I never thought I would like wine that much. The first time I had it was probably several years ago when one of my employers gave me a bottle of Cabernet (I think) for Christmas. I tried a sip of it and it tasted awful. It was really dry and tasted strongly of alcohol. I think I had some white zinfandel for New Years once or twice, but otherwise I didn't really drink much wine after that Cabernet. It wasn't until we moved here that I became interested in trying it again. I don't like beer that much, so wine seemed to be the appropriate alternative when going to parties and group events.

I've discovered that I really like both white and red wine, mostly for the taste. I like Riesling, Pinot Grigio, and Chardonnay for white wines. As for red, I prefer Merlot or Pinot Noir. Most of those types are fairly sweet tasting, with the exception of Chardonnay and Merlot. I know I definitely don't like Cabernet Sauvignon much. If you're wanting to try to develop a taste for wine, it's probably best to start with a white wine like Riesling. It's almost a dessert wine and goes well with fruit and cheese.

It's nice that there's a good selection at all the local stores like QFC and Whole Foods. Although, it can be a little intimidating trying to choose one. We usually don't spend more than $20 on one bottle and it's typically more like $12-$14 a bottle. It's a lot to drink an entire bottle in one night, even between the two of us, so we usually save some of it for later. It definitely doesn't taste as good after it's been opened in the fridge for a few days, no matter how tightly we try to close it. There are a few cheap brands like Barefoot and Sutter Home that are usually decent, but we normally try to go for something a little nicer. One advantage those less expensive brands have is that they sell their wine in smaller bottles in packs of four, which is convenient to drink smaller amounts.

We don't drink wine more than a couple times per month, but I've also been wanting a wine rack at home so we have a place to store wine instead of just leaving it on the counter or taking up space in the fridge if we're not planning on drinking it for a while.

It's also nice that we live near a lot of areas that produce wine, such as the Yakima and Columbia Valleys. I'd like to go to those places some day and do wine tastings. Napa Valley is also on my list. I think it would be cool to buy a bottle of wine from every place we go on vacation, especially internationally. Australia produces a lot of wines, but we didn't get an Australian wine when we were there. Maybe we'll pick one up while on the Oregon coast.

We went blueberry picking last weekend and brought home over 4 pounds of blueberries. In order to use them up so they don't go bad, I decided to make a blueberry pie! It didn't take too long and wasn't much work.

First we had to separate out the smaller blueberries (since we picked two kinds), since they're more tart and better to bake with. Then I mixed sugar, cornstarch, salt, and cinnamon together with 4 cups of blueberries. I put that in a thawed, pre-made pie crust and since I only had one pie crust, I had to make a different topping that I'd never made before. It was a combination of flour, sugar, and butter. It wasn't enough to completely cover the berries, but just enough to have a crumbly sugary topping. We baked it for an hour and it was delicious! I like it even more than the blueberry cobbler I made a few weeks ago. I'll definitely have to make blueberry pies more often. In fact, we should make it an annual tradition go blueberry picking in North Bend and then make blueberry pies every summer! We still have a lot of blueberries left. Maybe we'll make some fruit smoothies or just eat them with ice cream or I guess I could make another pie!

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.

We went to pick blueberries today in North Bend with a group of friends from church. Berry picking is a fairly common thing to do around here, but we've never done it before. We went to a u-pick farm to pick our own blueberries at the base of Mount Si. There were a lot of cars in their parking lot, but there were many rows of blueberries and we rarely ran into anyone.

Picking blueberries was a new experience for me, I've never looked at a plant to find food on it and then eat it. We had to move branches aside and reach toward the back to find the ripe blueberries. There were also some thorny invasive blackberry plants that scratched us a few times.

There were two different kinds of blueberries available for picking, one was sweeter and larger and the other was more tart and better for baking. We got a little of both and ended up with four pounds of blueberries. We'll probably snack on quite a few of these and maybe make a pie or a smoothie with some others. A lot of people pick blueberries and then freeze them for later in the year. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and something that we'll look forward to doing next summer.

We haven't done much hiking this summer, but we were able to get out for a hike on Saturday. We didn't want to do anything too difficult, or too easy, so we opted to go to Rattlesnake Mountain. It's not as hard as some trails but still has a great view. The weather was really nice for hiking, in the upper 60s. I got a little tired on the way up since I haven't hiked much this summer. It was a fairly busy trail, but not as busy as some that we've done. We spent plenty of time relaxing and enjoying the view at the top before heading back down. It's probably one of my favorite hikes in the area.

We'd been hearing good things about Paseo Caribbean Restaurant in Fremont and decided to go there yesterday. We'd heard the line can get long, so we tried to make it there shortly after opening, and as such, didn't eat anything for breakfast, expecting an early lunch. Still, we ended up waiting in line for 20 minutes to order. Lesley ordered the Midnight Cuban Press and I got the popular Cuban Roast.

There isn't much room to sit inside, so we got ours to go. We were very hungry, however we had to wait probably 20 more minutes for our food to be ready. Once it was ready, we drove to nearby Woodland Park to eat on one of the many picnic tables there. I was really hungry, and even though I doubted that any sandwich could be good enough to be worth waiting for more than 40 minutes, I was glad that I had something to eat.

Once I started eating, I didn't want to stop at all. It was really good! It was also very messy, but fortunately there weren't any other people nearby, so I didn't have to interrupt eating by wiping my hands and face. I did however still have to breathe, but that didn't slow me down too much. The bread was crispy on the outside but soft and tasty on the inside, the meat was incredibly moist and tender, the caramelized onions were thick and remarkable, and the aioli (basically garlic mayonnaise) added the perfect amount of flavor. Typically I like to try a bite of Lesley's sandwich and let her try a bite of mine, but I didn't want to give up a single bite, so I didn't suggest it. I was really hungry, so anything would've tasted good, but that sandwich was great - one of the best I've ever had.

Next time we'll have to call ahead to save the wait, but I'm looking forward to going there again.

The streetcar that runs through our neighborhood and ends downtown will have a new plaza built around it at its downtown terminus over the next few months. We don't ride the streetcar often, but we walk around the area, and that part of downtown will benefit from having a plaza.

The plaza is part of an effort to create more vibrant, urban spaces for people to gather and enjoy, said Charles Bookman, SDOT's director of traffic management. The plaza surface will consist of granite pavers, illuminated at night with inlaid LED lights. The plaza will feature a kiosk for food vendors, covered parking stalls for bicyclists, new street lighting and a rain garden to drain stormwater runoff.

A second boarding platform will be installed for streetcar riders. The South Lake Union Streetcar hit 2,193 weekday boardings last month, it's highest ridership ever.

