After spending the day out and about on Saturday, we didn't do much on Sunday, but I managed to drag Lesley out of the house for a relatively short walk. We went to the Mercer Slough Nature Park in Bellevue. It was also mentioned in our book. It was a pretty flat hike through a wetland aera. Not the most exciting, but it was nice to get out and we took a few pictures. It's great having this warmer spring weather that allows us to go for a hike on a weekly basis.

Just for fun, we thought some people would be interested in knowing what we ate last week for dinner every night:

• Monday - a big salad with a roma tomato, cucumber, carrot shavings, and croutons, blueberry muffins later that night


• Tuesday - salad with cherry tomatoes, cucumber, carrot shavings, and croutons, ham sandwiches cooked on the stove with Cool Ranch Doritos


• Wednesday - pan cooked chicken strips with potatoes and asparagus


• Thursday - salad with a roma tomato, cucumber, carrot shavings, and croutons, salmon and asparagus


• Friday - beef and broccoli with rice

It wasn't really a typical week with three salads and a lot of vegetables. Although, it's definitely easier to eat healthy here since the fruit and vegetables are so fresh. We also had grapes as a snack a few nights.

The tulips were so beautiful last year when we went to see them for our anniversary that I wanted to go back again this year. So, Saturday morning we left early (around 8:45) to go see them. It was actually raining fairly heavily when we got there after driving for a little over an hour, so we decided to eat breakfast first in the nearby town of La Conner. We ate at the Calico Cupboard Cafe again and the food was excellent. I got some hot apple cider (which I've realized I love to drink), which was really good, and a ham and cheese omelet with fruit and toast. Troy got the breakfast sampler which is just one large pancake, eggs, and bacon. We also got one of their "famous" huge cinnamon rolls to take home.

After breakfast, the sun came out and the weather was much nicer. So we went to a few tulip fields and took several pictures. I wanted to see the orange tulips again, but we never found any. We bought a bunch of 10 pink tulips for $4.50, which is a real bargain compared to the cost at Pike Place Market of $10 for 12 tulips. These are much fresher too.

After looking at tulips for a couple of hours, we drove through Anacortes just to see what was there, which wasn't much. Then we drove to Deception Pass and stopped to hike around there for a while. We got lost on the trail we were on since it wasn't marked that well, but eventually found our way back to the car.

Then we drove south on Whidbey Island, and stopped at Coupeville for dinner at a small bar and grill, which wasn't nearly as impressive as breakfast was. The next stop was Fort Casey State Park, which is a place my dad mentioned he'd be interested in going. We saw some wildlife there, including rabbits and deer. Otherwise there wasn't much there, but it did have an impressive view of Puget Sound and a neat lighthouse. Unfortunately the lighthouse was in the process of being repaired, so it didn't look that great. As a side note, I'd be interested in visiting and photographing all 25 lighthouses in Washington state someday.

After Fort Casey, we drove the rest of the way to Clinton, a small town on the eastern edge of Whidbey Island, to take the ferry to Mukilteo. It was pretty cool and a little weird driving the car onto the ferry. It was only about a 20 minute ferry ride, so it didn't take long to get to Mukilteo. As we were pulling into the dock, we could see the Mukilteo lighthouse, which looked really pretty with the sunlight hitting it.

We made it home around 8:30, where we ate our cinnamon roll, which measured about 5" cubed. It was really good. We had a really nice Saturday and can't wait to go back to the Calico Cupboard to get another cinnamon roll!

We bought a new desk a few months ago and our old monitor didn't look that nice with it. We had been wanting a new monitor anyway for a while, but were waiting for a good deal. Finally, last week, NewEgg had a 24" widescreen LCD monitor on sale with free shipping. Up until now, we'd been using the monitor my Uncle gave me as a high school graduation present along with my old computer. It was a good old monitor and worked perfectly for 8 years. We put it on Craig's list for free and eventually gave it to a college student. Hopefully he gives it a good home.

