really good meals, but was never that good at it, so it would be fun for us to take a cooking class together.

Here's our next video. This is me packing our computer at our old apartment. I had to cut some Styrofoam with a saw to get it to fit snugly into the box and it was quite a mess. We had several large, fragile items to put in boxes, and fortunately Lesley's parents gave us some boxes to use, so then I had to figure out how to fit everything and how to put the Styrofoam around it. The saw that my dad gave me came in handy, but it made a big mess and the Styrofoam particles stuck to everything. Also, Lesley thought you should know that the quiet music in the background is from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Here's a video of Lesley cleaning our old apartment. Look at how fast she cleans!

We took a lot of video a few weeks ago when we were physically moving here. I think we mentioned that we were planning to make a cohesive video about the whole moving experience. Unfortunately, our computer is inadequate for that and it won't be long before these videos are too old for most people to care about. So, we're just going to post some of our favorite clips from the trip on this blog. They won't be combined in a single video to tell a story or have a point, but I think they can be enjoyed as four dimensional snapshots of our journey.

You can click this link to see what we see out of our window at any time. Well, it's not exactly from our window, but it practically is. We live fairly close to the Seattle Times and this is the view from their roof. I was reading the news one day and saw this live picture on the main page and said, "Hey, that looks familiar." It's pretty cool that this view is online, and it looks like it's updated every few minutes, so now you can see what we see out of our window.

Even though it's still fairly cool outside most of the time, our apartment gets pretty warm, I guess because we face the afternoon sun and are on the 5th floor. However, I've really come to enjoy having the window open. I know I've mentioned it before, but we open the window at least for a little while almost every day and I just really enjoy it. Even when it's almost freezing outside we have the window open just a little bit to bring in fresh, cool air. I enjoyed having the window open at our previous apartment, too, but our apartment was too cold in winter to have the window open to the even colder outside air and of course it was way too hot in the summer to bring in warm stagnant air. It's nice that it works out that our apartment stays warm even in the winter. I just like how having the window open makes us feel a little less isolated from the outside world and keeps the air in our apartment from becoming stagnant. I'd much rather have cool air come in from outside than have to run the air conditioner. I hope that when it gets warmer here in the summer that we're still able to open our window.

Today we used our car for the first time in almost a week. It hasn't really seemed that strange, but when I think about it, it is kind of weird that now we only have one car and we use it only a couple times per week. Just a couple months ago, we each had our own car and used both of them almost every day and it was very rare that we wouldn't use either one of our cars for a day. We've driven an average of about 60 miles per week here, which is about how much we normally drove in just two days back in Texas. So far I've enjoyed the freedom of not having to drive everywhere and the relief from fighting traffic and traffic lights. Our life of getting around by foot and by bus means that we get a lot more exercise, more outdoor air, and are more connected with our surroundings. I'm actually wondering if we could get by without a car at all sometime in the not-too-distant future and just rent a Zipcar by the hour whenever we need a car to get somewhere. Today, we drove to Green Lake and would've had a harder time getting there without a car. Sometimes, we drive to the store, too, so that we don't have to carry our groceries very far. It's also kind of interesting that almost every time we drive here, we've been in the car together, which means that if we had a second car, it would never get used, and it also means that we get to take the HOV lanes on the freeway, which can save us time. So far, living in an urban environment with only one car has worked out quite well.

Today we finally applied for our Washington driver's licenses. We were waiting until we had an electricity bill in order to prove residency in the state. The problem with it was that only Troy's name is on the bill, so I wasn't sure they would accept it for me. Anyway, we brought as much documentation as we could down to the licensing office. I just took my hour long lunch break early around 10 so we could avoid the lunch crowd and the crowd after work. They close at 4:30, and I had been checking the wait times all week and they were terrible at the end of the day, about an hour. I don't know why, but they didn't ask me for a utility bill when I applied. They asked what else I had to prove I live here and I had my WA car title that has our new address on it and our car insurance policy. They took that along with my old TX driver's license and my social security card. I was surprised that worked, but glad they didn't hassle me about it.

