I don't think I had Indian food until we moved to Seattle. I didn't realize what I was missing out on. Granted I've only had maybe two types of Indian dishes, but I'd have to say it's one of my favorite types of food. I really like chicken tikka masala and usually get that whenever we go to an Indian restaurant. I've had tikka masala from Taste of India, Laadla, and Chutney's. They've all been very good. Naan is also excellent when it's hot and fresh. We've gotten it plain and also with something in it, like potato or cheese. Maybe we can find an Indian restaurant that's close to our new apartment.

We had a microwave already installed above the stove in our old apartment, but our current apartment doesn't have one. We asked if we could install our own above the stove, but the manager said it would be a lot of work and we realized how expensive they are. Then they said they would let us borrow a microwave, so we said sure.

The one they lent to us was old, dirty, and pretty small. We used it a few times and made a few bags on popcorn in it. It left several more kernels un-popped than the microwave at our old apartment, which was annoying. So, I decided to buy our own and we went looking a few weeks ago.

We found one at Best Buy that we really liked and got good reviews, but they only had a black version in the store. I wanted white so it would match the rest of our appliances. So we had to order it special delivery online. I ordered it Feb 26th and it arrived this last Wednesday. I had to meet the delivery guy at the apartment, which was a little annoying, but I'm glad we have a new microwave now. We popped our first bag of popcorn in it the night we got it and it turned out great.

We couldn't use the heaters at our old apartment because we blocked them with furniture. Our bed area was so small that the bed covered up the vent and our bookcase was in the way of the heater in the living area. We only needed to run them maybe a week or so out of the whole year anyway, so it wasn't a big deal.

But now at our new place, we are able to keep the heaters free since we have more room. It's been cold lately too, so we've had to use them quite a bit. Our new building doesn't seem as well insulated as old our apartment building either, so I'm curious to see how much our electric bill will go up. We've been running the heat daily. They generate some pretty hot air, which is nice to sit in front of if I'm cold. Hopefully it will get a little warmer soon so we don't have to run it as much.

It's been six months since my last haircut, so I figured it was time to get it cut. It had gotten really thick and heavy at the bottom and too long. I had to find a new place to go to since we've moved away from South Lake Union. I used to go to a lady right on the lake, but that's too far for me to walk now.

I searched online and quickly found a salon that was highly rated just a few blocks from our new apartment. It was very convenient and the lady spent an hour and a half on my hair. I decided to have her cut it above my shoulder, layer it, and thin it out quite a bit. She was also a lot cheaper than the other lady I was using, $30 instead of $50. Overall it was a great experience and I'll probably use them from now on. It's great that we can walk to places like the hair salon and save money at the same time.

One of the things that most excited me about our new neighborhood is that we would be less than 10 minutes away from an everyday grocery store. Since we've been here, we've been able to walk to the store a couple times and haven't had to make any special driving trips to a grocery store.

There are a lot of people that live in this area, so it's common to see other people walking to and from the grocery store. So far we haven't wanted to purchase a lot of heavy things, so we've been able to evenly distribute our groceries across the bags we carry to make it pretty easy to carry them for the 7 minutes back to our apartment.

One nice thing is that there are no traffic lights or major roads that separate us from the grocery store. In our old neighborhood we were fairly close to a Whole Foods, but it just felt farther away because of the busy streets, hills, and the environment of the walk.

We don't yet have a good plan for what to do next time Dr Pepper is on sale because we're not equipped to carry a lot of heavy stuff. We realize that we may have to walk to the store more often since we can't carry as much at a time, but right now that doesn't seem like it'll be a problem.

We've been busy the past few weekends with moving, but we had a little more time this past weekend to go out and do things.

We had to exchange something at The Container Store in downtown Bellevue, so we did that on Friday after work. We also tried a Taiwanese restaurant there. Neither of us had ever had Taiwanese food, but this place was rated highly on yelp and sounded more appealing than the higher-profile chains in the area. When we got there after 6, the restaurant was packed, but after a bit of a wait, we got a table and ordered small plates of pork burger and sweet potato dumpling to go along with our main meal of chow mein, and pork fried rice. After dinner, we got some tea and wandered around Crate & Barrel.

On Saturday, we were blessed with a beautifully sunny day. While it was fairly cold outside, the sun was shining, which made for a big contrast from previous cloudy and wet weekends. After our bagel adventure, we took a nice walk through downtown to the Cinerama, which had been remodeled a few months ago. Despite having won Best Picture just a week before, there were plenty of seats inside the huge Cinerama theater. The picture and sound at the theater was quite good, and we both enjoyed the movie. We could really feel how stuttering impacted this man's life and the nerves of people around him.