I have this dream of going to London, Liverpool, and Dublin within the next few years. I love to travel and am especially interested in international travel. I'd like to see Big Ben, the British Museum, Buckingham Palace, the Palace of Westminster, the Tower of London, Abbey Road, among several other things. In Liverpool, I'd obviously like to see all the places made famous by the Beatles such as the Cavern Club. Ireland and England are very close together and you can take a ferry between the islands. I'm not sure what I'd want to do in Dublin, but I'm sure there's lots of beautiful scenery and old castles to see in the countryside.

I'm sure it would be much more fun and easier to get around if we went with someone else or if we knew someone that lived there, like we knew our friends in Australia. It was much cheaper too because we were able to stay with them for a week instead of paying for another week of hotel rooms. International travel isn't cheap, but hopefully we can save up some money over the next two years and maybe go to London, Liverpool, and Dublin for our 5 year anniversary in 2012. Coincidentally the summer Olympics are being held in London in 2012, so we'd probably want to avoid those few weeks during the summer when it would be most crowded there. Or, we could go to some events if we wanted to spend a ton of money on it, but probably not, I guess we'll see what happens.

Last week I went to the podiatrist for the first time for my plantar fasciitis. I went back today so he could show me the x-rays of my feet and help me figure out which type of orthotics to get. He continued to explain how my feet have gotten this way. He said a lot of it has to do with genetics, but also the fact that I'm very flexible, which is a good and bad thing. The good part is that I could have been a ballerina or contortionist. The bad part is that my ligaments in my feet aren't as rigid and strong as they should be in order to keep my feet from pronating.

Looking at my x-rays was really fascinating and weird at the same time. When you're looking at feet x-rays, you're looking at 1/4th of the bones in your entire body, which I thought was crazy. Apparently my right toe bone is pointing toward the other toes by 13° more than it should. It's pointing toward my other toes to the right and my bone is sticking out too far on the left side of my right foot, if that makes sense. If I don't get this fixed now, it could obviously get much worse and eventually my toe joints would deform and fuse together, eliminating the tissue between my bones and causing arthritis and other ailments. My left big toe is worse than normal also, but not nearly as bad as my right big toe. Interestingly, I read online that 9 females to only 1 male have bunions. Also, I'm showing signs of a heel bone spur in my left foot, which is developing because of my pronation and plantar fasciitis.

So, the doctor looked at my hiking shoes and walking shoes and actually said they were pretty good. The key is for them to be pretty rigid and offer enough support. Three things are important to look for: 1) they shouldn't bend in the middle 2) I shouldn't be able to twist it too much when I'm holding it by the heel and the toe and 3) the cushioning around the heel should be stiff to where my heel doesn't lean too much one way or the other.

He showed me tons of different types of shoe inserts and we finally decided to make custom ones for my athletic and hiking shoes. So, they did the casting of my feet for the custom ones and they'll be ready to pick up in about 3 weeks. In the meantime, I also bought a pair of generic inserts for my athletic/hiking shoes to wear instead of my crappy insert I got from Foot Solutions. He showed me the difference between the Foot Solutions insert and the ones he had that I could order through him. The Foot Solutions ones weren't nearly as strong and supportive as his orthotics, so I can see why mine didn't help much. Once I get my permanent orthotics for my athletic/hiking shoes, he'll modify the generic inserts I got and make them fit my dress shoes, I think. Everything happened so fast and I felt rushed because I was late getting back to work (I went during my lunch hour).

Hopefully the permanent orthotics fix everything. Stopping the pronation sounds like the key to fixing my plantar fasciitis and my developing bunions. I'll keep everyone posted and give an update in early September.

We had some blueberries that we kind of forgot about in the fridge and didn't know what to do with them. I got the idea to bake a blueberry cobbler, so we used an online recipe to make it. A few of the blueberries were bad already, so we ended up walking to Whole Foods to get more, along with some vanilla ice cream.

I tried to make a blackberry cobbler before and it didn't turn out too great. I was afraid this would be the same, but it tasted great! The vanilla ice cream really complimented it well. It's one of the better desserts I've made from scratch. It has a ton of sugar in it, but it has fruit in it too, so it's healthy right? :-)

Earlier this year I mentioned that I have plantar fasciitis and that I went to Foot Solutions to get some shoe inserts to help. Unfortunately the inserts didn’t help and I still have plantar fasciitis, which I’ve had since February. I’ve tried all the following remedies, none of which have solved the problem:

• Icing my heel
  
• Stretching a few times a day
  
• Wearing a night splint
  
• Shoe inserts to help support my arch (which I was told was collapsing)
  
• Stayed off it for a week
  
• Reduced the amount of hiking we do
  
• Massaging my heel with a massage ball
  

So, I finally decided to go to the podiatrist to see if he could help me. I walked there after work yesterday since his office was only a 5 minute walk away from my building. It's so nice to work and live downtown and be able to walk places. Anyway, he diagnosed me with plantar fasciitis, bunions, and over-pronation. He said usually this problem happens over time and there probably wasn’t a single instance that occurred. I do believe that it happened in February because we walked around Vancouver so much and I wasn’t used to all that walking since we hadn’t done much hiking/walking during the winter.

He said I do not have high arches, just that I over-pronate and my feet become flat when I walk. The bunions have been caused by the over-pronation as well, although they haven’t gotten bad enough to bother me yet. They took x-rays of my feet while I was there and also taped my feet with some padding on the bottom. It felt tight, but the support seemed to instantly help my heel. The tape is only meant to last a few days and it’s best to keep them dry.

He recommended doing more rigorous stretching, continuing to ice my heel after activities, continuing to wear my night splint, and getting custom orthotics (shoe inserts). He said the generic ones I got from Foot Solutions are better than nothing, but that they won’t completely fix the problem. They aren’t cheap though and I haven’t met my insurance deductible this year, so I doubt insurance will cover any of the cost. The only other options are to have cortisone shots or surgery. I suppose it would be worth it to get custom ones made. I just wish I hadn’t wasted the money on the ones from Foot Solutions.

I’m going back to see him again next Tuesday so we can make the final decision on what to do. He told me to bring in all the pairs of shoes I normally wear so he can look at them and see how they’ve worn and how supportive they are and which type of orthotics would fit the best for all of them. If we decide to go with the custom orthotics, he will do a casting of my foot and send it off to be made, which takes 3 weeks. Hopefully this will allow my heel to heal and keep me from over-pronating.

Last summer we had an all-time record high of 103 in Seattle. We had several weeks where the highs were in the 90s.