It's really nice now though, having this gigantic monitor. The screen is huge, but there's no more bulk to it like the old one. And the desk looks really nice with it now. It's much easier to have multiple programs open at the same time. The colors also seem to be even brighter than before. It can display HD, but we don't have anything HD currently. This monitor should last us for several years.

The company where I work partnered with a non-profit organization and invited all employees to help clean up a local greenbelt this week. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to participate, but after seeing some great weather in the forecast last week, I figured some time outside (while still getting paid) would be good, and signed up to help out last Monday.

I went with about 15 other employees to meet with members of the Nature Consortium, which is in charge of the project to restore several acres of land near the Duwamish river. I don't know the full story, but the area has been overrun with invasive plants and so the Nature Consortium is trying to restore it to how it used to be before human settlement.

We started by potting some baby trees that were loose in a bucket. They were going to be planted, but apparently it is too late in the season to plant them so they'll be saved for next year. Then we mulched the side of a hill, which was probably my favorite part, though it was also possibly the hardest. Then we had to dig up some invasive blackberry species and remove some ivy, which can add a lot of weight to existing trees and cause them to fall over in strong wind.

It was 4 hours of hard work, but I really enjoyed it. The weather was great and it's really cool that my company sponsored this community service activity.

Link light rail between downtown Seattle and Tukwila will begin service on July 18th! Here's an excerpt from this article from the Seattle PI:

Link initially will run between Westlake Station, at the north end of downtown Seattle, and Tukwila International Boulevard. The service is scheduled to extend to Sea-Tac Airport in December, with buses set to connect the Tukwila station to the airport in the meantime. Service is scheduled to run to the University of Washington in 2016.

It'll be really exciting to finally have light rail in Seattle, especially as a faster way to get to the airport. It's taken way too long for Seattle to have light rail, but it's finally almost here!

View Places We Go in a larger map

We thought it would be neat to post a map that we've marked up to show the places we go to frequently. We go to most of these places once a month or more, some at least once a week. You can do a lot of cool stuff with Google Maps. Just click on the icons and it'll tell you what it is.

After our hike on Saturday, we went to our first Mariners game of the season with a couple friends. The Mariners are doing pretty well so far this year, but they still lost to the Tigers 2-0. Our seats were in the upper deck behind home plate. The temperatures were in the 50s, so it wasn't nearly as cold as the first game we went to last year, which was nice. Hopefully they can win when we go to the game on May 1st with my co-worker...

We walked all the way home, after walking all the way to the game earlier, and it was a long walk (about 2 miles each way). That means we walked more than 8 miles total on Saturday and man, we were both really tired. My lower back was sore.

The weather was nice this weekend, once again, so we went for a hike. This time, we headed out to Redmond Watershed Park and Preserve, which is one of the hikes included in the book we have, 60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Seattle.

The trail was well maintained. There were some spots of mud, but it was nowhere near as muddy as the trail we took last week. Unfortunately, the trail was also used by horses, so we had to watch out for their droppings. There also seemed to be a lot of flies, probably because of that. But, when we got to the part that was closed to horses, we didn't have those problems. We ended up walking more than 4 miles, but there were no major elevation gains, and it was very pretty, as hikes around here tend to be.

This past Tuesday, the 14th, was our 2 year wedding anniversary. It's pretty hard to beat what we did last year, which was go to the Tulip Festival (posts 1, 2, and 3) and stay overnight at a bed and breakfast. But we still had a good anniversary this year. We went to eat Italian food at La Rustica in West Seattle. It's right next to the shoreline, so we had a good view from our table. We walked outside a little bit after dinner, but it was a little cold and windy, so we went back home after a few minutes. We exchanged gifts at home. Troy gave me a Sounders mug for me to drink out of at work and some tulips and I gave him some clothes.

Last night we went to see the musical CATS, by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It is the second longest-running show in Broadway history, surpassed by Phantom of the Opera in 2006. CATS played a total of 7,485 performances on Broadway.

