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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Troy and I went to a pumpkin patch this past Saturday. There are tons of them in the area and we'd never been to one before, so we decided to go to the Craven Farm in Snohomish, about 30 miles to the northeast. The drive was pretty with lots of colorful trees all red, orange, and yellow. We got there and the parking lot was intimidatingly full. Once we got inside, there was so much stuff going on and so many people there that we didn't know what to do first.

We made our way to the pumpkin patch that seemed to go on for miles. I couldn't believe how many pumpkins of all shapes and sizes there were! Some were as small as two fists and others were the size of two basketballs. There were probably over 5,000 pumpkins there to choose from. I guess we could have bought one to carve or make food from, but we didn't bother with it. Last time we had a carved pumpkin in our apartment, it started to smell after a few days.

Other things we could have done included a hay ride, corn maze, pumpkin slinging, face painting, and seeing baby livestock. I was interested in the corn maze, but we didn't have rain boots on and it was probably pretty muddy in there from the recent rain we've had. I snacked on some roasted corn and Troy got two donuts, including a pumpkin one.

The only thing I was disappointed with was the lack of a nice set for taking pictures. It sounds corny, but I wanted a picture of Troy and I sitting on some hay with pumpkins around us. Oh well, maybe next year we can try out a different pumpkin patch. It was a fun experience this year and definitely worth doing at least once.

We'd been interested in seeing the Seattle Symphony for a while and we finally decided to go to a show last Friday. We saw Live & Let Die: A Symphonic Tribute to the Music of Paul McCartney, which had a Beatles cover band along with a partial orchestra. There's actually several Beatles/Wings that have flutes, violins, trumpets, or other instruments in them. The guy playing as Paul was especially good and sounded and looked pretty close to the real thing. Some of the songs included Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Yesterday, Maybe I'm Amazed, When I'm Sixty-Four, Jet, and Band on the Run. It reminded me of the two Paul McCartney concerts I went to and also the time some of my friends and I saw the cover band Me & My Monkey at the Moon in Fort Worth.

Benaroya Hall was a pretty basic symphony hall. The inside was plain and wasn't nearly as fancy as other places I've seen the symphony. Overall it probably wasn't the best value for our money, but it was still fun singing along and hearing the orchestra.

Weekend before last, Troy and I went to the Seahawks preseason game against the Green Bay Packers. Troy got the tickets for free from one of his co-workers. They were pretty good seats, only about 20 rows up from the field at the 40 yard line, and normally cost over $100 each.

It was really fun going to a football game again and sitting in those nicer seats was cool. We got to see Aaron Rodgers play for the Packers and the Seahawks scored three touchdowns, if you can believe that. Unfortunately we forgot to bring our camera, so we don't have any pictures. I was surprised how late so many people stayed for the game, since most starters were taken out at half time. It briefly sprinkled a few times, but we didn't get that wet since the roof blocked some of it. We stayed until late in the 4th quarter. The Packers won 27-24, but it was still nice to go to a game for free. It made me wish football season would be here sooner.

This past Friday was my 27th birthday. It's kind of strange to be even closer to 30 now than 20. On Thursday we went to Discovery Park, not necessarily for my birthday, but I thought I'd mention it because it's a nice park with an awesome view of Puget Sound and Rainier to the south. I really enjoyed sitting on the beach listening to the waves crashing in and seeing the sailboats and ferries pass by.

I had to work on my actual birthday. My co-workers gave me a few cards and made peanut butter chocolate kiss cookies and spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and small chocolate chips inside and on top.

After work a few of them took me out to happy hour at Rock Salt right on Lake Union. Troy met us there after a little while. We actually had a nice view of the lake. I wasn't sure we would since happy hour is only served in the lounge, but we could see the lake pretty well. Someone got a few things for all of us to share and I also got the crab cakes and onion rings. I also had a glass of Chardonnay and a Mai Tai. The food was good and it was nice to hang out with some co-workers outside of work.

After happy hour, Troy and I went home and played some of our new video game we bought, Katamari Damacy. It's a cute, easy game where you roll around a ball picking up anything and everything until you get to the size required to complete the level. You have a time limit, so you can't just take an hour or something. It's entertaining and interesting to play.