But this summer has been completely different. Apparently, there has been a strong high-pressure system over a large portion of the Pacific ocean which has been pushing cooler air into Washington. When you add in storm systems coming south from Alaska, we've had lots of cloudy and cool summer days this year. Here's an excerpt from a Seattle Times article:

Since July 10, the data paint an even glummer picture: nine hours a day of low cloud cover, compared to the seasonal average of 1.6 hours.

This summer appears to be the most cloud-shrouded in Seattle since measurements were started in 1951, UW postdoctoral researcher Jim Johnstone said.

I really don't mind the cloudy, cooler weather. The weather is one of the reasons we moved to Seattle. I love being able to go outside and not being all sweaty after 5 minutes. It's too bad my parents couldn't have had this nice weather when they were here last summer. It cleared up this afternoon and should be sunny the rest of the week, with highs in the mid-80s this weekend.

Note: This post comes from my Walking in Seattle blog.

Packed with restaurants, bars, and retail, Lower Queen Anne is a fun urban walk.


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I've been wanting to go to Cafe Besalu in Ballard ever since someone brought in some of their croissants to work for breakfast a few months ago. So Troy and I took the bus to Ballard this morning and went to the small cafe, where the line was out the door. Cafe Besalu specializes in croissants and quiches.

I got the regular croissant that comes with a small container of strawberry jam and Troy got the strawberry danish and coffee. It was easily one of the biggest and best croissants I've ever had! It was perfectly flaky on the outside and nice and fresh and buttery on the inside. Troy's danish was also very good. I was still hungry though, so I decided to get a slice of the quiche Lorraine which comes with bacon, swiss, and green onions. It was fresh, hot, and delicious!

All together we spent about $11, which isn't bad for such awesome breakfast pastries. I liked the sign outside the cafe too, with a croissant hanging from it. I can't wait to go back again and get more croissants! We'll also have to try the blueberry or nectarine danishes next time. The more time I spend in Ballard, the more awesome it gets!

Target is opening a store in downtown Seattle! The Seattle Times wrote an article about it recently. They will be moving into a three story space on Second Avenue between Pike and Union streets, which is really close to Pike Place Market. Most of Target's 1,700 stores are in suburban areas, but there are a few in urban areas. This location will occupy a space of 103,000 square feet, a little small compared to a regular size Target, which is 135,000 square feet.

Troy and I can't wait until it opens! Ever since we moved here, we've said over and over how much we wish Target would build a store downtown. It will be so much closer to us and we'll be able to walk there instead of having to drive to the one at Northgate. Unfortunately, it won't open for at least a year. But I'm sure we'll be there the first week it opens!

Note: This post comes from my Walking in Seattle blog.

Enjoy the quirky local landmarks along this stimulating urban walk.


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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.

It was nice having visitors again for such a long period of time. David and Karen really tested us on their visit with questions about the area - moreso than any other visitors have done. In researching answers to some of their questions, I found out a few interesting things - for example, King County (the county Seattle is in) was named after Vice President William R. King. Neighboring Pierce County was named after the recently-elected president Pierce (King was his VP). King was the shortest-serving VP not to advance to the presidency and the only VP never to wed. He was also nicknamed "Aunt Fancy" by contemporaries and had a dubious relationship with James Buchanan. In 1986 the County voted to re-dedicate itself to Martin Luther King, Jr and this was approved by the state in 2005. That was the most interesting thing I learned. It was nice to be tested on my knowledge of the area and sometimes I surprised myself with how much I knew, but there's always more to be learned.

Despite our relatively small apartment, having friends stay for a week turned out to be virtually no problem or inconvenience whatsoever (at least for Lesley and I). I couldn't get along with just anyone staying with us for a week, but in this case it worked out fine, it could have even been longer with no problems.

I've also realized that despite having many ways to get around in Seattle, none of them are very good, especially for visitors. We definitely drove a lot more during David and Karen's visit than we normally do, however we took transit more with them than we had with any other visitors we've had. In some cases it just makes more sense to take mass transit rather than drive. We had a few problems driving through heavy traffic and trying to find street parking and we might have been better off taking the bus. Still, sometimes it's just kind of difficult to get around by any mode of transportation. For example, I still don't understand how to use and pay for light rail, despite being a big fan of it and keeping up with all kinds of local transit news. However, I suppose overall we didn't have too much trouble with transit. I had to write bus directions for David and Karen to use while Lesley and I were at work, and actually that worked out pretty well. We took light rail back from the soccer game, and while the streetcar was no longer running, it wasn't a big deal to walk home the rest of the way. So, even though Seattle is too big of a city for driving to be easy and the city doesn't make transit easy, it is nice that transit can still fit into our lifestyle.

There are probably some more tourist activities that Lesley and I would like to do sometime. The coffee tour that Karen and David went on sounded like a lot of fun and I'm sure there are some other walking tours that would be nice. Lesley and I still haven't been to the Seattle Aquarium or the EMP, though we have no real interest in either of those. Though the Space Needle is really expensive, it is nice to go up with visitors and point things out. It was nice we were able to avoid paying admission to a couple things this time, but maybe next time we have visitors we can fit in some other new things that Lesley and I might like to do and maybe some new restaurants to try.

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.

Thursday both Troy and I worked full days, so David and Karen were on their own for most of the day. It sounded like they had plenty to keep them busy. They did a coffee tour that went to several coffee shops around Seattle, including the original Starbucks location. They got to try samples of different coffee and hot chocolate.

After the coffee tour, they stopped in the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. Troy and I had been there before and enjoyed it. For lunch, they ate at Elliott Bay Café in Pioneer Square before heading back into the main part of downtown. They waked through the Westlake Center and took a ride on the Monorail to go to the Seattle Center.

The next stop was the Experience Music Project and the Science Fiction Museum. Neither Troy or I are that interested in science fiction, besides Star Wars and LOTR, and we'd always heard mediocre reviews of the EMP, which is why we've never been to either before. David and Karen really liked the Science Fiction Museum, but they thought the EMP was a waste of money. Thankfully you can just pay one admission and you get into both, so it wasn't too bad. Apparently a lot of the exhibits at the EMP are kid-oriented and there just wasn't much of anything that interesting to learn about.

By the time they were done with the EMP, Troy and I were ready to pick them up to go to dinner. We tried to make the early ferry, but decided we wouldn't get there in time because of bad traffic. We decided to go eat dinner at one of our favorite Italian places, Ristorante Machiavelli. The bread is quite interesting there because it has pieces of olive baked into it and is served with a different type of oil dressing. I got the fettucini alfredo, Troy got the spinach ravioli, Karen got the eggplant parmesan, and David got the special of the day which was fennel bulb ravioli.

After dinner we rode the ferry to Bainbridge Island. It was a little cool and windy once we got out on the water, but it was a great view of the skyline and Mount Rainier.

Ferry ride near Seattle on Vimeo.