So, I'm really glad that's over with. I wish I could have kept my old picture though, I don't like the new one at all. Now I just need to apply for a passport...

I'm not a big baseball fan, but both of us have been looking forward to the start of baseball season. We purchased two tickets to the first evening game of the season, which happened to be against our former home town team, the Rangers. We wanted to eat somewhere near the stadium before the game, so we headed down there early. We walked to downtown and then took a bus through the underground bus tunnel, which was part of the ride free zone. There's not a whole lot nearby, but the Pyramid Alehouse just across the street was recommended as a hotspot on game nights. As the only place around, it was quite busy, but a lot of people were just there for the beer and could sit in a special section. Still, there was about a 30 minute wait to eat. Our food hit the spot, my burger was pretty good, though the habañero BBQ sauce must not have made it this far north because it wasn't really spicy at all. After that, we headed across the street to the game and got to our seats in time for some of the pre-game ceremonies. It was armed forces night, which meant that all branches of the armed forces were present and recognized throughout the evening.

We knew it was going to be cold, so we dressed warmly and brought a blanket with us. Still, we were both a little cold as soon as we sat down, as there was a light breeze and it took a while to figure out the best way to cover up with the blanket. I eventually got used to the cold and enjoyed the game. There weren't a lot of runs scored for a while and both teams had fairly sloppy fielding. The game was still tied at 1 going into the 8th inning, when the Rangers scored two runs. Then, the Mariners came back with three runs to take the lead. However, the Rangers got another two runs in the 9th and the Mariners couldn't come back. So, the Rangers beat the Mariners. It was a good game, I'm glad we went, I'm looking forward to going to more games.

The local basketball team, the Seattle SuperSonics, might be relocating to Oklahoma City after the current season, so we wanted to be sure and see them while they were still here. Tickets for the games were pretty cheap, I think we paid like $20 total for both of us to attend the game. The Sonics play at Key Arena, which is probably about a mile away from where we live, so we decided to walk there. The walk was enjoyable and we got to the game in time. I think we sat close to our assigned seats, but there were plenty of empty seats, too. The arena was slightly more than half full (attendance was about 11,000 out of 17,000), which was somewhat impressive considering how bad the Sonics are. If the Sonics move to Oklahoma City, which is a metropolitan area less than half the size of Seattle, I'm not sure how they'll sell enough tickets.

Anyway, I'm not a huge basketball fan, but the game was pretty competitive for most of the time. However, in the fourth quarter the Sacramento Kings got ahead and stayed ahead, so there wasn't the exciting ending that there could have been. Still, I'm glad we went, it was pretty fun and I'm glad we got to do it.

I subscribe to a monthly email from the Snow Leopard Trust, and this month they had an article in it about some of the snow leopards at Woodland Park Zoo. The Trust is located in Seattle, so it's pretty cool that WPZ has some snow leopards so close by. They conducted an interview with one of the snow leopard trainers and I thought it was really interesting reading about his experiences as a trainer. Click here for the full story, or read an excerpt below:

Standing at the glass of the snow leopard exhibit at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo (WPZ) you might see Nadia, the zoo’s female snow leopard, tossing a big round cantaloupe in the air, rolling it, batting it, rubbing on it, and finally—the grand finale – eating it all up! What a treat—for cat and visitor. What you most likely won’t see is the man behind all that excitement, WPZ’s snow leopard keeper James Scott. To find out more about the lives of snow leopards in zoos, and the humans who care for these beautiful cats, Trust Conservation Program Coordinator Jennifer Snell Rullman recently interviewed James about his work.

...

Q. What are some of the fun, unique things you have had a chance to observe about snow leopards and their behavior?

A. They are great jumpers of course. The coolest thing I have seen is when they leap into the air and “helicopter.” I’ve seen this when we give them a particular fun scent for enrichment and they get excited and jump into the air and do a circle like a helicopter blade!

