On Tuesday, the 28th, we left the hotel in Forks early to drive to Rialto Beach. We briefly got lost, but eventually found our way to the right area. There were a lot of tree skeletons and what I think was kelp on the beach. We walked for about a mile and a half north on Rialto Beach in order to find the "Hole in the Wall," which was literally a big hole carved in a big rock over thousands of years of erosion. It was a really pretty beach, with Pacific Ocean, sea stacks (rock formations sticking out of the ocean), and lots of greenery behind the beach.

The only way to get inside the hole is to walk slowly on the slippery, rounded rocks. I'm proud to say I was the only one of the four of us that didn't fall on the way over there. It seemed like it took longer to walk back than it did to get there and it was already starting to get warm.

The next stop was the Hoh Rain Forest, which unfortunately was a lot warmer and drier than we thought it would be. Since there hasn't been much rain lately, most of the moss on the trees was brown. We went on a short walk and stopped and ate some fruit that we had. There were some neat grass fields under the little pond near the visitor's center.


After that, we went to Ruby Beach on our way home, which was pretty similar to Rialto Beach but busier. But that might have been because we were there later in the day. We had to climb over a bunch of logs, which was kind of fun, but I could see how it would be difficult for some people to navigate. It was neat seeing the mist come onto the beach from the Pacific Ocean.

On the way home we got pretty hungry since we didn't really eat lunch. We planned to stop at a Dairy Queen in the next town, but were stopped for 30 minutes or so by road construction. We eventually stopped in Aberdeen where Troy and I shared a Butterfinger Blizzard like we always do.

We finally made it back into Seattle at around 6 and were really hungry. My Dad had been asking us since we moved here if we found a good Italian restaurant. We've been to a place called Mamma Melina twice before and liked it, so we decided to go there. I had forgotten they don't have lasagna on the menu, but they have several other good dishes that are reasonably priced. I got the rigatoni with mini meat balls and Troy got the linguine with clams. The clams came in the shells, which was a little weird, but he said they tasted alright.

We drove through the U district on the way back to the apartment. Overall, the Olympic Peninsula was impressive, though it would have been prettier had we gone at a different time of year when it wasn't as dry. Two days isn't enough time to see everything. We also skipped a few things, like Lake Crescent and the Sol Duc Falls, so we'll have to go back some other time to see. We'll definitely do more hiking too.

Monday morning we left fairly early to go to the Olympic Peninsula. After we dropped off my grandma at the airport to fly back to Fort Worth, we continued on toward our first stop, Mount Walker. The closest town was Quilcene, which didn't have much the way of food. We went out on a limb and stopped at the Twana Road House where we picked up some surprisingly decent turkey club sandwiches with avocado and chips. we drove to Mount Walker and stopped to eat an early lunch at the top. Mount Walker is 2,805 feet tall, the Olympic's easternmost peak, and the only peak facing Puget Sound to have a road and a trail to the top.

Next we stopped for gas at a nice gas station with a huge convenience/grocery store attached to it. They had so much food and tons drinks (including all the alcohol you could ever want) in there. We spent quite a while looking around and stocking up on snacks for the next day. It was such a fancy store, they had flat screen TV's in the restrooms.

The next stop was Hurricane Ridge, one of the most heavily visited areas in Olympic National Park. We walked on little trail near the visitor's center. It was really hot and there were lots of bugs around, which we're not used to up here, so that was a little disappointing. It still has spectacular views of the surrounding mountains though.

We were running short on time, so we didn't stop at Lake Crescent like we wanted to. We were only able to drive by it, which wasn't too bad since the road basically followed the shore of it. It looked really beautiful from the car, so maybe some day we can go back and stop there and maybe hike a trail or two.

After driving about 250 miles from our apartment in the morning, we finally stopped for the night in Forks, WA, a popular destination for fans of Twilight. I've never read the book or seen the movie, so I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. But the town seems obsessed with it. Anyway, we ate dinner at The In Place right next to our motel, but it was pretty mediocre. We didn't have many choices for food in Forks. It was nice to get out of the car and be done driving for the day.

Sunday morning, we went to eat some donuts at Top Pot, ranked by City Guide as the best donuts in America. Their apple fritters are the best I've ever had. We went to church after that and that went well, but my family would have rather heard the senior pastor than the associate pastor.

We did a lot of driving for the second day in a row, this time up North to Deception Pass and Whidbey Island. We stopped for lunch at the Calico Cupboard in La Conner, where I had a turkey club sandwich and Troy had a spinach salad with apple slices, almonds, Gorgonzola cheese, and raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Troy liked his salad, but I didn't care much for my sandwich because it was drowning in mayo. But we did get a cinnamon roll to go, which we ate Sunday night and it was delicious.

We had clear, warm weather again when we were at Deception Pass. Since we've had a dry summer, a lot of the grass everywhere is a lot browner than normal, which made everything not seem as pretty. We went on a brief hike down to the shore, where it was slightly cooler. We only made one other stop, at Fort Casey. There were a lot more people there this time than when we were there for our anniversary this year. Lots of people were flying kites or just having picnics. We saw a mother deer and three or four babies too. We also went in the lighthouse building, which was closed for construction when we were there before, though the tower was still being refurbished.

We took the Mukilteo ferry on the way back to Seattle, where we at Thai food at Djan's. I was really surprised my parents, especially my Dad, were willing to try it. I was relieved when they said they liked it. It's really good Thai food and is pretty cheap for Seattle. We made a quick stop at Alki Beach for some pictures, then we went back to the apartment for dessert and packed everything for the trip to the Olympic Peninsula.

The third day was probably my favorite day of my parents' visit. We woke up pretty early and went to eat Noah's bagels around 8. I got an asiago and Troy got a sesame, both with regular cream cheese. We drove to Mount Rainier and stopped at Narada Falls first, which everyone seemed to really like. There was a neat rainbow near the bottom and lots of mossy rocks.

The weather had been pretty good so far, but once we got to Paradise, some clouds started to roll in and covered the top of Mount Rainier. It was still pretty sunny in most places though. We stopped to eat some fresh fruit and cheese that we had gotten from Pike Place Market the day before. The strawberries, raspberries, and peaches were really good. After that, we went to Reflection Lake and walked along a short path beside it. There was still a little snow on the ground, but not as much as when we went last year.

We learned at the Paradise visitor's center that the road to get from Paradise to Sunrise was closed because half of it had been destroyed from all the snow and mudslides after last winter. So we had to backtrack out of the park, go about 15 miles south and come back north on the other side of the road closure. It probably added an hour and a half to the trip, but it was worth it. Troy & I didn't have time to stop at Sunrise before, so I was glad we took the time to get there. It was pretty impressive. It's the highest point in the park that is accessible by car (6,400 ft). There were lots of wildflowers in the fields, including lupine flowers, which are a relative of the bluebonnet (the Texas state flower). Sunrise Lake was really pretty, with all the bluish greenish water. And the clouds parted for a while, allowing us to see to the top of Mount Rainier.

It was a lot of driving and took basically all day. After Sunrise, we drove back to Seattle and ate our favorite pizza we've found here, Pagliacci. We got cheese bread sticks from Mad Pizza too. We had just enough time to go to the Space Needle to see the sunset. The torchlight parade for Seafair also happened to be going on when we were at the top of the Space Needle, and we could hear all the cannon fire from the pirate ship float, which was pretty cool.

It was a very busy day but we got to see a lot of natural beauty.

The second day of my parents visit was fun. I only worked half a day and once I got off work, we went to Pike Place Market and ate panini sandwiches and macaroni & cheese at Beecher's. It's definitely the best macaroni and cheese I've ever had. We explored the market a little more and eventually bought Beecher's cheese and a bunch of fruit for Mount Rainier the next day. My grandma bought me flowers from the market for my birthday, which was nice.