It's based on the book of short stories by T.S. Eliot called "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," which I remember reading when I was in music class in middle school. So I went in knowing there wouldn't be much of a plot, just a lot of songs about individual cats. I thought it was really entertaining, with great songs and costumes. We got fairly cheap seats in the lower level on the far right side and we had a fairly decent view since our seats were on a little raised platform that was probably added to sell more seats.

It was a nice 2 year anniversary and I'm looking forward to spending many more years with my husband.

Buildings are being demolished on Capitol Hill for the construction of the new light rail station. A few months ago, these storefronts were in use as a temporary art gallery. It's a shame to see these old buildings go down after they had contributed so well over the years to such a vibrant neighborhood. However, light rail definitely will be a good addition to the neighborhood.

Here's the picture of the original art exhibit:

Adjusting to life here would be a lot more difficult without the internet, especially these links, which are some of our favorites:

News and Blogs

• Seattle Times - The online website for Seattle's remaining daily newspaper.


• Seattle Post-Intelligencer - The PI stopped printing recently, but still has an online presence. I normally prefer the Times' online layout and content, but think the PI's online content has improved since they stopped printing.


• Seattle Transit Blog - I care about transit, but not quite as much as the many writers of this blog do. This blog is a great resource on the state of and plans for the local transit system as well as transit news on a local and national scale.


• Vintage Seattle - Decades-old pictures of Seattle cityscapes and landmarks (and motels) posted daily. I've learned a lot about the city's history from this blog.


• The Southlake - Blog with news about the neighborhood we live in.


• hugeasscity - Think of it as Seattle Planning Blog if the flippant name bothers you. It covers urban planning issues in Seattle and does a good job at it.


• SeattleScape - Another planning-related blog, which isn't updated as often, but still has good quality posts.


• Seattle Times Sounders FC blog - A great blog with news and write-ups on the Seattle Sounders.


• GoSounders.com - Another Sounders blog, written more informally.


• Snow Leopard Trust Blog - Devoted to protecting the endangered Snow Leopard, this charity is based in Seattle and is one of Lesley's favorites. The blog covers news about what the charity is doing and information about snow leopards in the news.

Transportation and Local Resources

• Seattle Area Traffic - Freeway traffic status map, which tends to be more complete and reliable than Google Maps.


• King County Metro Transit - Bus schedules and other transit information.


• One Bus Away - I use this often at work to find out upcoming arrival times for the bus.


• Pacific Northwest Hikes - Fantastic resource with a great search tool for identifying and planning hikes.


• Lost in Seattle - Real-time search engine showing Seattle businesses on a map whether they're currently open.


• Recent Earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest - We live in a seismically active region and this map shows recent earthquakes.

We hadn't really had a chance go for a hike yet this year until yesterday. It was a little cool outside, but it wasn't raining, so we went for a hike at a trail that was closed last year when we tried to hike there. The trees were starting to bud and plants were starting to grow, so it was nice outside, even though the trail was a little muddy. We hiked farther than I expected to, about an hour each way. It was great to get out and hike. I can't wait to go on more hikes and longer hikes as the weather continues to get better.

When I was living at home or visiting home, my parents made cinnamon swirl muffins every week. They were really good and I never got tired of the taste of those fresh-baked muffins with cinammon mixed in and cinnamon sugar on top. However, I haven't had them in I guess a year or so, since Lesley and I haven't been able to find them in any store here. So, recently my parents surprised us by mailing us a couple boxes of muffins to bake. We had some other desserts and food sitting around so we didn't make the muffins when we first got them, but we did over the weekend. They weren't quite as good as I remember, but I think we can do a better job on the second batch we make. It was nice to have the muffins again.

We've been watching Mariners games on FSN since the season started. Unfortunately the price of our cable package, which is now at an introductory rate, will go up from $30/month to $55/month, so I don't know if we'll keep it. But for now, it's fun to watch the Mariners games on TV for something to do.