Q. You said you give them a scent for enrichment, can you tell us more about what that means?

A. Well, as keepers we are of course concerned with making sure the cats’ physical needs are met. But we are also doing more and more to make sure their behavioral needs are met—mental and emotional needs, providing more stimulation. So, we do different things for them. When the elk at the zoo shed their antlers, we collect the velvet from them and give it to the cats. They rub all over it, toss it around, and get really spacey and playful just like a cat with catnip. Eventually they eat the velvet. And yes, they like catnip too, and react just like your average house cat, but bigger. We also give them other spices like nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, and coffee—they love them. One of Nadia’s favorite things is when I give her a whole cantaloupe. And of course, now she is very “enriched” by Tom, the new arrival.

Q. Do you have any great memories or stories about snow leopards that you can share with us?

A. Well, there are many, but it is hard to beat the memory of being there when the three baby snow leopards were born to Nadia. We let her raise them, but it is our policy here to socialize the cubs a lot to the presence of humans so we can monitor them more easily. They were so small, fitting into the palm of my hand—and Nadia let us easily take them out to hold them, weigh them, check them all over. Once they were about 6 months old I remember this day when we were still going in with them and one of the babies started stalking me. I could see her, but she thought she was invisible, and stalked me until she was under a bush and when I came near she pounced! So cute. Another thing I remember that was so amazing to watch was when they would be playing on the rocks and they would fall off—falling down the rocks! But instead of tumbling or bouncing down the rocks, they would go limp and then flow like water. It was so amazing….and I really wish I had taken the time to videotape it.

We decided to go to the zoo this weekend for a lot of reasons. I likes zoos, we hadn't been to a zoo in a while, the zoo here has a snow leopard exhibit, and we wanted to go to the zoo before tourist season when we figured it would be crowded. We could've driven to the zoo, probably, but we moved here so that we wouldn't have to drive everywhere. It was a nice day but we got to the zoo with only a couple hours left before closing. We walked around and saw the various animals that included a bald eagle, rare birds and insects, elephants, zebras, kangaroos, lions, otters, and a snow leopard.

I really wanted to see the snow leopard, but both times we went to see him, he was hiding in the back behind a hill and some bushes, so we couldn't see him hardly at all. I've started becoming more interested in the conservation of endangered species ever since watching the tv series Planet Earth. Troy even contributed to the Snow Leopard Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to saving snow leopards, as a Christmas present for me. Click here to go to their website if you're interested in learning more about them. I just think it's a terrible shame that so many species are critically endangered. One type of leopard, the Amur Leopard, is so endangered that it is close to extinction. Only about 30 exist in the wild. Zoos can only do so much when it comes to breeding and re-introducing animals into the wild.

At one point in the tropical rainforest exhibit, we were in this big caged area that had several different kinds of birds in it and we got to see some of the trainers feeding them. They had these boxes with bugs in them and would take one out and the birds would come and eat them right out of your hand. It was pretty cool.

I was a little disappointed with how rushed we were, but I figure we'll go back again sometime since it's not that expensive at all. As we were leaving we saw a beautiful peacock roaming around the front area of the zoo. Everyone else seemed oblivious to it, but we got several pictures of it and it was one of the highlights of our visit.

After church on Sunday, someone who was at the party the night before invited us to go with them to Vegfest 2008, which is a big vegan/vegeterian event that was going on nearby. We didn't have much else to do and it sounded like a good way to get to know people and do something new, so we decided to go ahead and attend. There were four of us in our group and none of us were vegetarians. The event cost $5/person but there were a ton of free samples of food everywhere. None of the food had meat in it, but some of the food was imitation-meat, some of it was stuff that wouldn't normally have meat anyway but was made without any hormones or chemicals. Some of the food was actually pretty good, mostly the stuff that didn't have to be altered much from its conventional versions, like tea, juice, and chocolate, but I had a breaded chicken-like nugget that was pretty good. Other stuff probably wouldn't appeal to most people, especially when the conventional versions taste a lot better. Powdery tasting chocolate pudding, bland peanut butter, and watered-down tasting soda are a few things that will probably only appeal to vegans. But, overall it was a fun experience, it was something I wouldn't see in Texas and I'm glad I went.