After the market, we went back to the apartment to eat some of the apple pie I made for them. We had vanilla ice cream with it. Then we drove to Snoqualmie Falls and hiked down to the bottom of the falls. We'd all been there a few times before, so we didn't stay that long.

We picked up Troy at the apartment after driving back to Seattle and then ate dinner at Red Mill Burgers. I still think it's one of the best burgers I've ever had. I like how it has thin meat, not a big chunk of it, and lots of pickles, onions, and tomatoes. After that, we drove to the Mariners-Indians game at Safeco. Unfortunately, driving to the game was a little annoying, since traffic was really really bad going through downtown. We didn't get to the game as early as we wanted to and it was too late to get the free bobblehead giveaway. And of course, the Mariners lost terribly, 9-0. Oh well, it was still a pretty good day overall.

I don't have much to say, but it's been hot here. We both have air conditioning at work, but outside and the bus and the apartment are all warm. I guess it's good that Lesley's parents have been in town because we've been riding in an air-conditioned vehicle and eating at air-conditioned restaurants with them. It's supposed to be hot again tomorrow before cooling off to the mid-80s over the weekend. Then after that it'll probably be in the 70s for several weeks, as the summers normally are.

The Post-Intelligencer tracked the temperature throughout the day as people tried to buy fans, hung out at the beach, and ate ice cream to deal with the heat. Only 13% of residents have air conditioning here, so people here aren't very well prepared for this abnormal weather. But, with the highest 14 annual average worldwide temperatures in the last 125 years all occuring since 1990, at least partially due to global climate change, I'd expect more Seattlites to invest in air conditioners over the next few years.

We got back in Seattle last night after being basically gone the last four days with my parents and grandmother. We drove to Mount Rainier on Saturday, Deception Pass and Whidbey Island on Sunday, and then Olympic National Park on Monday and Tuesday, for a total of probably around 700 miles. I don't really have time to write a long post about it all right now, but I just wanted to let everyone know we're still alive. We have probably taken almost 1,000 pictures the last few days, so it'll take a while to pick out the best ones and post them.

Unfortunately it's especially hot here right now and the high today is supposed to be in the upper 90s. Needless to say, my parents are disappointed that they couldn't get away from the heat as much as they would have liked to. Oh well, at least they're here. I have another half day off work tomorrow and we're just planning to go to a few parks and go up in the Space Needle again. We're eating at Icon Grill tomorrow night for my birthday, so that should be really good. More to come later...

My parents and grandma arrived in Seattle around noon yesterday. They rented the car and checked into the bed and breakfast on Capitol Hill where they’re staying through Sunday. I got off work at 4 and went out the front doors as usual, but then I saw someone I don’t normally see, Mom! She wanted to walk home with me the way I always do every day after work. So we walked to the apartment and met up with my Dad and grandma. I showed them the apartment and they were actually impressed with the size and said it looked bigger than they expected. I guess Troy and I have done a good job of setting expectations as to how small it is. They really liked the view we have and how new the place seems. We also showed them my car, which they haven’t seen since I got Washington plates for it.

After that, we drove to Dad’s favorite restaurant in the whole world – Palisade. Troy & I have been there once, when we visited Seattle three years ago, so it was nice to go back and try it again. Our table was right by the glass window facing the bay with the Seattle skyline in the distance – what a great view. There was also a birthday card from Palisade on the table that Dad had made for me since my birthday is next week.

They have an early dinner special for $30, you get a drink, salad/soup, entrée, and dessert. At first I got their tea, but I had forgotten I didn’t like it much when I had it before, so I changed my drink to their signature drink called the POG: pineapple, orange, guava drink with a little coconut milk. It was delicious! The salad was also very good. It was fresh greens with some type of vinaigrette dressing, topped with thinly sliced onion, radish slices, small nuts, and little orange squares. For my entrée, I got prawns with Yukon Gold potatoes and grilled veggies that included squash, zucchini, carrots, asparagus, and onions. Troy got the crab cakes and everyone else got macadamia nut chicken. Then for dessert, I got the burnt cream. It was all so good and I was so full! I made an apple pie for them on Wednesday night, but I guess we’ll have to wait to eat it since dessert was included with the meal.

After the awesome dinner, we drove back downtown to catch the ferry ride to Bainbridge Island and back. The top of Mount Rainier was visible, but unfortunately we couldn’t see all of it. It’s supposed to clear up and actually be pretty hot over the weekend, so I’m sure they’ll have other chances to see it. The sunset was really beautiful with all the water around us and mountains and trees everywhere. The last thing was did was go to Kerry Park at night. It’s definitely one of my favorite places to go with the great view of the Space Needle, downtown, and Mount Rainier during the day.

It was a great first day of their visit! It’s kind of weird that they are on vacation, but it doesn’t feel like a vacation to me since we live here. I'm looking forward to the rest of their trip.

I haven't posted about work lately for a number of reasons. One of them might be because I've been getting more fulfillment through the things I've been involved with at church lately. I've particularly enjoyed my involvement with our 20-30 something age group people at church.

When Lesley and I moved here, we didn't know anybody. Well, I guess technically Lesley "knew" the people she interviewed with and has gotten to know her coworkers. But, with me working at home in a new city, I didn't have a lot of people to interact with. At least at first.

One of the things we wanted to establish that we hadn't been able to establish while we lived in Irving was a regular habit of going to church. And that's all either of us had ever done - just gone to church for Sunday worship - it hadn't ever been a big part of our lives.

So, after we moved here, we found a nearby church and went. We liked the service, the pastor, and the building. And we met some fellow Texans and other people our age who were involved with the church. We continued to attend and, despite changes in the pastor and the building, decided to join. We got more involved with this church, attending a weekly small group and participating in a lot of activities with people in our age group.

Eventually, I decided to help coordinate more activities for people in our age group and have enjoyed it. The number of people in our age group at church has grown quite a bit since we first started attending and it's been fun to be a part of it. Participating with this group and helping to plan activities and guide our growth has actually been rather fulfilling. I continue to find myself in roles like this and wonder if it will lead to anything more. For now, I guess, it's just something to occupy myself with outside of work.

I've mentioned in the past how I really like being able to walk so many places here. However, South Lake Union is surrounded by highways and busy streets that make it discouraging to walk outside the neighborhood. Though there are some good walking areas very nearby, it's often necessary to walk a few blocks around a highway or cross a busy street. We can still walk pretty easily to a lot of things that are relatively nearby, but it's just not the ideal walkable area that I'd like to live in. For an idea of what I'm talking about, look at the map below:


The green are streets that are enjoyable to walk along.
The orange are streets that are busy and not the most fun to walk along
The red are streets that really suck to walk near
The black are roadways that we physically can't cross.

On the bright side, we are a 15 minute walk from the downtown retail district, closer to Capitol Hill and Lake Union, and from our place on the east side of South Lake Union, we can walk to Seattle Center, Lower Queen Anne, Belltown, or Pike Place Market in less that 30 minutes. So, overall we're in a pretty good location for walking, but the neighborhood just needs to be more seamlessly integrated with its surroundings.

This weekend Seattle became the 20th city in the US to have a light rail system when the city's first light rail line opened from downtown to Tukwila. It was free this weekend as part of the grand opening festivities, which also included musicians at some of the stations. About 51,000 people boarded the train Saturday, the first day of service, and this article does a great job of capturing the event.