After the movie, we took a bus down to a furniture outlet store in SODO. We didn't see any particular furniture that we wanted to get, but we did buy some decorative leaves to put on our green wall. While SODO has been a rather industrial area, there are also some furniture and design stores in the area. We also stopped at a Starbucks for tea and then went to Krispy Kreme to have a few donuts to tide us over until dinner. We then made the bus that would take us back home.

It was definitely nice to be able to get out and do things this weekend.

We've had a tradition the last several years of going to eat bagels almost every Saturday. Usually we get three bagels and split them. Depending on what looks good we get a combination of asiago, sesame, and super onion. We've been going to the Noah's Bagels on Capitol Hill, which was pretty convenient by the #8 bus or just walking up the hill from our old South Lake Union apartment.

Since we moved a few weeks ago, we've been too busy to go get bagels on the weekend. But yesterday we finally made it a point to walk slightly less than a mile to Noah's from our new apartment.

When we got there, we saw a big sign on the door that said that location was closed. I was pretty disappointed. We knew it would be closing for a little while at some point because the building it was in is being torn down and rebuilt with condos on the upper floors.

We weren't sure what to do yesterday. We were really hungry and I still wanted bagels. We ended up going to the Mercer Island location and it was after 10:30 by the time we got there. It was packed with people and we had to wait in line for 15 minutes. There were no two-person tables available, so we had to sit at a big, awkward table with other customers. At least they were some of the freshest bagels we've had in a while. The Mercer Island location is pretty far away, but most of the drive is on the freeway.

The only other locations we could go to are ones in Queen Anne and the U-District. I don't care for the Queen Anne location because it's hard to get to from where we live now and it's always swamped with tons of people, including families with screaming kids. Parking there is also a hassle.

The U-District location would probably be the best one to go to since it's not too far away. Unfortunately there aren't any convenient buses that would take us there, so we would have to drive every Saturday morning just to get bagels. We've tried a few other bagel places in the city, but have not really cared much for any of them. I guess we'll have to figure out something for a year or two until the Capitol Hill location is open again.

I'm still battling my plantar fasciitis. It's been a few months since I went to the doctor. It seems to have gotten better wearing my gel inserts and tennis shoes all the time, but the problem is still there. It had been a while since I got new tennis shoes, so we went to REI and looked for some walking shoes. I bought a pair from them and tried them for a few days. They rubbed my feet raw in a few places, so I had to return them. They definitely had more padding and support though.

Then last night we tried a place called Roadrunner Sports, which a coworker recommended. They did all the same type of tests on my feet and said I have high arches, which I already knew. I told them I walk a mile to and from work every day and then some around town on the weekends, and they called me an athelete, which was kind of cool.

Despite the fact that I told them I already have inserts and orthotics, they molded some for me. I ended up buying the inserts and new Saucony tennis shoes and they felt much better on my feet. They have a lot of padding and support in the heel, so hopefully that will help with my plantar fasciitis.

The customer service was great. I had someone helping me the whole time and they seemed to know what they were talking about. I might end up returning the inserts though since they weren't cheap. But I guess if they feel better than my other inserts, maybe I'll keep them.

The frustrating thing about this whole deal is that I just don't know who to listen to or who's right. I heard different stories from my podiatrist and my orthopedic surgeon. They each recommended something different. It's the same with buying shoes. One store says one thing and another says something else. It's been a lot of trial and error, trying to see what works and what helps my feet. Hopefully these new tennis shoes will be a big improvement.

We've lived in Seattle for three years now and have eaten at many restaurants here. We don't eat out very much and when we do, we prefer to eat at places we know are going to be good. It's hard to spend money going to new places all the time and take the risk that we might not like it. Nevertheless, our favorite restaurant list for this year includes two new places. Both Djan's Thai and Noah's Bagels dropped off the list after two straight years. Red Mill and Pagliacci are the only ones that have made the cut all three years.

1. 
   Top Pot Doughnuts - We've mentioned Top Pot several times before, so we thought it deserved its own spot in our top 5. These donuts aren't just any regular donuts, they're "hand-forged" sugary goodness. My favorites are the apple fritter, chocolate bar, and cinnamon sugar rings. Troy loves the old fashioned glazed and the old fashioned devils food.