The Mariners' home opener next Tuesday against the Angels is sold out because it's Ken Griffey Jr.'s first home game back with the Mariners. We're going to the April 18th game against the Tigers with two friends from church. Then we're going to another game on May 1st against the A's with my co-worker and her husband. I'm looking forward to going to baseball games again, they should be fun!

I recently mentioned that two snow leopard cubs were born in the Melbourne Zoo a few weeks ago. They've been named Tashi and Gobi, both names with Tibetan origins. Here's a link to a video posted on the Snow Leopard Trust blog that shows the new cubs in the zoo with comments from the zoo keeper. The cubs are so cute!

As I mentioned, the weather this weekend was great. Fortunately, we were able to take advantage of it and ended up having a very good weekend.

On Saturday, while Lesley was at a baby shower, I walked down to Olympic Sculpture Park. I hadn't been there in months, but going there Saturday reminded me how much I enjoy it. Aside from having my favorite sculpture anywhere, it's a neat place to go for a stroll. I didn't spend much time experiencing the sculptures, but instead walked down to the waterfront and made myself comfortable on one of the benches. A lot of people walked, skated, and rolled by as I sat enjoying the cool breeze, warm sun, and view of the bay.

Afterwards, I headed home to eat lunch and, not expecting to find much on TV, found the Sounders game. The game was televised on a channel that I don't have, but since they were playing a Canadian team and we get CBC sports, I was able to watch the game and enjoy another Sounders victory.

Later that day after Lesley got home, we went to Washington Park where we enjoyed the few flowers that had already bloomed while trying to avoid stepping in mud. Afterwards, we drove to Fremont (one of Seattle's many vibrant neighborhoods) and ate by the window at a Thai restaurant while we watched people out enjoying the neighborhood and the weather.

On Sunday, I began the day a little early with a walk over to the church parking garage. Since the church is worshipping at a temporary location now, they have someone distributing parking passes at the garage we use and I do that once a month. I love the 25-minute Sunday morning walk over to the parking garage, and with Sunday morning's sunny weather and relatively warm temperatures, the walk and time spent outside was especially nice.

After church, we enjoyed a Palm Sunday brunch with around 14 other people from church in our age group. The food was great, and I had really enjoyed socializing and discussing some upcoming activities.

At home that afternoon, I had a nice phone call with my grandmother and Lesley and I had a good chat with her parents via the webcam.

Afterwards, we walked to Pike Place Market and along the waterfront. Both areas were busy with tourists and are still favorite places of ours. We then went to another tourist attraction, the Space Needle, to use our season pass. In line, we unexpectedly ran into some good friends and enjoyed the good view from the top with them.

It was a great weekend, and even though we had to go to work the next day, Monday night felt like a continuation of the weekend, as we headed to the U-dub campus to enjoy the impressive display of cherry blossoms. While there, we ran into another couple we knew, and offered to take pictures of each other against the scenic backdrop. Lesley and I walked back through the campus and along the Ave before having some pretty good sandwiches for dinner.

It was a great three days, thanks to the weather, flowers, and the people we spent it with. Weekends like this make me feel like I'm living in a remarkable place.

I went to my friend's baby shower on Saturday and had a good time hanging out with all the girls there. She's due on my Mom's birthday, May 12th, but it couldn't be soon enough for her. The party was at her sister-in-law's house and probably about 15-20 people were there. I only knew like 3 of them, but it was still fun. She got a lot of cute baby clothes, including a really cute Mariner's shirt/skirt combination. I gave her some receiving blankets, some cute pink baby hangers, and a few pacifiers.

We also played a few games. One of them was a game where we were all given a long streamer and we had to tear it to the length we thought it would go around her perfectly at her biggest point. My streamer was a little short, but I figured it was better to be short than long! I won two tickets to the movies, which was pretty cool. Anyway, I had fun at the baby shower and look forward to seeing the new baby girl soon!