We were among the 41,000 people who rode it Sunday. We didn't have anywhere in particular to go, we (particularly me) just wanted to ride it. We got on at the first station and were fortunate to find a seat. I really enjoyed the ride, which was very smooth, though parts of it were a little rougher than I expected. Sometime, we'll visit some of the areas surrounding the stations and will be able to take it to the airport after the line is extended this December. This morning, the train was mostly empty as I rode it toward work, though I had to get off and transfer to my regular bus.

For now, it's not useful to us on a regular basis. Still, I no longer have to be embarrassed that Seattle, with its environmentalist culture, doesn't lag behind so many other cities in the country anymore. In building this line of light rail, Seattle has started what will grow into a transportation network that befits the grown-up, worldly city that Seattle wants to be.

I've been asking my co-worker to go hike with us for a while, but one of us has been busy or out of town for the last month. I know he likes to hike and I learned a lot from him just from talking to him at work about where to hike and which trails are good to start with.

We were finally able to go hike yesterday with him, so we went to Rattlesnake Ledge. He brought along his 5 month old puppy, Charle. We got started pretty early and left Seattle before 8. We went to Rattlesnake Lake and started out just hiking to Rattlesnake Ledge, about 2 miles up. We stopped there and had great views of Rattlesnake Lake, Mount Si, and North Bend. It only took about an hour and a half to get this far, so we decided to make it a longer hike and go all the way to the east peak, another 2.5 miles from the Ledge.

Rattlesnake Mountain wasn't as steep as Mount Si, but it was a little longer distance wise. Round trip we hiked a total of 9 miles. Charle was fun to play with and she doesn't bark, so that was nice. A lot of people we passed on the trail would stop and pet her and say how cute she was. I don't know how many times I heard my co-worker explain that she's a 5 month old boxer-lab mix. She was so tired towards the end of the hike and fell asleep in the car.

It was a little warm, but not too bad at the higher elevations. We had great views of Mount Rainier at the east peak. The terrain wasn't as monotonous as Mount Si, with patches of wildflowers, dense forest, and more flat areas. We got a little sunburned, but not that bad. Afterward, we stopped in North Bend for hamburgers at Scott's Dairy Freeze. Troy and I shared a raspberry shake that was pretty good. It was a lot of fun hiking with my co-worker. Hopefully we can go hike again sometime.

As probably most people know, Starbucks was founded in Seattle in 1971. According to Wikipedia:

Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 16,120 stores in 49 countries, including around 11,000 in the United States, followed by nearly 1,000 in Canada and more than 800 in Japan. From 1971–1976, the first Starbucks was at 2000 Western Avenue; it then was relocated to 1912 Pike Place (in the Market), where it remains to this day.

I see at least 20 different Starbucks locations in any given week. So I thought it would be interesting to see exactly how many are close to where we live.

I searched the Starbucks website and found that there are 103 Starbucks within 5 miles of where we live and only 4 within 5 miles of where my parents live in Fort Worth, which I thought was crazy.

We have 61 stores within 2 miles of where we live, but my parents have none that close, which is almost even more impressive.

We actually don't go to Starbucks that often. Lately the only reason we've been going is because I got a gift card for Christmas, which I've been using to get "Awake" tea.

My parents will finally be visiting us exactly one week from today! I can't wait to show them around Seattle and hang out in our apartment where we've lived for the past year and a half almost. My grandmother is coming with them too for the first few days, which will be nice. I'm glad she's able to visit.

We plan on doing a lot of stuff during the week they'll be here. We'll be eating at our favorite restaurants and visiting Mount Rainier, Olympic National Park, and Deception Pass to name a few places.

We'll be busy this weekend cleaning up and getting ready for their visit. I'm really looking forward to it!

We spent this weekend back in Fort Worth for Lesley's sister's wedding. We couldn't really spend much more than a weekend there, so we left here late Thursday. Lesley's parents took us out for lunch as an anniversary present on Friday and we had some very good Uncle Julio's fajitas and sopapillas. Lesley was the matron of honor so she had some stuff to do for that and I was an usher, so I helped set up tables and chairs for the reception and rehearsal dinner. After the rehearsal and dinner we hung out with Lesley's sister and fiance that night.

On Saturday, Lesley went with her mom and sister to have breakfast and get their hair and makeup done. I met with my parents and brother for breakfast. Afterward, they showed me some of the recent development in Fort Worth. It's good to see Fort Worth being more of a city. Then, we went to my parents' house and saw my mom's scrapbook for their recent cruise. After that we walked at the mall and ate lunch at Jason's Deli before they dropped me off at the church for the wedding.

I ushered for the wedding and then we had the reception. I've been going to Lesley's family events long enough to get to know some of Lesley's family and friends and I enjoyed talking to them at the reception. After the reception, I helped put some tables and chairs away and our friend picked us up. We ate at Cousin's Barbeque, the best BBQ in DFW, and hung out that night.

The next day, Lesley and I went to the church we were married at. We walked through the church's recent expansion and talked to a few of the people we knew there. The pastor was surprised that we came and was glad to see us. We had lunch with my parents and then went to visit my grandmother. My cousin, who I hadn't seen in years, also stopped by with his kids. After that, Lesley's parents took us to the airport and we had a bumpy flight home.

It was a short, busy trip, but I really enjoyed getting to spend time with so many people. While plane tickets and weddings aren't cheap, we appreciate everyone who took care of us, including both of our parents who drove us around and paid for our meals and Lesley's sister and new husband and our friend who let us stay with them overnight. We enjoyed our time there, but are glad to be sleeping in our own bed again.

The roads here in Seattle are mostly asphalt and as I've mentioned before, they're often terrible. I talked to someone about it once and he said that every few years they'll repave the road with new asphalt but it only takes a few months for snow tires and ice to create cracks and bring back the same potholes that were there before.

Recently, though, the city has been repaving some of the major roads around here with concrete. As they were digging up the layers of asphalt, I noticed that these layers had just been laid on top of bricks, so the roads are pretty old. They had to remove these bricks to lay concrete and had a few lanes closed while doing one side of the street. The side they did in concrete was very smooth, so I was excited to see what things would look like when they finished both sides.

However, for some reason, it appears that they continued repaving these roads with asphalt. But, wait, why? Why didn't they just continue repaving with concrete? I don't know. Maybe they'll go back later and dig up the asphalt and finish repaving with concrete? Who knows. We don't drive that much, so it's actually not a big deal as long as they keep the sidewalks open, but I wonder why they'd ever use asphalt again.

The nation's first Art Walk began in Seattle and First Thursday is still a strong local tradition. The First Thursday of every month, more than 50 art galleries in Pioneer Square stay open late to share their art with the public.

I've been to a few galleries here, but have wanted to do First Thursday ever since we moved here and just haven't been able. Finally, last week, we went to check it out.

There's a wide variety of contemporary art represented, including sculpture, blown glass, and painting. We probably visited less than a third of all the galleries but there were some neat artistic concepts that I hadn't seen before. Some of the art was strange, some was neat, some was uninteresting, and some was impressive. Some of the galleries were very busy and, being a bit small, became crowded. Some of the other people seemed to be art connoisseurs, but not the majority. I really enjoyed going and am looking forward to going back and seeing some of the galleries we missed.

Our neighborhood has developed a lot over the last few years and is continuing to grow. As part of a plan to be more of a community, the Cascade Farmer's Market was launched on June 26th, and will continue every Thursday until the end of September from 3-7pm. Most other neighborhoods already have farmer's markets in place and have been successful, so hopefully ours will too.