2. 
   Paseo Caribbean - Wow, what a sandwich! We tried this place about six months ago and need to go back. The sandwiches were very filling and had a lot of meat. The sandwich I got had roast pork with sweet banana peppers, smoked ham & Swiss cheese melted between a hot press. It was really good!


3. 
   Red Mill Burgers (Interbay) - yummy burgers and onion rings. This is a classic place that everyone should go to at least once if they like burgers. The onion rings are awesome and the shakes are good too.


4. 
   Café Besalu - Best croissants and quiche in the city. We tried this place about six months ago as well and I was blown away by the food. On a cold morning, these quiches and croissants will warm you up fast. It's definitely worth waiting in the long line for this breakfast.


5. 
   Pagliacci Pizza - totally awesome pizza. I've had a lot of different pizzas in my life and this has everything beat. My favorites are the pepperoni and Hawaiian. They also make really good vegetarian-style pizzas with special toppings like artichoke and goat cheese. It may be a little expensive, but it's worth it. Troy and I can usually eat off of a large pizza twice.

Here are our restaurant rankings the past two years:
Year 1
Year 2

One of the more time consuming things about moving is that we had to clean our old apartment. I was off work last Monday for President's Day, so I was able to get a lot of cleaning done. I went over there around noon and worked for about four hours. The place was dirtier than I thought. I started by vacuuming everywhere, even around the baseboards. Then I cleaned the bathroom, including all the drawers and the bathtub.

After that I moved into the kitchen and started cleaning the refrigerator. We had magnets on it that had left a black residue, so I had to clean that off. The vegetable drawers were also dirty, but I could pull those out and clean them easily in the sink. The microwave wasn't too bad since we had cleaned it fairly recently. And I didn't bother trying to clean the drip pans because they're so bad it would take at least an hour to scrub the grime off. I tried to clean them once before and they never did come completely clean. We'll just pay for new ones. That's pretty much where I stopped.

Then on Saturday we cleaned the kitchen counters, sink, and under the sink. Troy also took down all the stuff from the walls, including our curtains and all the nails. It was pretty hard to take the curtains down though because we didn't have anything to stand on. Troy had to get up on the windowsill to reach, which looked difficult. It took another couple hours to get everything completely out and cleaned. We didn't have time to clean the oven because the self-cleaning feature would have taken over four hours. Unfortunately it costs $25 for the apartments to clean it for us, which means our deposit will be even less than I was hoping for.

It felt weird to be in our empty old apartment. Here are some pictures of it while we were packing, moving, and after it was all emptied. We'll miss it.

After three years of living in our original apartment we found when we first moved to Seattle, we started looking for a new apartment. We made a list of what we liked and didn't like about our old apartment and neighborhood and decided it would be a good idea to move. Our lease would have increased at our old place anyway, so it was good we had already resigned ourselves to moving.

Moving was a lot of work, but everything worked out well and we've put almost everything away. We really like having more space in the living room and an actual bedroom. The location is great and is still within walking distance to my work. It's actually a shorter bus ride for Troy from his work too. It's even a little cheaper than what we were paying for our old place. And we're about a 6 minute walk from the grocery store and tons of restaurants. The main drawback is that the bathroom is tiny and there isn't much storage or counter space. Otherwise I think we're pretty happy with it and are looking forward to making it feel more like home. Here are some pictures of the new apartment, during the move and after.

Here's a video tour:

First Hill Apartment on Vimeo.

Today is the start of our fourth year in Seattle. It's hard to believe we've already been here three years. The past year hasn't been as rewarding as previous years due to my plantar fasciitis, but overall we've done some pretty cool things.

After going to Vancouver for the Olympics last February, we didn't do much until the end of May when my friend Megan came to visit us over Memorial Day weekend. We went to Ken Griffey Jr.'s last Mariners game, the Museum of Flight, and the Boeing manufacturing plant.

In July, we took a day trip to the Bavarian-themed tourist town of Leavenworth on the other side of the Cascade Mountains.

One of the best highlights of the year was when our friends David and Karen visited us for a week later in July. We went to Mount Rainier for a day, Bite of Seattle, and just enjoyed hanging out and playing video games.

Troy and I went blueberry picking for the first time and it was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I made some really good blueberry pie with all the blueberries we picked.

We saw a concert paying tribute to Paul McCartney at Benaroya Hall. It was nice to finally go see the Seattle Symphony, I'd like to go again sometime soon.