We also had dessert at B&O Espresso on Capitol Hill. I shared a piece of carrot cake and Karen and David shared some kind of chocolate cake with vanilla icing and some raspberry filling.

We went back to the apartment and played some games, including Apples to Apples and more Mario Kart 64. Only one more full day of their trip left.

One of the things we were most excited about doing was going to Mount Rainier. It's the 5th oldest National Park and is an impressively beautiful place to spend a day or more. We grabbed something to eat for breakfast at Nollie's, near where we live, and headed out. Traffic wasn't bad and we decided to take the longer way past Tacoma, rather than the route through Puyallup. The grating Washington State highway noise was a little annoying in our loud car, but after we turned onto some smaller highways the road was quieter and the scenery gradually improved.

Shortly after entering the park, we stopped at the Twin Firs Loop trail head. It's about a half-mile long trail, but we took plenty of time to enjoy the green plants and impressively-large trees. It was a nice short hike.

Next we stopped at Longmire and walked the Trail of the Shadows. This trail was slightly longer and had more diverse surroundings. There was a meadow with a view of Mount Rainier, a few natural springs whose iron content highlighted the ground with rust-color. There was also a historical cabin from a family that had lived there and a variety of impressive plants.

After this walk, we were getting hungry, so we stopped to eat at picnic tables near Cougar Rock. We had brought a variety of tasty local food to eat. There was a giant peach and Rainier cherries, a delicious type of hybrid cherry that is grown in the area, from Pike Place Market. We also brought some Cougar Gold cheese and some Dutch Gouda cheese that we had purchased in Leavenworth to enjoy with some crackers. There was trail mix, a bag of salt & vinegar chips, granola bars, and vegan beef jerky from Whole Foods. We also brought some Chukar Cherries for dessert. We were pretty full and satisfied after all that.

Our next stop was Narada Falls, which was impressive as always and featured a partial double rainbow. We then headed to Paradise, where we checked out the relatively new visitor center. From a telescope within the visitor center, we were able to see a couple hikers part way up the mountain. We also watched a short but enjoyable video on the park. We had hoped to hike some around there but there was still quite a bit of snow on the ground.

So, we continued on to Reflection Lake. There was snow that prevented us from walking around there as well, but it was still beautiful and we enjoyed the view. We drove further along to Box Canyon and did the short walk there near the huge glacially-carved rocks and over the stream more than a hundred feet below. We also had a view of Mount Adams.

Continuing on, we made one final stop within the park at the Grover Grove of the Patriarchs. This trail was along a river and had a lot of huge trees, but we didn't feel like doing the whole thing, so we headed back.

This was the most hiking we had done at Mount Rainier and I really enjoyed it. The drive home also seemed shorter than it has seemed in the past.

On the way home we ordered pizza from Pagliacci - the Verde Primo and the AGOG Primo - both of which were very good. It was after 8 by then and the rest of the night we hung out at our apartment played some more games.

Lesley and I went to work on Tuesday and left David and Karen with directions by bus to the Aquarium. Lesley worked a full day, but I only worked a half day and it went by very quickly. After I got off work, David and Karen were just finishing up at the Aquarium, so I went to the waterfront to meet them. They had enjoyed the otters at the aquarium, but didn't seem particularly impressed overall.

We walked along the waterfront briefly and stopped in one of the souvenir stores. We then headed down to Olympic Sculpture Park. David remembered the centerpiece of the park, Alexander Calder's Eagle, from its time in downtown Fort Worth, where he grew up. After walking through the park, we headed back to our apartment to eat some of the leftover Chinese and Thai food that we had.

While eating, we watched the hilarious Double Rainbow video and the catchy auto-tuned version.

After lunch, we took the bus to Seattle Center and went to the top of the Space Needle. We spent a good amount of time up there and I pointed out everything I could. They had a lot of questions but I was able to answer most of them. By this time, Lesley had gotten off of work, so we took the bus back to meet her at the apartment.

We then headed to the Chittenden Locks in Ballard, which separate the salt water of Puget Sound from the fresh water of Lake Union. There's a fish ladder there to allow salmon to return to where they were spawned, and typically we don't see a lot of fish here, but this time there were a lot, the most we'd ever seen.

For dinner, we ate outside at La Carta de Oaxaca, and then walked through Ballard to pick up some cupcakes for dessert from Cupcake Royale. Before heading back home, we stopped at Gas Works park at just the right time. The sun was low in the sky, igniting the skyline with sunlight and since it was a Tuesday, Lake Union was full of sailboats. We then went to the top of the hill and saw a sun dial that we didn't know was there. It took a little while to figure out how it was supposed to work, but it was pretty cool. We also drove through Fremont to point out the unique sights (Lenin statue, Waiting for the Interurban sculpture, and Fremont Troll). We made a quick stop at Kerry Park right around sunset and had a beautiful view of the city and Mount Rainier.

Once back at our apartment, we ate our cupcakes, which Karen loved. David got the triple chocolate threat, Karen got the vanilla lavender, Lesley got the carrot cake, and I got the chocolate coconut bunny. We also then watched The Sting with Paul Newman and Robert Redford, which Karen hadn't seen but is one of my favorite films. I also did some research for our next day at Mount Rainier.

Both Troy and I took Monday, Wednesday, and Friday off work, so it was nice to be able to sleep in on the third day of David and Karen's visit. We'd stayed up late the night before, so we slept in until abound 10. The weather wasn't as good Monday as the previous two days and it was drizzly and cloudy. We decided to walk to Whole Foods to get some snacks for our trip to Mount Rainier. Afterward, we dropped the food off at the apartment and went to Denny Park. We rode the zip line for fun at the park and then took the bus into downtown.

The next stop was Pike Place Market. We went to the gum wall, which we'd actually never been to before. It was a little gross, but neat looking I guess. Then we saw the guys throwing the fish and walked through the market shops. We got half a dozen fresh powdered donuts from Daily Dozen Doughnut. Wow, they were so good, probably some of the best donuts I've ever had after Top Pot. We'd had the cinnamon sugar before and they were good too. There's a neat slideshow about the donuts on the Seattle PI online. We walked around some more and stopped for some free samples of tea, including chrysanthemum tea, at Vital Tea Leaf near the market.

It was time for lunch, so we all got different things. I got some of the Beecher's mac and cheese, Troy got some taco's at Gary's Tex-Mex Snack Shack, and David and Karen had chowder at Pike Place Chowder. I shared my mac and cheese with David and Karen and they said it was the best they'd ever had. After lunch, we explored the market more and bought some Rainier cherries and a "Holy Shit" peach.