So, we decided to go last Thursday and see what it was like. It's on Pontius, just east of the Cascade Playground. It wasn't nearly as big as the other ones we've been do, but it was decent. We bought some freshly picked raspberries, a cherry strudel which was delicious, and a pint of blackberry ice cream from the Whidbey Island Ice Cream Company. It was all very good and I'm looking forward to going again in the future.

Every year there is a big party at Gas Works Park for Independence Day called the "WaMu (now Chase) Family Fourth." We thought about going this year and staying, since we walked around Lake Union last year and saw it, but didn't stop. However, this year the only fireworks in Seattle would be on Lake Union, which meant that it would be even busier than last year. So we ended up just staying home most of the day and went out around 8:30 to find a spot either south or east of the lake.

We went up onto the I-5 overpass that leads to Capitol Hill, but eventually police closed the bridge to both cars and pedestrians, so we couldn't stay. It was definitely one of the best views, so it was annoying that they made us leave. After that we went down to the lake and stopped somewhere along Fairview and ended up having a decent view of all the fireworks. It wasn't too crowded where we stopped, which was nice. A boat and a couple of buildings were in the way a little bit, but not that bad.

The show lasted about 20 minutes and seemed better than last year. We were also close enough to hear the music that was playing along with the fireworks, which was pretty cool. I'm kind of glad we ended up not going to Gas Works Park because of the huge crowd of about 50,000 with traffic jams from the afternoon to 1:30 in the morning.

Here are some pictures from last night:

Mount Si is possibly the best-known hike in the area, but with a 3,200 foot elevation gain plus an optional 300 foot rock climb, we had been a little intimidated to hike it. Yesterday, though, we finally decided to do it. Since the weather was going to be sort of warm (though we didn't know how warm), we set out early. When we arrived around 8:15, there were already around 75 cars in the parking lot.

The trail is well worn and has a pretty consistent 15% grade, which is probably about as steep as the hill we have to climb to get to Capitol Hill (which has already seemed really steep to me). And it goes on for 4 miles. The weather was pretty comfortable when we started, but we got warm as we went along. It was a workout, but we made it to the top in just over two hours. We didn't do the rock climb at the top, called the Haystack, but we sat and ate some food we brought and enjoyed the view. Going back down was tiring on our legs and knees, but less physically exhausting, and Lesley was pretty tired by the end of it. We had frozen some Gatorade overnight and left it in the car, so it was melted but still cold when we got to the car. The whole hike, including the stop at the top, took us a little less than 5 hours. Unfortunately, even though it was only around 80 outside, having the car air conditioning running would've felt great, but for some reason it wasn't working.

Anyway, today our legs are a little sore, but not too bad. I'm hoping we can do some other reasonably challenging hikes like this soon.

We're trying to decide if we want to hike tomorrow. Well, we know we want to, but we don't know if it will be too hot. We were planning to do a fairly difficult hike and the high tomorrow is forecast to be somewhere between 84 and 90. That's kind of a wide range to plan for, considering it's only a day away.

But, the weather here is complicated. Most forecasts for Seattle have the weather around 85 degrees. But, we're actually hiking just 30 miles east of here, which could be cooler or several degrees warmer than Seattle (90ºF according to one forecast). And on the coast, less than 100 miles due west of Seattle, the forecast high for Friday is only 70º. East of Seattle, past the Cascade mountain range, the forecast high for Friday is around 98º. So, over 190 miles or so, the forecast high varies by 28 degrees.

The water and mountains cause amazing weather variability in weather in other seasons as well. The coast (near an actual rainforest in Olympic National Park) gets more than 12 inches of rain per month for 5 months out of the year. It's so much rain that the Weather.com bar graph can't accurately fit the full bars.

The rain in "rainy Seattle" tops out at 6 inches on average in the month of December. But North Bend, just 30 miles east of the city and part of the Cascade foothills gets 50% more precipitation every month of the year. You could say that Seattle is the driest place around. Unless you count Sequim, just 50 miles directly northwest of Seattle but in a natural rain shadow provided by the Olympic mountains, which gets about 16 inches of rain per year compared to Seattle's 38 inches, which is still more than the 9 inches of precip that falls in Wenatchee just over the Cascade mountains. So, over the same 190 miles between Wenatchee and the coast, the precipitation varies by more than an order of magnitude (113" on the coast, 9" in Wenatchee).

In the winter, all of that precipitation is snow on the mountains. But at slightly lower elevations it might be snow or it might be rain. In December when there was that crazy snowstorm in Seattle, though the city streets had an inch or so of ice, my coworkers who lived on the Eastside had feet of snow around their homes.

I remember on the local weather in Texas, meteorologists would tell the weather nearby: "It's 90 in Denison, 91 in Fort Worth, and 89 in Dallas." And I thought that was stupid because there was never a big variation. But here, there is a big variation because the mountains and the water have a big affect on weather patterns. So, though I'd like to know if it will be cool enough to hike tomorrow, I can understand why forecasting here tends to be varied and inaccurate.

The weather has been great lately (though it's a bit warm over the next few days). Last evening after dinner I had the chance to go for a walk while talking to a friend on the phone. I walked in an area that I'd never walked before, which is surprising considering that we've been here for more than 16 months and I really like to walk.

First I took the Lakeview bridge across I-5. It's a more gradual incline than taking Denny Way and it provides a great view of Lake Union. On Tuesdays, a lot of people take their boats sailing on Lake Union. As I walked along the bridge I could see dozens of sailboats on the picturesque lake.

I had walked across the bridge before, but normally on the way up to Capitol Hill. This time I went north on Lakeview Drive along I-5. It's not the most interesting place to walk, though if I craned my neck up and looked to the right I could see some fancy houses on the hill. I also passed a mountain bike park under I-5. Most exciting however was that I spotted a car with a Delaware license plate, which was the last state we needed to see to have seen all 50 states.

Next, as I walked, I saw some public stairs. Stairs aren't uncommon considering our topography, but I don't use them because, really, I don't want to climb stairs, you know? But, I tired of Lakeview Drive and decided to go up the stairs and see where they went. I don't know how far it actually was, but it seemed like 10 flights of stairs. It could've been more because they took me all the way up to Capitol Hill.

I walked around Capitol Hill in some of the area that we didn't spend much time in last week. I was trying to keep my eye out for a place that we might like to rent when our lease ends, but didn't see much. After a while I found a small park and stopped to rest for a few minutes before heading back down the hill along Denny and then home. It was a great walk and I'm glad that I got to do it.

We went to our second Sounders game of the season today. The first one we went to was the Sounders second home game, when they were playing great. Over the last few games they've had quite a few ties and needed to get a win. Fortunately, we were there to see it today as part of a record crowd of 32,526. The Sounders didn't play that well in the first half, but got a goal and then got a couple more in the second. It was nice to see a 3-0 victory. And, the weather at the game was nice, though a little breezy and cool in the shade, but at least we didn't burn. We're not planning to go to another Sounders game this season, but are hoping to see them get a lot more wins on TV.

We usually go hike somewhere every weekend, so this morning we hiked Little Si, like we did last year. We went at the end of April last year, so there was still snow on Mount Si, but this time all the snow was gone. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I remembered, probably because we've done a lot of hiking since then and gotten used to harder hikes. We got started early and were done by about noon. The weather was nice and cool on the way up, but it was starting to get warm by the time we finished coming back down.

The main reason we did Little Si today was so that we could make sure we could handle hiking Mount Si next Friday, since we have the day off for the 4th of July. We also wanted to try out our new hiking poles we bought last week. They weren't much help on the way up, but on the way down they helped keep us more steady, especially while navigating rocky areas.

So, we plan on hiking Mount Si next Friday. It'll be a tough hike, with an elevation climb of like 3,500 feet. But I've heard at the top there are great views of Seattle and Mount Rainier, so hopefully it will be worth all the work.