The only trip we took this year (other than to Texas) was to the Oregon Coast in September. We really enjoyed being on the coast, seeing the beautiful scenery, and just relaxing on the beach. I liked seeing all the lighthouses and going to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We even took a dune buggy ride on the sand dunes! The weather was the best we could hope for that late in the summer. I'd definitely like to go back.

We didn't do much in the fall or winter. We went to a pumpkin patch for the first time, which was neat. We also started receiving produce boxes from Full Circle Farm and have enjoyed trying new vegetables and fruits. And we took a three hour Thai cooking class to learn more about the ingredients and ways to cook Thai food on our own.

Finding a new apartment and moving has taken up a lot of our time in January and February.

I'm excited about what this coming year has in store for us. Both of our parents and my Uncle are coming to visit early this summer. We might also be going on a week-long National Park road trip with David and Karen. We'd like to take a few short trips as well, perhaps to San Francisco and Vancouver. As for things in Seattle, we'll have another summer full of great food to eat, festivals to go to, and hiking to do.

We're finally mostly settled in our new apartment. Last week and weekend was really busy with all the packing we had to do to get ready. Thankfully we still had most of the boxes we used to move here, including four big wardrobe boxes and boxes for our kitchen dishware and appliances. We signed the lease on Thursday and moved in some small things that night and Friday night.

We had originally wanted to have the movers come Saturday morning around 8 or 8:30, but our old apartment wouldn't give us the elevator key to use because the office didn't open until 10. So we ended up changing our move time to the afternoon, which had a big start window of 12-4. We used Gentle Giant, which I read good things about and checked on the BBB website. It ended up working out well that they came later because we were still busy packing up things and getting furniture emptied. Three big, strong guys showed up at the old apartment around 12 and took about an hour and a half to get everything padded, wrapped, and in the truck. I was impressed with how fast and hard they worked.

The only thing that got broken was a cheap picture frame that fell off the wall when they were lifting the mattress. To compensate, they didn't charge us for the packing materials used to wrap the mattress (which we weren't told about in the beginning, but I guess it didn't matter). It seemed to take longer for them to move everything into the new place. The couch looked especially difficult to fit through the door. They ended up finishing around 3:45.

After they left, we spent the next several days unpacking and putting things away. The place was quite a mess for a few days with boxes everywhere. We still have some piles of stuff here and there that we don't know what to do with or where to put, but it's starting to look like a home now. We hope to have some pictures up by this weekend.

We're finally moving this weekend after several weeks of searching for the right apartment, packing, getting rid of stuff we don't want, and waiting until the big day. We'll be able to move in small things and boxes Thursday and Friday. Then the movers will move the bigger furniture Saturday sometime between 12 and 4. The forecast currently looks very favorable for Saturday: sunny skies with 0% chance of rain, while all the surrounding days have a chance of rain/snow. Hopefully the move goes smoothly!

The camera we bought shortly after we moved here has had some photo quality issues lately. It looked like there was something on the lens, even after we had carefully cleaned it.

We decided to buy a new point-and-shoot camera that would take higher quality photos. So far, I like it. My favorite thing about it is that it has a wider-angle lens, meaning essentially that it can zoom out farther than other cameras and capture more of a scene. This is especially helpful for indoor shots and self-portraits. It also has image stabilization and is smaller than our previous camera. It came in multiple colors and Lesley chose a greenish color.

Last weekend we started going through stuff trying to reduce what we have. We have a lot of stuff from when we were kids that we can't really get rid of, like school yearbooks and stuffed animals. We got rid of a lot of clothes we never wear in preparation for going down to 5' of closet space in our bedroom. We'll have to store more clothes in the chest of drawers, which we've been using to store random stuff. It was quite a mess in the apartment with all our boxes out in the hallway and living room.

We're planning on packing a lot more stuff this weekend, our last full weekend in our current apartment. It's kind of sad to be leaving it, after being there almost three years. We'll miss being close to Whole Foods and REI. We'll also miss the view we have of Queen Anne Hill and the sunset to the west, even though it is partially blocked by Amazon buildings.

We'll probably go out to eat at a few more places nearby before we move. I want to order take out from Laadla Indian restaurant again and we might to go Seastar this weekend. I'd also like to walk to Lake Union Park again.

It's definitely become our home, but I guess it's time to move on. Our new place will be bigger and cheaper. It's also in an area we aren't very familiar with, so we'll get to explore a whole new neighborhood and try out all the restaurants in the area.