After the market we took the bus back to the apartment to put our fruit away. Then we went to Seward Park and walked on the perimeter trail, which is about a 2.5 mile walk. It was nice and quiet on the trail and being Monday, wasn't too crowded. David thinks he may have seen the Sounders goalie, Kasey Keller, pass us on the trail, but he wasn't 100% certain.

Then we drove through Lakeview Cemetery trying to find Bruce Lee's grave, but were unsuccessful. We ate at Taste of India for dinner, then drove through the University District. I pointed out an apartment building called the Lothlorien Apartments because Lothlorien is a location in Lord of the Rings and David and Karen are huge fans of LOTR like me. We also stopped at Walgreen's to get some milk to eat with our oreos at home.

David, Troy, and I played several Mario Kart 64 races when we got home. It's one of mine and David's favorite games, so it was fun to have another person to play with. We even ran a grand prix race of Toad's Turnpike on backwards mode where all the other vehicles are going the opposite direction we were. It was difficult, but a lot of fun.

We slept in until about 10 in the morning on Sunday and then rode the Seattle Streetcar into downtown. I think David and Karen liked the cleanliness of the Streetcar and how smooth the ride was compared to buses. It's just too bad the Streetcar only has one line right now. Anyway we walked to Top Pot donuts for breakfast and Karen had a maple glazed old fashioned donut, David and Troy had regular glazed old fasioned, and I had the chocolate bar which is basically just a regular chocolate covered donut in the shape of a bar. Karen also got some tangerine juice which I don't think she'd ever had before.

While in Belltown, we stopped in the Seattle Glassblowing Studio and watched some artists blow glass. I've always liked glass art and would love to have a piece to display in our apartment some day. Glassblowing is a popular art in the Northwest, with lots of galleries everywhere and the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, which we unfortunately didn't have time to go to.

We briefly walked by the Cinerama on our way to a bar to watch the World Cup Final between Spain and the Netherlands. Every bar we stopped in was pretty much completely full with small areas of standing room only. We found a small cafe that had room, but they were charging a minimum of $15 per person to watch it. After standing the first 20 minutes of the game in a very crowded bar, we went to Spit Fire which was less crowded for the rest of the first half. It was fun watching the game with so many other people who were so into the game. Everyone would cheer and go crazy during good plays. Unfortunately we just got tired of standing, so we ended up walking back to our apartment during halftime and watched the second half in our living room.

In preparation for David and Karen's visit, I bought a can of Cougar Gold Cheese that we all shared with crackers during the game. We also had some of the Vlaskaas Dutch cheese we bought in Leavenworth. We also had a peach I got from Pike Place Market, some apricots, and beer.

After the game, which the Dutch lost despite our eating Dutch cheese, we rode the bus into downtown where we walked around the retail core. We walked through Pacific Place and went through Nordstrom. We also stopped at the Seattle Central Library which had really neat architecture and lots of interesting art inside. I think David and Karen really thought it was cool.

We took them to Pioneer Square next, which was were the main part of Seattle was in the early 1900s. There's a lot of old buildings and architecture to see in Pioneer Square. We decided to do the Underground Tour, but had to wait almost an hour for the next tour. We tried to go to the Waterfall Gardens close by, but they were already closed, so we stopped for a small snack at a cafe instead.

Finally we started the Underground Tour where we learned about Seattle's history and why we have an underground in Pioneer Square. David and Karen were really interested in the historical aspect of Seattle, so it was good that we did the tour. It was basically the same tour Troy and I had done before with slightly different stories. There's all kinds of weird old stuff still down there, even though most of it was cleared out decades ago.

The tour was over around 6:30 and we had tickets to the Sounders-FC Dallas soccer game at 7:30, so we didn't have much time to eat dinner. We hurried over to the International District, which is sort of on the way to Qwest Field. We ate at Jade Garden, which had really good Chinese food. I got the chow mein, which I actually didn't care much for, but I liked what everyone else got. David got some kind of veggie stir fry and Karen got the stir fried rice, which were both very good.

We walked to the soccer game and arrived about 20 minutes into the game. It was already 1-0, so we missed Montero's goal in the 14th minute. Everyone was standing the entire game, which is normally a good thing, but Karen and I were so tired from walking all day that we sat down occasionally. Unfortunately FC Dallas dominated the second half and one of our players got a red card and was ejected from the game, so we had to play the rest of the game down one man. FC Dallas ended up tying the game when it was almost over.

After the game, we took Link Light Rail back to the Westlake Center downtown and then walked the rest of the way home. It wasn't too late, so we decided to drive to Kerry Park to show them the view of the city at night.

When we got back home, we went to Paddy Coynes in our apartment building for a few drinks and snacks. We shared the fish and chips and potato skins. It was a really great second day of their visit.

PS: Unfortunately we didn't take that many pictures during the first few days of their visit. We took more as the trip went on though.

We had visitors for this past week, as our friends that we had visited in Austin came up to stay with us for a week. David and Karen had never been to Seattle, so Lesley and I showed them around and we all had a very good time.

Shortly after they arrived Saturday, we headed out for lunch. We went to Djan's Thai Restaurant, one of our favorite places to eat. Traffic was a bit heavy and parking was difficult, but the food was very good. We started by sharing the tom kha, a Thai soup that David and Karen had introduced us to in Austin. Our meals were filling and we had some leftovers for later.

We then headed to West Seattle to walk at Schmitz Preserve Park. It has possibly the best forest in the city. We walked through the park down to Alki Beach, where there were lots of people of all ages walking, jogging, and biking. We got some ice cream to eat as we walked along the water all the way around to the other side where we could see the city skyline and Mount Rainier.

After that, we headed to Volunteer Park in Capitol Hill, one of the oldest parks in the city. The largest tree in the park is always a point of interest to our visitors from Texas who aren't used to such big trees. We then climbed the stairs to the top of the water tower for a view in all directions. We walked through the residential streets of Capitol Hill and our friends were impressed by the unique old houses and flowery landscaping. We then looked for food on the main drag of Capitol Hill. While dinner was unremarkable, we enjoyed sitting in the sun and people watching on Broadway. After dinner, we went back to our car at Volunteer Park. There was a wedding going on near where we parked and there was also Shakespeare in the Park performance of Romeo and Juliet. We decided to go check out the play, but couldn't really see or hear much, so we left.

We were all tired from the walking we did that day and a little sunburned, too. We headed back to our apartment and I went out to get some aloe vera gel for our sunburns. When I got back, we all shared some of the tasty apple pie that Lesley had made the night before. David and Karen were interested in seeing the extended edition that we owned of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, so we watched it to end the night (well, I went to bed halfway through).

Anyway, it was a pretty good start to their visit and it just got better from there.