Capitol Hill is the neighborhood to the east of us and is one of Seattle's densest, most vibrant neighborhoods and is a center of liberal ideals and hipster counterculture. It's a diverse neighborhood, though, and is livable for everyone, with a movie theater, grocery stores, a couple great parks, lots of coffee shops and restaurants, architecture that spans the past hundred years, and a light rail station (opening in 2016).

We spent time there last Saturday, starting with brunch of french toast and eggs benedict at Table 219, across from our favorite bagel place. We walked around the neighborhood and were impressed by all of the old church buildings that we discovered dotting the neighborhood. We stopped and picked up some tea at Remedy Teas, which has 150 types of organic tea. Then we walked along Broadway, the main thoroughfare, and ran into a couple friends from church on our way to Volunteer Park. Though the day started off cool and breezy, the sun had come out and Lesley and I enjoyed relaxing in the shade. After that, we walked through Lakeview Cemetery, where Bruce Lee is buried. Then we headed back south and walked along Millionaire's Row, which is lined with large homes from the early 20th century. We stopped briefly at Cal Anderson park, which was full of people. Then, we got some crepes at Saley and headed home.

Capitol Hill is close to downtown, very walkable, and always interesting. It's my favorite neighborhood in the city and I would love to live there.

Quick Capitol Hill facts:

• Population: 30,409


• Population density per square mile: 18,121


• 2008 Median Home Price: $352,000


• 2008 Median Condo Sales Price: $315,000


• Cars per capita: 0.4


• 12th most walkable neighborhood in Seattle (the parts of Capitol Hill that we visit are some of the most walkable in the city, but it's a large neighborhood with a lot of area that is just residential)

Sources:
1. Seattle Metropolitan Real Estate
2. Walk Score: Seattle's Most Walkable Neighborhoods

Two new snow leopard cubs were born at the Woodland Park Zoo right here in Seattle! Here's an article from the PI and a post on the Zoo's blog about them. The last time we went to the zoo, we went specifically to see the adult snow leopards and were disappointed when they didn't show up. I'm not sure when the cubs will be publicly displayed. We probably won't be going back to the zoo for a while though, since it's sort of expensive, like $16 a person or something.

Today was the longest day of the year. The sun rose at 5:11 AM and set at 9:10 PM, making the day almost a full 16 hours long. The sun will set at 9:10 for the rest of the month before gradually setting earlier.

Yesterday, I had sort of a scare with Sassy, my cat I grew up with since like 1996. I called mom around lunchtime yesterday since she had called me earlier in the morning (but I didn't answer), and she told me that her and dad were taking Sassy to the vet because she's been licking this rather grotesque bulge on her right arm and it's turned pretty red recently and looked like it might bleed soon.

Anyway, she wasn't sure what was wrong with her and she hasn't been eating as much lately either. She said they might have to put her down if it was going to be too expensive to do surgery.

So they took her to the vet and when I got out of work at 4, she called and said that it's a tumor on her right arm and that they're going to do surgery next week to remove it! So she's going to be ok! And that nasty bulge will finally be gone. And the vet said that she's about 8 pounds, and still very healthy for a cat her age, which is probably about 15 years.

I was so relieved when they said she'd be ok. Now we get to have her for at least a couple more years.

Here's a video I took of her last time I was there:

After a record-tying 29-day dry spell at Sea-Tac airport, today began with rain. I know Seattle has a reputation for constant rain, but it's not really like that. Even though it hadn't rained in quite a while, I didn't notice that much had turned brown, the ample trees, bushes, and flowers still looked lush to me. Still, while I enjoyed the sun, I like the rain as well and was glad to see cloudy skies and drizzle today on my way to work.

When I moved out of my parents' house, I started a collection of napkins. That is to say, whenever I had napkins left over from eating fast food, I set the extra napkins in the kitchen to use later. This continued after Lesley moved in and for several months we had such a good backlog of napkins that we didn't have to use any of the napkins that we bought from the store.

It seemed that our napkin collection began to dwindle when we moved here and it ran out not too long after that. Since then, we've relied almost exclusively on our package of store-bought napkins (the first package of napkins Lesley bought after moving out of her parents' house). We've definitely eaten out less since moving here, but that's probably more due to having few fast food and even fewer fast casual restaurants nearby, than to any type of conscious decision. Not only are there fewer of those places nearby, but some of our old favorites don't even exist up here. Not having those places around isn't much of a big deal, it just means we'll have to buy some more napkins sometime soon.

A: 222 Yale Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109 (see icon below):


We live close to REI, the outdoor gear store, and on a few occasions other pedestrians have asked us where REI is. It's a big building, but it doesn't have a big sign on it. And, since the streets are in a pretty consistent grid pattern, the surroundings offer no apparent guidance to the store. It's nice to be able to offer directions to somewhere we know how to get to. I'm sure REI would benefit by placing some directional signs in the area, but until then, I'll be happy to provide directions to whoever needs it, either in person or from the map above.

Light rail is 32 days away from beginning service (I only know that because Seattle Transit Blog is doing a countdown). Last week, there were frequent test trains in the bus tunnel on my way to and from work. Though light rail doesn't really take me anywhere I need to go, I'm really looking forward to riding it for fun. It will be really nice when it starts running all the way to the airport this December.

Our friend in Texas challenged us to a license plate game. Whoever gets to see all 50 states first wins. The rules are that you cannot go out of your way and make trips simply to see new license plates. It must be seen on your normal day to day routine. Also, U-haul vehicles, semis, and anything like that don't count. So, for the past month, we've been keeping track of the date we saw each new plate, the make and model of car, the color, and where we saw it.

The first few days we were playing were insane. It only took us 3 days to see 22 different plates, including Hawaii (16th state we saw). It's now been a month and we've seen 48 states (we're on pace to win). The only ones we need are Delaware and Kentucky. We were shocked to see Rhode Island this past weekend.

I had no idea that so many people drove to visit here or move here. In downtown alone on any given day, we usually see at least 5 different states other than Washington. The most common are Oregon, California, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and Texas or Illinois. We see a lot of British Columbia plates too, probably as much as we see Oregon.

Here's a map showing when we saw a plate from each state:

Well, as I expected several months ago, a permanent crane has gone up almost directly in front of the Space Needle, partially blocking our nice view. Pretty soon a tall building will completely block our view. How disappointing. And it really sucks for my parents since they couldn't see the view before it was obstructed.

While we don't do our regular grocery shopping at Whole Foods, it is nice at times to have one nearby. It's on the way home from downtown and less than a 10 minute walk to get there from our apartment.

They have a quality selection of fruits and vegetables, and many types of international cheeses, all of which can be hard to resist. Sometimes we like to stop in and pick up fresh bread to have with dinner. Since they carry a premium selection of foods, including many natural and organic brands, it's different to shop there than shopping at a conventional grocery store. I like to see the different foods they have there and look for new things that I might want to try. Every time I stop in, it feels like a treat, especially since it's not far away.

While I still think I'd like to live closer to our regular grocery store, I'm glad to have Whole Foods nearby.

I don't think we've mentioned this on the blog, but we're making a short trip (about 2.5 days) to Fort Worth the weekend of July 11th for my sister's wedding. We'll be leaving Seattle Thursday night and staying through Sunday afternoon. We weren't planning on going back this summer, but when my sister scheduled her wedding for July, we decided to change our plans.