Thoughts from the trip

I've been back in Seattle for a little less than a week and even though I had only been gone from Texas for about a month, I noticed a few things that I hadn't really noticed before. Here are a few thoughts from my trip:

• One big thing that I was looking forward to was the food in Texas. I don't think I'll ever get Tex-Mex or barbeque in Seattle with the expectation that it will be any good. Plus, Texas has good burgers and fried chicken. I wanted to eat it all, considering that I won't get to have it as often anymore. The first night I stopped at Chicken Express for dinner, not wanting to go to a restaurant or have something that's a nationwide standard. The food was quite good, with tasty chicken, potatoes, and a biscuit, but the goodness was almost surpassed by how disgusting it was, with grase exuding from everything soaking my fingers and the box. The okra glistened with grease and had to be dabbed like a wet sponge before I would eat it. And it didn't stop that night, the next few days I had a meatball sub sandwich, a good attempt at Texas barbeque, steak, Tex-Mex, pizza, and then some great barbeque. None of those things are very healthy. I didn't quite eat that badly when I lived in D/FW but I'm glad that I won't be eating stuff like that again regularly for a while, it's a lot easier to eat badly in Texas, but it was worth it on the trip.


• Now that I live somewhere else, I really notice how far apart everything is in Texas. Sure, my job and my family were in totally different parts of the Metroplex, but everything is spread so far apart, it takes forever to get anywhere. And, there's so much nothing in between, sure there are restaurants and stuff, but there's just a lot of wasted and underused space. The roads are so much wider and parking lots are larger, which just makes getting from place to place require a lot of driving. While I was there, I did plenty of driving and used up a full tank of gas.


• Still, I really enjoy driving sometimes. Even though having to drive a long way to get anywhere is a big inconvenience that I'm glad to be rid of, sometimes driving on the freeway with music on and the window down is just great and it's something that I've missed.


• Even though I left work every day at 5, I still had some traffic to deal with. Fortunately it wasn't terrible, and I realized that I sometimes enjoy fighting traffic. Stopped traffic is no fun, but heavy traffic is like a challenge to me; I try to figure out the best route to take and then the best lane to be in to get to where I'm going as quickly as possible. I'm not sure if that makes much sense to anyone, but it's kind of exciting to drive through rush hour and feel like I've made good time. Still, traffic is annoying and it's nice not having to deal with it now.


• It was a good time to be in Texas, since the trees and bushes were starting to green. The grass was still brown, but there were a few bluebonnets and it was relatively pretty. The unfortunate thing was that even though I got to drive by a lot of land and trees, there are so many buildings along the highway that seem to try to interrupt nature as much as possible. I noticed an interesting contrast once I returned to Seattle. Along I-5, which is the major highway through Seattle, there are almost no buildings right along the freeway and there are a lot of trees and hills. It makes for a very appealing visual environment. Still, Texas grass and flowers can be pretty too.


• I talked to a few people at work about how I'm living in Seattle and a couple people commented on how Seattle is beautiful and how they wish they could live here.


• I think it's funny that people in Texas ask me about gas prices in Seattle. Gas is more expensive here by like a quarter per gallon, but I've only purchased it once, it's just not as big of an issue here for me as it is for a lot of people in Texas.


• I haven't noticed any bugs since I've been in Seattle so I've kind of forgotten that they exist. So, it seemed a little strange to see a Mayfly in the shuttle at D/FW airport, until I remembered that they're all over the place in Texas and it made me glad that I don't have to be afraid to sit on the floor at our apartment anymore.


• It had been a while since I'd been in an air conditioned building, since it hasn't been warm here. So being in excessively air conditioned buildings in Texas reminded me of how annoying it is to go from a warm outdoor area to a cold indoor area, especially when you're dressed for warm weather and are stuck in the air conditioning.