We won't be posting much this week because our friends from Texas are here visiting! They came in Saturday morning and we've been busy ever since showing them around Seattle. We'll post more later about what we've done, but so far we've gone to Kerry Park at night, Volunteer Park, Capitol Hill, Pioneer Square, and saw a Sounders soccer game last night. Today we're planning on going to Seward Park and then a ferry ride and Pike Place Market. Should be a lot of fun!

I was shocked when I heard this fact the other day, but I've lived here long enough that I shouldn't have been surprised at all. I definitely see dogs more often than children. In fact, I hardly ever see children, unless they're tourists. Of course there are more children in the lower density neighborhoods than there are where we live near downtown, but the fact that there are so many more dogs is still interesting.

Seattle is a very dog-friendly city, as this article elaborates on. The article also includes these facts:

There are about 125,000 dogs in Seattle, going by both the Seattle Animal Shelter's estimate and an independent analysis by The Seattle Times. In the 2000 census, there were fewer than 90,000 children in Seattle.

People here are definitely more into dogs than in other areas. It seems like almost everyone at Lesley's office has at least one dog. This article makes the point that people in progressive/liberal areas have children at lower rates than in more conservative areas, so that is a factor as well.

Anyway, I just thought that was interesting enough to be passed along.

We've always been a little hesitant about eating Mexican food here in Seattle. It's just not something the area is known for and I just don't expect it to be any good here.

That said, we had heard a few good things about a restaurant named Cactus and decided to give it a try. We didn't expect Tex-Mex, but we expected a southwestern style of food, which is about as close as we can get.

There are a couple locations and we went to the one on Alki, which was close to Alki Point. Parking is a little tricky over there, but we parked along the water and walked a little ways to get there.

Unlike virtually every real Tex-Mex place in Texas, you have to order chips & salsa, which we did. We also decided to get some guacamole. The chips were pretty good, they were thin and not very greasy. The guacamole was creamy, but needed some salt for flavor.

Lesley got the house chimichanga with chicken in a crispy flour tortilla and I got the butternut squash enchilada. My enchilada wasn't really an enchilada as I would think of it - it was almost like a two-layered tostada. It was very nice to have the familiar flavors of cheese, guacamole, and onions, and the atypical ingredients of butternut squash and spinach went well with it. The caramelization of the onions added some sweetness to the meal. Combined with rice and black beans, it was a solidly enjoyable lunch.

Anyway, this southwestern fare fared well by our high standard for Mexican-themed food and while we're in no hurry to return, we might go back sometime.

There are quite a few places to hike around here and since we had driven a ways out to Leavenworth, we wanted to hike somewhere far from Seattle that we wouldn't normally go to. We also wanted something relatively easy.

We decided to hike the Iron Goat Trail, which we had attempted to hike in May last year but were stopped by snow on the trail.

The trail follows an old rail line, which was hazardous and regularly interrupted by avalanches for the time it was operational. This rail line was no longer used once a 7.8 mile tunnel (the longest in the US) was constructed along an alternate route in 1929.

Since the trail follows a rail line, it was pretty straight and relatively flat. There's an upper grade and a lower grade and we walked along both. Crossing from the lower grade to the upper grade was a bit difficult. Otherwise, the trail was pleasant and had neat historical artifacts, including a few sections of very old tunnel, some of which had collapsed due to falling rock above.

The weather was surprisingly cool. It was sunny with temps in the upper 70s in Leavenworth, which was just 42 miles east, but after we crossed over Stevens Pass, it became cloudy, and temperatures along the hike were in the lower 50s.

We ended up hiking for almost 3 hours, but despite Lesley's sore feet, it sure felt great to be hiking again in such a beautiful area.

With a 3-day weekend at our disposal, we were looking for something fun to do. We decided to spend part of Saturday in the nearby German-themed tourist town of Leavenworth.

It was about a two-and-a-half hour drive out there. We opted for the longer route out there to avoid the traffic along highway 2. The drive out was pretty scenic. Leavenworth is on the east side of the Cascade mountains, and crossing over the pass is always an adventure; it's just such a long, steep incline.

When we first got to Leavenworth, we were hungry for lunch, so we ate lunch at München Haus, which had a variety of German sausages. There were also almost a dozen types of mustard, including jalapeño, sweet hot, and dijon mustard. I enjoyed the bratwurst I had along with the beer. It was a nice way to begin the day.

After lunch, we strolled through the town. The buildings are all decorated in a Bavarian style. Leavenworth was a dying town in the mid 1960s when the town decided to make itself look like a Bavarian village in order to attract tourists. The strategy worked, as was evident during our visit.

There were lots of places to eat and little touristy shops to visit. There was also a group of yodelers providing live music on this sunny Saturday. We enjoyed looking around in the shops. We also bought some cheese and some fudge to bring back with us. We also spent some time walking along the river. The cottonwood trees were almost raining down on us and it felt warm under the sun, though I'm sure the temperature didn't even reach 80. We also got some ice cream from one of the several ice creameries in the town.

Anyway, it was an enjoyable way to spend part of the day, though I'm sure it'd be even more enjoyable for fans of touristy trinkets.

This neighborhood near Woodland Park Zoo is a pleasant neighborhood that's worth a stroll through.


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A new Seattle city ordinance effective today requires all restaurants to use recyclable or compostable containers instead of styrofoam. Restaurants will be subject to fines up to $250 if they are non-compliant. By doing this, Seattle will prevent up to 6,000 tons of trash and leftover food from heading to the land fill every year. I'm not sure why this wasn't required 10 years ago, but it's a good step in the right direction. This is just a sign of how Seattle is more environmentally-oriented than other cities.

I thought this was an interesting article about the best and worst rated cities to visit during the summer:

Looking at the results of Travel + Leisure’s annual America’s Favorite Cities survey, we found that the recipe [for a good destination] is simple:

Good weather: It’s no surprise that some of the hottest cities in the summer ranked the lowest.

Family-friendliness: With the kids home June through August, cities with offerings for the whole clan fared best.

Great parks and easy access to the outdoors: Out of the 10 cities voted the best for summer travel, 8 also landed in the Top 10 for parks.

Fantastic farmers’ markets: Simple pleasures make a difference; great local produce and purveyors helped sway opinions.

Not surprisingly, Seattle is #3 on the list, while Portland is #1. Both have excellent park systems, great weather, and lots of farmer's markets. Rounding out the top 5 are Denver at #2, San Diego at #4, and Minneapolis/St Paul at #5.

Here's the top 5 on the list of worst cities to visit in the summer:

1. Phoenix/Scottsdale
2. Dallas/Fort Worth
3. Atlanta
4. Houston
5. New Orleans

The bad thing about these cities is that the weather is just sweltering in the summer and there isn't much in the way of outdoor activities for families.