It'll be a really busy weekend, since I'm the matron of honor and Troy is the only usher. We'll have to go to the rehearsal, the dinner, arrive early before the wedding for pictures, and then of course, the wedding, and reception, among other things. It'll be crazy! I've already gotten my dress altered and pressed and I've also bought my shoes. Troy has his suit, tie, and shoes ready to go. Hopefully our stuff won't get wrinkled on the plane. I think there are places for the flight attendants to hang clothes like that, so that should work out.

It'll be nice to be there for my sister and see the rest of the family at the wedding. I just wish it wasn't going to be a 100 degrees! Hopefully we don't melt during the short time we're there.

After hiking near the Mailbox Peak trail, we decided to do a relatively easy hike in our book on the way back to Seattle. It was a paved trail with a viewpoint of Snoqualmie Falls. The trail used to be a rail line, so it was very flat. The cool, humid weather had brought a lot of slugs out and we were constantly dodging them as we walked along the trial. At the end, we sat on a bench and had some snacks, enjoying the slightly-obstructed view and the sound of the falls. Some rain came along before I could take a picture, but the trees kept us dry and the rain stopped by the time we started heading back.

The weather yesterday was cool and overcast, great hiking weather, so we set out to do a hike in our book. Unfortunately, the road was closed (a problem we've had before), so we stopped nearby where a lot of other cars were parked. We didn't know what trail it was, but we figured we'd try it out and turn around if we didn't like it. Not too far along the way, we saw the name of the trail: Mailbox Peak. That hike was also in our book, but we decided not to do it because it's pretty difficult, as the sign at the trailhead warned us. So, not wanting to hike to the top of Mailbox Peak, we followed along another trail, which appeared to have been used by vehicles at some time. It was a quiet trail and went over some mountain streams. The surface was rather rocky, but it wasn't very steep. It was a decent trail, but nothing too exciting, so after about 30 minutes, we turned around and went back to the car.

The Space Needle was lit up orange-ish the last two nights along with a vertical beam of light. We didn't know why, but found out that Microsoft did this as part of their marketing campaign to announce their new search engine, Bing.

Well it's a scorcher today. Temperatures outside are actually above a comfortable room temperature, topping out at 86°F. That's only 14 degrees less than triple digits. Why on my way home today, I even started to break a sweat! Good thing I didn't pass out from heat exhaustion.

Sarcasm aside, the temperatures are close to record-breaking, and since a lot of people don't have air conditioning, I can see how a heat advisory might be necessary. Still, we've managed to keep our apartment around 80°F without air conditioning and the heat outside is much more comfortable than the 100°F summers I lived with for most of my life.

I thought this article from the Seattle times about a proposed weather radar station was interesting. The current radars are located in Portland and on Camano Island, but the Olympic and Oregon coast mountain ranges prevent those radar stations from seeing incoming storms. Severe weather forecasting would be much improved with an additional radar on the Washington coast, according to this excerpt:

Much of the weather service's change of heart can be traced to several major storms that battered the region over the past several years, Cliff Mass (UW meteorologist) believes. The worst hit in early December 2007, with hurricane-force winds on the coast and drenching rains and floods in Southwest Washington that killed several people and shut down Interstate 5 for days. A coastal radar could have provided some advance warning for areas hit hardest by heavy rainfall, Mass said.

The National Weather Service is finally seeing the importance of a new coastal radar and has asked for $7 million in the 2010 US budget. I'm surprised it's taken so long to gain this much support for what seems like a much-needed additional radar. I always thought it was strange that the radar images weren't that great when checking them for storms.

We used to eat Mrs. Baird's bread when we lived in Texas, but they don't have that in Seattle. So we've tried several kinds of bread here, including the generic Safeway and QFC brands, neither of which stay fresh for very long and don't taste that great. Then we decided to try a local brand, Franz. We won't be going back to any other kind of bread, because the Franz bread we've had has been so delicious! We've tried the potato bread and the milk and honey bread and both are really soft and moist and stay fresh longer. They're smaller loaves than the generic brands, but it's definitely worth the extra few cents. And lately we've found it on sale for $2 a loaf! I'd have to say that Franz bread is better than Mrs. Baird's.

Today we went to eat donuts at Mighty-O Donuts that I mentioned we had last weekend at the Folklife Festival. Their donuts are cake-like, which I think I prefer over the other kind of donut. I got the French Toast and Cinnamon Sugar and Troy got the Topless Chocolate (basically a devil's food donut without any icing) and a regular glazed. I especially liked my French Toast donut. We'll have to go back again and get some different flavors next time.

After that, we decided to go see some short films that are playing at the Seattle International Film Festival, which runs from May 21 to June 14. SIFF is the largest film festival in the US. This year there are over "268 features and 124 shorts from 62 countries over 25 days, with 31 World Premieres, 45 North American Premieres, and 13 US Premieres." So we walked to the SIFF Cinema in the Seattle Center to see "The World of Possibilities", which is a series of 8 unrelated short films. Here is a summary of the package according to the SIFF website:

The challenges of life around the globe are illuminated with fascinating portraits of people and places in pursuit of personal goals.

We were asked to rate each short film and somehow our ratings affect which ones eventually get nominated for the Academy Awards. Most of the short films were under 15 minutes long and were very interesting. We especially liked one called Andong, a story about a young Filipino boy who's obsessed with watching tv and begs his mother to give him 20 pesos in order to buy a lottery ticket, for which the prize is a color tv. The story follows the boy's attempts to find money and his troubles with his younger brother. It's a really cute movie.

A few of the other short films were unimpressive, and one had pretty bad dialogue, but overall it was very entertaining and I'm glad we were able to see some independent movies during the SIFF. On the way home, we stopped by QFC to buy a few groceries, including filet mignon steaks, potatoes, and asparagus for lunch tomorrow.

After dinner, we went rollerblading at Alki beach, which was really nice. The weather was great all day, with highs in the 70s, but it was especially nice once it started to cool off around 7, which is when we went rollerblading. It was pretty cool seeing the beautiful Seattle skyline while rollerblading too. I'm looking forward to eating our nice steak lunch tomorrow.

We have our event tickets for the winter Olympics in February, one of which is on Saturday and the other is the next Tuesday. Unfortunately, we have no idea where to stay for 4 nights. I'm pretty sure all the major hotels in and around Vancouver are already booked solid. Even the ones that might have a some availability would cost an exorbitant amount of money - we saw a Best Western for over $300 a night. I don't really want to drive to and from Vancouver and go across the border every day either. Maybe we can find some hostels or something. I'd also like to just take Amtrak up there and back so we don't have a car to mess with in what will probably be a very crowded downtown Vancouver.

Anyway, I saw this article in the Seattle Times about the ticket sales and thought it was interesting. Here's an excerpt:

Because of high demand, most [prospective buyers] received only a fraction of the events requested, and many fans were shut out altogether. That prompted protests from Americans, particularly in Washington state, where about 40 percent of the total U.S. ticket requests originated from. Many U.S. fans had believed that proximity to British Columbia would translate into a larger share of the ticket pie for Americans.

I thought this was interesting too:

Because of record-high ticket demand in Canada, the original 48,000-ticket U.S. allotment for individual (non-travel-package) buyers was only about 3 percent of the Games' total 1.6 million tickets.

That makes me feel lucky we received half the tickets we requested. We just need a place to stay...

Lower Queen Anne is a Seattle neighborhood close to us and pretty close to downtown. It's also adjacent to Seattle Center, so we spent some time in Lower Queen Anne on the same day we went to the Folklife Festival.