As we look forward to moving into our new place, we're trying to think of where we want to put all of our furniture and how we want to decorate. The place we're moving into has white paint over the walls and kitchen cabinets, so we want to add a little touch of color by painting a wall in a different color. We've never had anything painted before, so we're picking up color swatches and trying to figure out what color we want to use.

We're thinking of a shade of green, as everything else is very neutral - the walls are white, the carpet is brown-ish, and the closet doors are grey. There are so many different shades of green, though. Our current color scheme has some green in it, so we want the wall to match. I don't want the wall to be too grey-colored, because we get plenty of that from the sky. I think a green with some yellow in it would be nice, but we don't want it to be an olive color. So, we're going to go back to the unit and see what shades of green would look best.

We're also thinking of painting parts of other rooms like the bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom, but I don't know if we'll do that. At our current apartment, the bathroom is already painted in a neutral tan color, which I think helps the feel of the room. So, anyway, hopefully we pick a good color for the living room and any other rooms - there are a lot of options.

Last Friday we decided to celebrate being done with apartment searching and went out to eat at Daniel's Broiler, a very nice steak restaurant right on the south end of Lake Union. It's just a 10 minute walk from where we live, though we've never been there. It was a really nice place and still seemed fairly casual. The view of the lake and Queen Anne hill was amazing at night.

We started with the bacon wrapped scallops as an appetizer and they gave us fresh warm bread with butter. I had the 8 oz petite filet mignon with a baked potato and Troy had the prime rib with a baked potato. The steak was cooked perfectly and had a good flavor. It was a lot of food, but somehow we still had room for dessert. We got the creme brulee with fresh berries and drizzled caramel.

All the food was excellent. The service was a little slow, but I suppose nice steak places tend to be a relaxed experience. Since we're moving out of the area, going out to dinner on the lake was kind of our way of saying goodbye to our neighborhood.

After weeks of searching and visiting 14 different buildings, we finally applied for a new apartment. We thought we found "the one" last week in a building on First Hill, but it was gone before we could apply. Then Thursday night, we thought we'd found "the one" in a building on 8th Ave. But yesterday, we ended up applying for another unit in that first building on First Hill. While this unit isn't as big as we had hoped for, it's still bigger than what we have now and costs less than what we're paying now.

This wasn't in the plan - as of Thursday night we expected to apply to a building on 8th Avenue that we saw that day. It had the best floor plan of any that we'd seen, including plenty of storage space, and the building had a super amazing rooftop deck with a view of downtown, Mount Rainier, and the Cascades to the east. However, we found out later that the unit we'd be getting would be smaller than the unit we'd seen on Thursday. We also found out that the first apartment building on First Hill we had tried to apply to last week still had a unit available, though it was smaller than the one we'd tried to apply to, it was about the same size of the unit we'd be getting on 8th Ave and much cheaper.

After some analysis and discussion throughout the day on Friday, we decided to take a look at the less expensive unit on First Hill. It's not the ideal floor plan, as there is not as much bathroom counter space and storage as we wanted, but the living room is much bigger than what we have now. We also have a better view from this unit than we would have had at any other place we'd looked at (though not nearly as good as what we have now). I also like the location better, as we're close to downtown, close to the grocery store, and in a rather quiet residential area.

We applied for that unit and then returned home to find a note under our door that our current rent would increase 7% if we wanted to sign a new lease where we are now. So, that helped to reaffirm our decision. We're excited to be done with the searching and looking forward to moving into our new home.

Our lease ends next month and we are looking for a larger apartment. We really like our current apartment building, but we have decided that we want more room in the bedroom and living room. Ideally, we'd like a little more space but without paying a lot more.

There's not a lot available in our current building and what is available seems to cost a lot more. We've spent the last few weeks looking up available apartments on HotPads and PadMapper. Things are a little difficult because we have very strict criteria. We'd like to stay within reasonable walking distance to downtown and Lesley's work. That rules out a few neighborhoods we like, like Ballard and the U District, but I think we would quickly tire of a longer commute. Specifically, we're looking at apartments in upper Belltown, Capitol Hill, and First Hill. We want a one bedroom apartment in good condition without being too pricey.

We had found a place that we liked and almost applied for it, but it was leased right before we got there to submit the application. So, we are still looking for a place we would like. We have to give notice by early February to our current apartments if we are planning to move out by the end of the month. If we can't find anything, we may sign another 6 month lease here or go month-to-month until we find something.