Speaking of games, my sister mailed me a birthday present package that I got early last week and it had Soul Caliber II for the PS2 in it. It's a street fighter type of game and is really fun to play on 2 player mode with Troy. She also gave me a giftcard to the GAP to buy some clothes. There were also two cards in the package, which confused me at first, but then I figured out that one was from Lauren and the other was from my little niece, Evie! They were cute cards and it was neat to get my first happy birthday Aunt card.

We watched our Netflix movie, The Remains of the Day, which was a good, but sad movie.

On Saturday, Troy went to Noah's and brought back some asiago bagels and a super onion bagel for breakfast. Unfortunately they didn't have any sesame bagels, maybe next time. After bagels, Troy took me to see Toy Story 3 at the Pacific Place AMC downtown. It was a really good movie, possibly better than the first two.

Then we walked to Pike Place Market to grab a snack of macaroni and cheese from Beechers, easily the best I've ever had anywhere. We also saw goats eating grass on the hillside while walking to the waterfront to the market. Apparently some people rent goats from a company to "mow" their grass if it's on a steep hill and they can't get a lawnmower down there easily. Seeing the goats was kind of funny.

We went back to the apartment where Troy gave me my card and present, which was a National Geographic Guide to the National Parks of the US. This will come in handy when we're planning our trips to the National Parks.

After that, Troy took me to Palisade for dinner. I told him to surprise me, but I suggested either Palisade or Seastar. We each got a glass of Pinot noir wine. I liked it more than I thought I would, it's much better than Cabernet in my opinion. I got a small salad and the scallops for dinner. They were probably the best scallops I've ever had, they were so good. Cooked perfectly and very tasty. They were sitting on a bed of black lentils and other toppings. Troy got the flash seared Hawaiian Opah fish with spicy coconut curry. We had a nice view of downtown and Mount Rainier.

We were stuffed from dinner, so we just chilled out the rest of the night and watched the Sounders beat the Earthquakes 1-0. We also played the collaborative game of Pandemic, which we lost unfortunately. It was a little difficult to get into at first because it's a little complicated, but I'm sure we'll get better at it the more we play.

I took a rain check for my dessert since we already had several desserts to eat around the apartment. Troy said he might make it later this week. Overall it was a fun birthday weekend.

Friday was our last full day together. We started the day with some breakfast at Portage Bay Cafe, one of our favorite breakfast places despite the wastefully-large portions and slow service. The food was great as usual, though and it was just a few blocks away from where we live.

We then left to check out Snoqualmie Falls. The mist was blowing all the way to the parking lot and the falls were bigger than our friends expected. The trail to the bottom of the falls was closed, so we spent some time enjoying the view up top. We also stopped by the gift shop before we left.

Snoqualmie Falls on Vimeo.

We decided to hike again after this, so we went to the Anti-Aircraft Trailhead at Cougar Mountain. There's a great view of Lake Sammamish from up there and many trails to choose from. Our visitors were interested that we might see cougars on the trail, and while we heard some kind of animal, we were most surprised by how many banana slugs and how few people we saw along our roughly two hour hike through the forest.

We had thought about picking blueberries this afternoon, but they weren't quite in season yet. So, our next stop was the Bite of Seattle festival, which had lots of good food. We tried a lot of different food and drinks, including free samples of tea, roasted corn, fried macaroni and cheese, a veggie gyro, Indian samosas, wine samples, stir-fried soba noodles (one of my favorites to get at festivals here), hushpuppies (which were really good), a Nutella crepe, donut-like fried rice balls, more Indian food, and spring rolls. Being a Friday, the festival wasn't as busy as we've seen it in the past, and we had a great time in the great weather.

That night we played some pool and went up to our building's roof to show them the view. Our visitors seemed pretty impressed that people were using our roof's pea-patch garden to grow fruits and vegetables. We also had some more cheese and Chukar Cherries, recommended some good movies for each other to add to our Netflix queues, and played Taboo for a while.

It was a great evening to end a wonderful visit. It was very nice to have visitors, especially people we enjoy spending time with and it's a shame that we'll be going a few months without spending time with any more good friends or family from Texas.