Transportation for America has released a study ranking the most dangerous metropolises for pedestrians and Seattle ranks as the 5th safest out of the 52 areas in the US with over one million residents.

Fewer than 1 pedestrian is killed each year per 100,000 residents (5th lowest rate in the US), despite 3.1% people walking to work (10th highest in the US).

By contrast, the DFW area, where we used to live (and not walk as much), has 1.47 pedestrians killed per 100,000 residents each year (28th lowest rate), despite only 1.5% of workers walking to work (9th lowest rate in the US). Although, that's actually part of the problem - that walking isn't a mainstream activity, so safety initiatives aren't prioritized by the voters.

Surely there are safe and dangerous areas to walk in both areas, but I just thought the study results were interesting. Click the link above for more details.

Highway 99 isn't a popular pedestrian route, but the segment on the east side of Queen Anne Hill is surprisingly sheltered and comfortable, leading to beautiful views from the Aurora Bridge. Dexter Ave N is a nice residential street for a stroll on the way back.



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Yesterday was mine and Troy's 9 year dating anniversary. To celebrate, we went to the Cascade Farmer's Market near our apartment, which is every Thursday during the summer. This is the first Thursday of the summer that the market has been there. We bought some pretty flowers, fresh raspberries and strawberries, and some strawberry rhubarb ice cream.

After that we went to Denny Park and sat on a bench for a little while enjoying the awesome weather. Since Troy's last post about the cloudy weather, it totally cleared up this week and we had highs in the mid 70s.

This weekend we plan on watching the US vs Ghana soccer match on Saturday and we're going to a cook out at one of my coworker's houses on Sunday. I'm really looking forward to a nice weekend.

This past Friday the weather was nice, so we went for a walk in our neighborhood and then to Whole Foods to buy some steak to grill. We got a top sirloin Chateaubriand steak for $10, some asparagus, onion, and mushroom to stir-fry, as well as some sweet corn on the cob, and red bing cherries and baklava for dessert!

We tried to grill the steak on the grills the apartment building provides, but they were both out of propane, so we had to broil it in the oven instead. We put some seasoning salt on it and then butter once it was done. It actually turned out really good and juicy and was almost as tender as a filet. The corn was also really good, much better than canned corn.

Saturday afternoon we decided to finally go to the Fremont Solstice Parade to celebrate the summer solstice. Everyone gathers to watch all kinds of colorful people in a flamboyant parade of strange sights. We saw body painted bicyclists, a giant spider, plastic bag decorated dancers, and a big yellow submarine. It was really crowded and it seemed like everyone had their dogs with them. There was also a big beach ball that rolled along the parade route with the help of spectators laying in the street to carry it underneath them. The entire parade is really pretty weird, and rivals even San Francisco's weirdness, though there were plenty of families with children there. It's something that every Seattleite should see at least once.

We went home after the parade to hang out for a bit and watch some FIFA World Cup soccer, then went to West Seattle to have some ice cream from the Husky Deli. I got raspberry decadence (chocolate ice cream with raspberries swirled in) in a waffle cone and Troy got the coffee oreo. Then we walked around the neighborhood for a little bit and saw lots of greenery and flowers in front of houses.

After our first year of living here, I said the weather was one of my favorite things about Seattle. I did dislike the dark winter days, but felt that the rest of the year made up for it. The weather is generally fairly moderate - no major snowstorms and, more importantly, summer temps aren't too hot. I got so tired of the high temps in Texas that summer high temps averaging in the 70s felt great.

The first year we were here, the cool spring weather was refreshing and I didn't mind that early June temps stayed below 60 for almost a full week, though I was told that wasn't normal. After that first week of June, the summer was great.

However, that winter was the terrible winter storm that almost kept us here for Christmas and paralyzed the city. There was snow, snow, and more snow. I was also told that wasn't normal.

After that winter, I was happy that the next summer got comfortably warm earlier in the year. But then it got warmer and warmer, and set an all time record high of 103. However, there were only a couple unpleasantly warm weeks during that summer - same as the summer before - so we didn't have much problem getting by without air conditioning.

This past winter, was rainy, but we had the warmest January on record, and I appreciated the moderate weather.

But now, in early June, yet again, the summer weather hasn't shown up yet. Worse, it's been cloudy most of the time, including all of this weekend. We did have some nice sunshine on Friday, and I was fortunate to get off of work a little early to enjoy it. But last week I was on my way to work in 50º weather, with rain and heavy wind (and complete cloud cover). And seriously, look at the temperatures yesterday:



Not only did we have cool weather, but there was solid cloud cover all day, with some rain. People consider this to be unusual as well.

The summer, when it does show up, will be excellent I'm sure. The summers are awesome here - three of the best months anywhere. But, this atypical, unpleasant weather seems to be more typical than I had realized.

I do like the cooler weather, generally, but the worst part of the cool weather is the lack of sunshine. Maybe I'm just being too critical, at least it's not 100º.

Note: This post comes from my Walking in Seattle blog.

Volunteer Park is a diversely landscaped park with open green space and several landmarks including a water tower, conservatory, and Seattle Asian Art Museum.


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I posted a few months ago about our TV messing up. Well, we finally went ahead and got a used TV to replace it. It's a 27" Philips made in 2001, so it's actually 5 years older than what we had, but still the same size. It was kind of sad to part with my TV since it was only 4 years old. The apartment complex has recycling service for electronics, so we gave it to the apartment office for them to get rid of it.

So far this replacement has been good. The picture isn't as good as the other TV, but at least there aren't lines, black space, and an inverted picture at the top of the screen. I'm sure we'll replace this one in a few years with an HDTV. For now, this one will do fine.

Washington state made it illegal to talk on your cell phone and drive a couple years ago, but it was only a secondary offense, meaning the police needed another reason to pull you over. However as of this past Thursday, drivers can be pulled over just for talking on their mobile phones.

The law doesn't apply if you're using a hands-free device, but holding the phone to your ear with your shoulder apparently doesn't count. There are also a few exceptions to the law, including "if you set your phone to 'speaker' and hold it in front of you."

It's also not illegal to make a peanut butter sandwich while driving, as far as I'm aware. I have been driving more over the past few weeks, at least for work, and have had occasional reason to use my cell phone. I do have a headset for my personal phone, so I could use that, although plugging it in and putting it in my ear seems to be a lot more distracting than just talking on the phone like normal.

Schmitz Preserve Park is the only Seattle park with old-growth forest and is a beautifully forested area that makes you feel like you're in the foothills of the Cascades rather than in West Seattle.


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Seattle has one of the largest, if not the largest, film festival in the country. The Seattle International Film Festival runs for more than 3 weeks, with hundreds of films (400+ this year) at several different venues in the area.