• Upon returning to Seattle and walking toward the apartment, I was reminded how much I enjoy the cool, refreshing air here and how glad I am that I can be outside and enjoy it while noticing buildings and other things as I walk along the street.


• After being in the Metroplex for a few days, it felt really weird at the airport to think that I was flying home to Seattle and that D/FW was not my final destination. D/FW still feels more like home because I'm so familiar with it. Seattle is home, but upon returning it almost felt like I was just a visitor, but that will change with time.


• It was great getting to spend time in the Metroplex, I'm glad I don't live there anymore, but I wish I could visit several times per year on an ongoing basis.

I went to work for a couple hours in the morning, but was able to leave to go to the airport. After getting to the airport and breezing through security, I checked in for my flight and then was looking for some lunch. I had no idea what I wanted, and wasn't really in the mood for anything too heavy. I didn't get far from my gate, though, when I found the legendary Cousin's barbeque in the airport. I'd heard rumors for years that one existed in the airport but had never seen it or known anyone who had seen it. But, there it was! A Cousin's! The best barbeque in all of the Metroplex, and in the most convenient location. Without any contemplation I walked directly for it. Sure, I had Sonny Bryan's on Tuesday, but that's Dallas barbeque, a nice try and still pretty good, but so far short of the highest potential of barbeque greatness that Cousin's reaches. And, it was just in front of me, behind the glass. I took no time to look at the menu, knowing exactly what I wanted and immediately ordered. I got my normal sliced brisket sandwich, which is great, as is all of their meat. I was so excited I couldn't think straight, asking for French Toast instead of Texas Toast (I was already thinking ahead about getting a bowl full of perfectly fried and seasoned okra). Unfortunately, they don't offer okra at the airport, probably because it has to be made fresh every time to preserve its impeccable texture. Still, undeterred, I got the potato salad, decided not to get beans, and then paid. Being in an airport, I expected to pay more, but it was worth $10 for a sandwich, toast, potato salad, and a drink, I would've paid $20 for it (and still submitted my receipt so that I could be reimbursed by my employer).

I headed to a table - the contemporary bar table and chairs offering nowhere near the Texan ambiance in their normal establishments - and sat down, excited about eating it. And it was so good! The exceptional trimming of the meat (almost no fat along the edges whatsoever), the tasty barbeque sauce, and the perfect flavor of the brisket made me laugh at the idea that just two days before I considered Sonny Bryan's an acceptable version of Texas Barbeque. Cousin's made Sonny Bryan's look like the kind of barbeque that could only be appreciated by someone from across the country who has no clear expectation of what barbeque should look like and a childlike appreciation for the taste. Sonny Bryan's is still good, though, and much better than anywhere outside of Texas, which is what makes Cousin's extremely high quality so remarkable. Everything about the food was almost perfect, and if I had been able to get okra, it would've been too great for me to even express.

Anyway, it was a great end to the trip, my flight back was fine. I got on a bus to downtown and once I got off it took me a few minutes to realize the best way back home, but the weather was nice and it wasn't a long walk. I was quite tired and was glad to be home and to sleep in my own bed again.

For the first time since I started work, it's really foggy downtown. I can't see much out the windows because of all the fog. The sun is shining though, so I bet it will burn off pretty quickly. It reminds me of San Francisco.

We don't have cable at our apartment and don't really plan to for a while. We may get it when football season starts, but even then, I don't really know if it would be worth it. Everyone thinks we're weird because we don't have tv, but I just don't see why we need it that much. We just moved here and I think it would be a waste of time to sit inside watching tv shows when we could be out exploring Seattle. I don't care at all for reality tv shows, or anything else that's on tv right now. Plus, once you get hooked on a show, it's really hard to break the habit of having to watch it. We have no way to record anything, unless we hook up our old vcr and find a tape somewhere. Even then I don't know if it would actually record. The only thing I sort of miss is being able to watch sports on tv, but that won't be that big an issue until football season. I just think that in general, people are too obsessed with tv and waste a lot of time watching hours and hours of shows. I mean, a few are ok, but to sit at home every night in front of the tv is weird to me.