Lower Queen Anne is a pretty dense neighborhood, but seems to have quite a few parking lots. There aren't really any houses, mostly apartments, town homes, retail, and more office buildings than most Seattle neighborhoods have. Most areas of the neighborhood have apartments no newer than the 70s, but there are some new town homes, and there are a few major grocery stores. There are several restaurants and bars to serve residents and people attending special events going on at Seattle Center. Though Lower Queen Anne isn't as much of a cohesive, self-contained village as other neighborhoods are, it's considered the 9th most walkable neighborhood in the city and seems pretty livable, if not especially remarkable.

In our time there, we walked around a lot of the neighborhood, including many of the streets that we hadn't had reason to explore before. We also spent some time sitting at Counterbalance Park, named after the counterbalance system that used to help trolleys up and down Queen Anne Hill. Lower Queen Anne is pretty close to the waterfront, too, so we walked along the water in the afternoon. Later on, we stopped in Easy Street Records and bought a CD and we also picked up a book at Twice Sold Tales. We ate dinner at one of the many Thai places in Lower Queen Anne (unfortunately we picked the wrong one to go to, as it wasn't very good). Overall, we had a pretty good afternoon exploring the neighborhood. If we moved to another neighborhood, I would consider living in Lower Queen Anne because it's close to downtown and has a lot of things within walking distance.

This past Sunday we went for another hike, this time to Twin Falls near North Bend.

It just happens to be the hike of the month on the Pacific Northwest Hikes website, which we frequently use to read summaries of hikes. So that may explain why it was so busy, along with it being Memorial Day weekend. It's a relatively short hike, only 2.5 miles and about a 1300 feet gain. It runs along a pretty fast moving river and then starts to climb to the different levels of the waterfall. At the top are two distinct waterfalls, the twin falls.

Anyway, it was pretty busy on Sunday afternoon, so I'm sort of glad it was a short hike. We like hiking in solitude much more than with tons of kids and people in the way all the time. But, it was still a really nice hike with lots of natural beauty to look at.

The Northwest Folklife Festival is a big deal here. Here's the description from the official website:

One of the nation's largest community arts festivals, the annual Memorial Day weekend celebration invites everyone to play, dance, sing, learn, taste, and participate! Participants enjoy hundreds of performances and interactive events.

And a description from Wikipedia:

It brings together an estimated 250,000 visitors, 1,800 volunteers, and more than 6,000 musicians, dancers, and other performers. Admission is free, but donations are encouraged. The first festival was held in 1972 and has since grown to become the largest free festival of its kind in North America.

We spent a few hours on Saturday afternoon there and had a pretty good time. Like any festival, there were lots of booths and food stands. There were also musicians and performers everywhere. We arrived around 11 and had a half dozen mini cinnamon sugar donuts from the Mighty-O Donuts stand. Then we walked around and checked out some of the booths, then we ate lunch - Lesley got a gyro and I had cilantro salmon, which was actually pretty good, despite there being no line to order. We sat while we ate and listened to a bluegrass band. After that, we checked out a few of the crafts booths and almost bought a mirror. As the day went on, the festival got really busy.

Later on, Lesley got some roasted corn on the cob and then we stood and listened to a band with lots of xylophones. The music was actually really cool and probably the highlight of the festival for me. The last thing we did was buy an apple dumpling with caramel sauce and cinnamon covered ice cream, which we enjoyed on our walk home. It was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to going back next year.

Here's a video of the xylophone music I liked:

A thunderstorm rolled into the area while we were watching the Mariners game last night. We heard a crack of thunder and then a few minutes later we saw lightning for the first time since we moved here! It was so exciting. We saw lightning three times in a span of less than 10 minutes and heard the accompanying thunder. It cleared away not long after that, but it was nice while it lasted.

In other news, the highs after today will be in the upper 60s and 70s with mostly sunny skies for the next week! I'm looking forward to the great weather this Memorial Day weekend. Time for some hiking, relaxing, and exploring another Seattle neighborhood!

Edit: This is a video of the lightning we saw hitting the Space Needle from our apartment.

Seattle has many distinct neighborhoods with their own history and culture. Recently we spent the afternoon in Fremont, Seattle's most artistic and uniquely eccentric neighborhood.

There is a rocket in the middle of downtown, indicating what residents consider as the Center of the Universe. We spent most of our time not too far from the rocket, in downtown Fremont. We started the day with lunch at Costas Opa Greek Restaurant, which is situated prominently near the center of Fremont. We started with pita and hummus, then Lesley had the gyros, and I had a plate of many different types of food. It was good, but I ate too much, which slowed me down throughout the afternoon.

We relaxed under the Aurora bridge, watching boats go by and pass under the Fremont Bridge. Then, we checked out some unique shops in the neighborhood and spent plenty of time browsing through vintage junk and local t-shirts. Since we went on a Sunday, the Fremont Sunday market was going on. There were antiques, local art and accessories, and a lot of counterculture people. We also spent time walking along the Burke-Gilman trail, which is a popular trail, especially for biking. Before we left that evening, we had some sushi at Chiso Sushi.

There were many unique things to see in Fremont, like a troll and a Lenin statue. There are lots of houses in the neighborhood to the north, which aren't as quirky as downtown. Overall, though, the neighborhood has a uniquely artistic character that makes it one of Seattle's most interesting neighborhoods.

Quick Fremont facts:

• Population: 10,389


• Population density per square mile: 10,760


• 2008 Median Home Price: $483,475


• 2008 Median Condo Sales Price: $280,500


• Cars per capita: 0.6


• 14th most walkable neighborhood in Seattle

Sources:
1. Seattle Metropolitan Real Estate
2. Walk Score: Seattle's Most Walkable Neighborhoods

Last Sunday, my cousin's husband, Ben, arrived and we had dinner at Red Fin sushi restaurant. I'd been there before and knew it was good, but this time it was really good. There are several pieces in each roll and they're not that expensive, maybe $6 to $10 each. Two rolls were definitely enough for me. We also had some really good Malbec-Merlot red wine bottled by Three Rivers Winery. We've been looking for it ever since then at all the grocery stores we pass by, but haven't found it.

My cousin, Laurie, arrived Friday afternoon and we went to eat at Red Mill Burgers and it was as good as always. After that we drove to Alki Beach and around West Seattle for the nice views of the city. The weather was really good and Mount Rainier was easy to see, which was nice to show off.

Saturday was a full day. We met them at Pike Place Market for the annual Seattle Cheese Festival. We made sure we got there early before the big crowds showed up so we wouldn't have to stand in long lines. There were so many different kinds of cheese to try. It was all completely free too, so that was very nice. I bought myself a t-shirt with the Cheese Festival logo on it.

Ben and Laurie bought some grapes and assorted berries from a fruit stand and then we went down to the waterfront to ride the ferry to Bainbridge Island. We had perfect weather all day, sunny with a high of about 75, which made it very easy to see the surrounding mountains, including Mount Rainier. Since there's not much to do on Bainbridge Island, we just rode the ferry right back to Seattle. We were kind of hungry, so we stopped and got some piroshkies and some mac n' cheese from Beecher's.

Then we went to the Space Needle to see the nice view. We were able to use our annual passes and get all of us to the top for free. We pointed out where our apartment is and where I work. It was pretty busy, so we didn't stay too long. After that, we stopped by Kerry Park for another great view of the city. After that, we went to the Ballard Locks and drove through a few neighborhoods, including Ballard, Wallingford, the U district, and Fremont.

We went to Volunteer Park and went up in the water tower and stopped by the gigantic tree. Then we ate dinner at the Icon Grill, which was excellent. We started the meal with artichoke gruyere dip, which was to die for. I had the fried chicken with mashed potatoes and Troy had the mushroom ravioli. We all shared a side dish of their famous macaroni and cheese, which was also incredible. We also shared some red wine and some carrot cake for dessert. We were all stuffed! Ben and Laurie were very generous and paid for our food too. I can't wait to go back to Icon Grill sometime.