It seems like winter has been dragging on. It rained incessantly earlier in the week and has still been kind of cold. However, yesterday was beautiful and it looks like we'll have some good spring weather for the next few days. I'm really glad to see that better weather is coming up.

We booked our flights with Qantas to travel to Australia this fall to see our friends in Melbourne! We're leaving Friday night, September 25th and will arrive in Melbourne Sunday morning the 27th. We'll stay there until Monday October 5th, when we travel to Sydney for a few days. Then we leave Sydney on Saturday, October 10th and arrive back in Seattle the afternoon of the 10th, due to the time zone difference. We will connect in Los Angeles both times.

I've never been on a plane for longer than about 5 hours straight, so we'll see how I do on a plane for 15 hours! Each seat on a Qantas flight has a TV in it so you can watch movies and stuff, so that should make it a little less boring.

I've been getting really excited just from looking at stuff to do there! It'll be a really long, awesome trip. I can't wait!

The Sounders have become a pretty big deal in Seattle. The NY Times wrote a short article about the Sounders and their popularity in Seattle. Here's a quote:

The new Sounders opened extra seating for their first game, on March 19, and 32,000 people came. The league’s commissioner, Don Garber, said he was moved to tears.

The article talks a little about the fan reaction and soccer's history in Seattle.

The past couple weeks at work have been a little different because I've been spending a lot of time at a job site instead of in the office. There's a project that I've been involved with for several months but recently it became necessary for me to go to the project location to test and complete a few things and better manage the remainder of the project.

I've been more tired at the end of each day than normal because I've been up and walking around rather than just sitting at my desk. It's also been different because I haven't been taking the bus.

I've learned a lot from this project and it's been challenging and rewarding to get these last steps taken care of. There were quite a few things that could've been done better, especially at the beginning of the project, which contributed to it taking longer than it should have. But, I'm glad to have been able to get things done.

This project along with another project that concluded a few weeks ago used to take up a lot of my time, so now I'm not really sure what I'll be doing next, but it will probably be back at the office.

I can't believe it's been 8 years since I bought my Mazda Protegé in March 2001. It only has 72,000 miles on it, an average of only 9,000 miles per year. I've had a lot of good times with my car over the years. One of the oldest memories I have is when I ran it into a square hitch on the back of a car in front of me. Unfortunately that was when it was less than 3 months old and it's had that blemish ever since.

I also used to drive it to and from Abilene when I was in my freshman year of college and I remember listening to music like Pearl Jam and Led Zeppelin, which I rarely listen to any more. My Mom would always ask if I went "Zoom Zoom" all the way home, since that was Mazda's slogan. It also snowed one time when I was in Abilene and I took several pictures of my car in its first snow.

I remember driving Troy and the rest of our small group of friends around town just to goof around. I also had a pair of green dice hanging from the rear view mirror for the longest time.

I remember when I bought new Pirelli tires and when my parents gave me a new stereo and speakers for my car. It was much much better than the factory system.

I remember when I found the side of it scraped by someone in the parking lot at my first apartment in east Fort Worth. I think I also backed it into a yellow pole at my apartment, but that was easily buffed off.

One time Troy was replacing the battery and he lost one of the screws somewhere in the front of the car. We were at our apartment in Irving and there are speed bumps in the parking lot, so I drove over a few at a slow speed hoping it would fall out. Troy followed behind me on foot and kept looking for the screw, but to no avail. Then I had the idea to drive faster over the last speed bump leading up to our parking space and the screw fell out.

And then, probably my favorite memories of it were made when we drove it all the way to Seattle and stopped at some great places along the way. We crammed so much stuff in the trunk and back seat of my car, it was crazy. Once we arrived in Seattle, we had to get new Washington plates and put them on.

My Mazda has been a great little car for a long time. I haven't had any major problems with it and have really only had to pay for oil changes and the normal maintenance items. We have no plans to replace it any time soon. In fact we'll probably keep it until it basically falls apart, which hopefully is a long time from now. I love my Protegé and look forward to making more memories with it in the future.