Lesley and I have gone to a couple movies at SIFF for the past couple years and this year got a package to go to 3 movies. It's fun to go because it's such a big festival and there are so many movies to see that aren't normally available in theaters.

One of the movies we saw this year was Garbo: The Spy, a Spanish documentary on a double-agent who, working for both Britain and Germany during WWII, delayed German forces from reaching Normandy. It was a very interesting documentary about an unfamiliar historical figure who impacted history.

We also saw a less serious film called White Lion, which follows the life of a white lion in a majestic South African setting.

We're looking forward to seeing another movie later this week, about a New Zealand family that lives in the wilderness.

In the past we've seen some very good movies and some unremarkable movies, but they're always interesting and are different than the Hollywood films that you can see any weekend at the multiplex.

We went to a Mariners game with Lesley's friend Megan last Monday night. The weather had been terrible most of the weekend, but it cleared up Monday afternoon and was comfortable and sunny when the game started.

Megan bought our tickets - they were good seats in the outfield. We were the closest I've been to Ichiro and it was interesting seeing him stretching throughout the entire game.

Anyway, this was a Mariners game, so they gave up 3 runs in the 2nd inning, then back-to-back home runs later in the game. But, at the end they made it close, scoring a run in the 9th and having the winning run at the plate. Less-jaded fans had reason to believe in a comeback, but I saw the double play coming. Here's the game story. We've now seen 9 Mariners losses and 1 Mariners victory. It was an exciting victory, though.

We did learn from our transportation issues last time so we took a taxi home, and after a couple minute wait, it took us home pretty quickly for just over $10.

Note: This post comes from my Walking in Seattle blog.

NW Market St passes through the heart of Ballard and is an enjoyable street for a stroll on your way to the popular Hiram M. Chittenden Locks.


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My good friend Megan visited us this past weekend and we had a lot of fun! It had probably been over 2 years since the last time I saw her, so it was good to see her again. We picked her up from the airport around 4pm on Saturday and chatted for a while at our apartment. Then we walked downtown through the retail core, including Nordstrom and the Westlake Center. We briefly walked through Pike Place Market and stopped to get piroshkys at Piroshky Piroshky. Unfortunately it was close to closing time, so we didn't really see much of the market and most of the flower/fruit stands were closed. Megan seemed to enjoy the view of Elliott Bay.

After the market, we walked back to the Westlake Center and looked at some of the stores there. Then we took the Monorail to the Seattle Center. That was actually the first time for me to ride the Monorail, if you can believe it. We hung out for a while at the Northwest Folklife Festival, where we saw some tap dancers, live music, and lots of interesting people. I had my usual roasted corn on the cob and Troy and I shared some stir-fry noodles.

We were pretty tired after all that walking, so we decided to take the bus back to the apartment. The three of us played some Super Mario Kart 64 before going to Paddy Coyne's, the bar on the main floor of our building, to have some drinks and appetizers.

Sunday morning we went to Top Pot for donuts. It was really busy, but we were still able to find a table. Megan had an apple fritter, I had a chocolate covered ring, and Troy had a cinnamon sugar old fashioned donut. After breakfast, we toured the Museum of Flight near Boeing Field. They have 85 aircraft including the supersonic Concorde and the first jet Air Force One. We were able to go inside the Concorde and Air Force One, which was really cool. This particular Air Force One served in the Presidential Fleet from 1959-1996. The museum also had a small section reserved for space exploration, which was probably my favorite part along with seeing the inside of those two planes.

The weather continued to be cloudy with drizzly rain, so we decided to just drive around and show Megan the different neighborhoods in Seattle. We drove through Fremont, the U District, and Capitol Hill. We also stopped at Gas Works Park briefly for a view of Lake Union and downtown. By the time we were done with that, the rain had stopped, so we took a ferry to Bainbridge Island.

We went to one of our favorite Italian restaurants for dinner - Mamma Melina in the U District. The piano player was really good and even played "Got to Get You Into My Life" by the Beatles (because I suggested it when he asked what we'd like to hear.) After dinner, Megan and I went up in the Space Needle while Troy walked around the Folklife Festival again. Unfortunately it was pretty cloudy and most of the mountains weren't visible, but it was cool seeing downtown lit up at night. For dessert we went to B&O Espresso on Capitol Hill before going back to the apartment to watch one of Megan's and my favorite movies, Back to the Future.

Megan thought she might have to leave Monday afternoon because flying stand-by can get tricky, but the flights were pretty open for Tuesday morning, so she decided to stay until then. For breakfast on Monday we ate at the very popular Portage Bay Cafe, just a few blocks away. Troy was nice enough to walk over there early and put our name on the waiting list. There was a 45 minute wait, so we just hung out at the apartment for most of that time before going there.

Then we drove to the Boeing plant in Everett to take a tour at the Future of Flight Aviation Center & Boeing Tour. We saw the manufacturing facility Boeing is using for the 747, 767, 777, and the new 787 airline jets. The place was huge, in fact, it's the largest building in the world by volume at 472 million cubic feet. About 30,000 people work there and has over 2.33 miles of pedestrian tunnels running below the factory. It was really cool seeing how the planes are made.

Afterward, we drove to Snoqualmie Falls, made famous by the TV show Twin Peaks. This time there was probably the most amount of water I've ever seen pouring over the falls, which are 268 feet high. In comparison, Niagara Falls is only 167 feet high, but is much much wider of course. The tallest one in the world is Angel Falls in Venezuela at 3,212 feet high. Anyway, it was misty and rainy when we first got there, but then cleared up as we were about to leave.

Megan's trip to Seattle wouldn't be complete without seeing the view from Kerry Park, so that's where we went next. Unfortunately most of the weekend had been cloudy with drizzly rain, but Monday afternoon the weather decided to clear up, giving us a decent view. Mount Rainier wasn't visible, but the overall view was still impressive.

We went back to the apartment briefly and then took the bus and Link Light Rail to the game. Megan bought us tickets in the right outfield lower level, which was very nice. I hadn't sat in the outfield in any ballpark in a long time, so it was a nice change. We sat right behind Ichiro, which was cool. I had some Thai food at the game and Troy and I shared the famous garlic fries. Unfortunately the Mariners couldn't pull out a victory in the bottom of the 9th.

After the game we took a taxi back to the apartment, which was a lot faster than the bus/light rail would have been. We were channel surfing when we got home and just happened to find Sleepless in Seattle playing, so Megan and I watched the rest of it and I pointed out all the places I recognized.

Overall everyone had a great time and I really enjoyed seeing Megan again. It was nice to catch up and show her our city. We're glad she came to visit us and look forward to next time!