It was nice to spend some time with my cousins, since we don't see them that often, and when we do, the rest of the family is always there. Since we were outside all day Saturday, we all got a little sunburned, but other than that, it was a really fun weekend and I'm glad the weather cooperated very well. I'm looking forward to them visiting again someday soon.

After not getting to hike much at either of the first two trails we tried, we headed toward another one. This one wasn't blocked my water or by snow, but was very busy. There were three waterfalls along the trail. A lot of people turned around after the lower falls, so it was much more enjoyable when we weren't sharing the trail with so many people. The waterfalls were neat, and though we were warm when we started, it cooled off as we went along. Overall it was a pretty good hike.

After our first attempt to hike was obstructed by a washed out road, we drove in the direction of a nearby hike listed in our book. Of course nearby is a relative term, it took a little while to get out there. And it was closer to the mountain pass, so there was some snow on the sides of the road. Then, when it came to turn off toward the trailhead, the road was blocked with a little bit of snow. We contemplated just parking there and hiking up the road, but decided to try an alternate trailhead, which was also blocked by snow. We found a third trailhead that wasn't totally obstructed, but after encountering patchy snow on the trail, decided it wasn't really that fun to hike on snow, even though it was kind of neat that there was still snow around in May. So, here are a few pictures of snow near this hike.

We wanted to take advantage of the great weather this Saturday, so we left pretty early to hike about 60 miles away from Seattle. Our book noted that sometimes the road is closed, but the turnoff for the hike is before the closure. So, when we saw a sign saying that the road was closed ahead, we didn't think too much of it. After a few miles, though, we saw that the road was closed before our turn. The road had been washed out, which apparently isn't too uncommon here in the Spring. It was pretty cool to see, so here are a few pictures of the road overrun by water along with pictures we took of the scenery after we turned around on the way back to the highway.

I don't know if we've ever posted about how unusual the names of places are here. Cities and towns in this area are named with Native American words and it's often not clear how to pronounce them. This is common in a lot of places, but the pronunciation of these names just seems more difficult to interpret. For a sampling, here's a list of nearby place names:

• Yakima


• Poulsbo


• Puyallup


• Tukwila


• Mukilteo


• Snohomish


• Enumclaw


• Snoqualmie


• Cle Elum


• Sequim


• Wenatchee


• Alki


• Skykomish


• Fife


• Stillaguamish (River)

Last night I made my very first apple pie from scratch! Well, mostly from scratch, I used a pre-made crust. I hadn't really thought about it much before, but we live in Washington state, where more than 60% of commercially sold apples are grown in the US. So I figured I should make an apple pie. It's probably my favorite fruit pie.

I used 6 apples, 5 Golden Delicious and 1 Granny Smith. It took a while to peel and cut them all, but it was definitely worth it. I mixed all the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, and salt and mixed it with the apple slices. I just used the pre-made Pillsbury pie crust since I didn't want to spend the time making my own crust. After baking it for 40 minutes, it was ready to be eaten.

Unfortunately two of the apples punctured the crust as it was baking, so it didn't look at pretty, and some of the syrup leaked out onto the bottom of the oven, that we now need to clean. But oh my gosh, did it taste good! It tasted like what I've had at restaurants, except better! The crust was surprisingly flaky and soft. We ate 3 slices last night, right after it came out of the oven. I'm sure it will all be gone by tomorrow night. I love apple pie!

As the housing industry continues its economic slump, house builders are finding that smaller homes are selling well in some markets. In fact, after significant increases in the average size of a new home, the average home size fell last year for the first time since 1994. These smaller homes are especially popular in Seattle as well as in Portland.

I've noticed that houses in general here seem to be smaller on average than those in Texas. Also, upscale neighborhoods here have lots of nice homes, but fewer and smaller McMansions. I'm not exactly sure why this is, but I'd speculate that since Seattle is a more dense urban area than many others nationwide, people here are used to things being more compact and build homes more appropriate for a city than for a ranch. It seems to be a cultural thing, and I get the sense that many people think of larger homes and McMansions as being tacky, whereas I rarely got that sense when I lived in Texas. And, while I'm speculating, I'll speculate that a higher cost of here makes smaller homes more attractive, too.

Anyway, I always find it interesting when Seattle is mentioned for being different from other parts of the country, and thought I'd offer my comments on smaller houses being popular here.

As I posted before, my cousin's husband will arrive in town this Sunday and he's invited us to have dinner with him that night. Not sure where we'll eat.

My cousin gets in next Friday and we'll see them both over that weekend. I'm excited about showing them our apartment and doing fun stuff in Seattle! We might try a new restaurant with them next weekend. I was thinking the Icon Grill, Dahlia Lounge, or Lola (although I have been to Lola once before). I've heard the macaroni and cheese at Icon Grill is really good, so maybe we'll go there. I made a list of the major things they need to see, most of which are viewpoints or involve being outside, so hopefully the weather cooperates!

I know we've posted about this a couple times before, but I have to post about it again, because seriously, we run into people here all the time. We live in a city, where there are tons of places to be, so how does it end up that we're in the same place as these other people? We don't know that many people, at least I don't think we do, so I don't know how it keeps happening.

Anyway, here's a list of all the different times we've seen people we know around town (and outside town).

• Walked past a friend downtown, shortly after we moved here


• Saw a guy from church at the airport


• Saw a friend and her mother at the grocery store late one evening


• Ran into a friend at Target one night


• Walked by another friend on our way up to Capitol Hill one Friday night


• Ran into our friend (who we had seen at Target) and her husband (whose sister we had seen at the grocery store) at the Space Needle


• Ran into another guy from church at the downtown library


• Saw a guy from work who I ride the bus with in La Conner (65 miles away from Seattle)


• Saw another person I know from church downtown

This past Saturday we were invited to go play Whirlyball in Edmonds with a friend from church and some of her fellow civil engineering associates. Whirlyball is a mixture of bumper cars, lacrosse, and basketball. Each team has 5 players, who drive around in bumper cars and try to score goals by using a scoop to pick up the wiffleball and shoot it at a 15" hole at the height of a basketball goal. You're not allowed to use anything but your scoop to pick up the ball, unless it gets smashed and has to be fixed by hand, or if it falls in your car. You also have to stay buckled the entire time.

I'd never played it before, but Troy said it was a lot of fun the two times he played it with his co-workers at his old job. We decided to go since we didn't really have any other important plans. We carpooled with our church friend and arrived around 1:45. We played probably 6 or 7 games at 15 minutes each or almost three hours until 4:30.

It took a while for me to really get the hang of driving the car, which didn't have brakes or a normal steering wheel. I also had a hard time figuring out how hard to swing my hand when trying to shoot and I ended up throwing the ball at the ceiling a few times. During the last game though, I just sat at mid-court usually by myself and waited for passes from my teammates. Then I would go down to our goal and I made 5 straight shots, one of which was backhanded from directly underneath the goal. I was pretty proud of that one. It was a lot of fun and I'm glad we got to go with our church friend. Unfortunately, the belt buckle bruised my right hip pretty badly and both Troy and I have a few other bruises on our legs too. It was worth it though.

In the previous 6 times we've gone to Safeco Field to see the Mariners play, they have lost each game. However, at the game we attended Friday night, despite trailing 6-1 early on, the Mariners came back to win at the bottom of the 9th.

On my way home from work, I met Lesley and her coworker and husband for dinner across the street from the stadium and we went to the game afterward. It was great weather for baseball and it was an exciting game to see. It was nice to hang out with people and I'm glad we went.