{UW and Crab Pot}

This day Mckay had appointments with UW admissions and a professor who's research is similar to what Mckay is working on at BYU. Since we are planning on applying here in the winter and the school is one of our favorites we really wanted to visit the school and just see what it was about. The campus is gorgeous and in such a beautiful location just minutes from downtown Seattle. There is so much diversity there, which Mckay was excited about. I think we would be really happy there, and they're doing some great research that Mckay is really interested in. We would be so lucky to go here, but it is competitive, so we'll just have to wait and see.



Library:

After our campus visit it was time to get our window fixed. you can imagine our relief! We learned from Safelite that people can get really desperate, and break into cars for things as small as a single candy bar. So we completely cleaned out our car-including bottles of water. better safe than sorry. we then felt prepared to head downtown for a delicious dinner on the pier at the wonderful Crab Pot.

Whilte waiting for our table we strolled the pier and browsed a tacky, yet so delightful souvenier shop.

Mckay loving him some crab bisque. soooooo good.

and this: our seafood feast plopped right onto the table.

We love crab, but who doesnt? but we decided to be adventurous and try Oysters, Mussels and clams too. not for us. very not for us. And i had to get up the nerve to rip the head off of this guy:

an experience i dont think i could handle on a daily basis, but such a fun dinner. definitely an experience. and after this meal, we had officially overdosed on seafood.

After dinner we took our stuffed bellies for a walk around Gasworks park, known to have the best view of the Seattle skyline, and boy did it live up to the hype.

{Pikes Place, etc.}

We found ourselves wandering down to this place on our last day in Seattle. A typical tourist spot and definitely crowded while we were there, but a delightful stop nonetheless.

The iconic fish stand you come to as you enter the market. This is where they throw fish the size of my torso across the market to a coworker, it was rough trying to capture the event in action and stomach the fishy smell at the same time.

The market was lined with booths filled with fresh fruits and veggies, beautiful flowers, fresh seafood, homemade goods etc..

We loved the market, and finished off our stroll by sitting near the water, munching on delicious calorie filled french pastries amid others who were out enjoying the perfect weather, including shirtless homeless men with their pet dogs, one which was dressed in a striped vest and tophat. the dog, not the homeless man. quite the sight i must say!

After the market we made our way back to gasworks part to enjoy the place in the sunlight.

Gasworks Park used to be the site of a gas refinery. Years ago they were wanting to tear the harsh looking machinery down but the public protested. what is left is a beautiful and unique blend of grassy hills and rusty painted refinery pieces.

We enjoyed the view so much, watched three men and their wild frisbee skills. we're talking rolls, flips, spins, twists, kicks, all choreographed to wonderful classical music. so random. I also am pretty sure I spotted the house from Sleepless in Seattle across the water. oh how i would love to live there one day. i cant even imagine how much a place like that would cost.

We left Gasworks park and set out to find the notorious Fremont Troll who lives under the Aurora Bridge at 36th. He was quite the looker. we waited forever to capture a picture of him without people posing all over him, there was one girl inparticular who just had to take a picture posing on every square inch of the thing. We finally just gave up and posed with him ourselves.

Notice what he's holding in his hand? thats right, a volkswagon. pretty sure its an actual car, or at least parts of it. This made us happy, considering our current relationship with volkswagon.

We ate dinner at the counter. a much beloved burger joint we often visited when it was in Salt Lake but has closed down, which broke our hearts. So we were happy to find one in Seattle and it was just as good as we remembered it being. And thus ended our final day in Seattle.

We woke up Wednesday morning early early to start our 14 hour drive back home. We had to make a stop at Top Pot before we headed out. We learned about Top Pot on Donut Paradise (Food Network fan here) and they definitely did not dissapoint. even the simple glazed donut was probably the best donut ever experienced. go there, its amazing.

Isn't the inside dreamy? I fell in love with it on the show. The walls are all lined with books, making such a cozy, relaxed feel.

And that was our final stop on an unforgettable trip with my honey. We had such a blast. The trip confirmed that yes we could live here, and hope to some day. I already want to go back. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect getaway.

no boys allowed.

i'm blogging from a quaint little inn in Seaside Oregon with husband asleep next to me. its almost 1:30 am, about 3 hours past my usual bed time. I usually dont make it past 10:30. however an upset stomach and a terrifying episode of dateline has left me wide awake. i figure i might as well update the blog.

with elise home from england and katie about to embark on a mega-adventure in Los Angeles/Kansas city us four girls, and elijah made our way up to Midway last weekend for a much needed girls get-together. We spent a few hours at Tarahumara until Katie joined us and we headed up to Megan's family condo.


We sewed, and talked into the wee hours of the night. scary stories were exchanged, (yes we're adults)though they might have only been scary to me (in the dark that sweet little cemetery in the parking lot was a little too close for comfort)

the sewing: (elise could not be more excited for this picture. and i forgot to capture seamstress Katie in action before she left)

I forgot to take a picture of our semi-finished project. but i luvs it. I also spent my morning taking lots of pictures of this little guy. what a heartbreaker.

We also braved a visit to the charming cemetery in the parking lot. despite it's random location it was cute, and a lot less scary in the daylight.

Thanks for the fun over-nighter girlies! it was fun being roomies again.

Memorial Day Blunder and a recipe....

We went camping/climbing over Memorial Day Weekend with some friends and boy did we have such a good time. The blunder mentioned in the title is that we forgot our camera :( and Janson and Tara were smart enough to bring a camera, sans memory card however. which is why this post is photo-less, which just about breaks my heart. We finally broke in our new tent, we played cards, swung in the hammock and ate and ate. i learned that banana boats, make a great breakfast. what is a banana boat? cut a banana in half stuff it full of chocolate, marshmallows, cinnamon and sugar, whatever. wrap it up in tinfoil and cook in the fire for a few minutes. so good. since it was memorial day the campsites were super crowded, but the families around us were great. we especially liked the family to our right, who while we were roasting hot dogs on sticks and scrambling our eggs with a knife (we forgot a few things) and using tinfoil as a plate, whipped up gourmet meals and even a cake in the dutch ovens. super fancy. In the morning we hiked a little ways up to what i consider my first real outdoor climbing experience. scary. but oh so fun! we loved every minute of this trip and even though my hair smelled like camp fire for a good three days i cant wait to go camping again! if anyone wants to do a camp out let us know!

and now i must share a quick recipe. last week we also had a spontaneous barbecue with my family. we grilled artichokes, corn on the cob, and steaks. but what was so amazing about the meal was the sauce we made for the steaks. i poured it over just about everything on my plate.

Ina Garten's Gorgonzola Sauce

4 cups heavy cream (yep thats right...)
3-4 oz crumbly blue or gorgonzola cheese
3 Tablespoons grated parmesan
3/4 teaspoon salt, pepper
3 Tablespoons freshly chopped parsley

(for 5 people we halved this recipe and had plenty of sauce leftover)

Bring the heavy cream to a full boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. continue letting it boil for 45-50 minutes. this will make it thick like a white sauce. stir occasionally throughout (and watch it, ours boiled over)

off the heat add the cheeses, seasonings and parsley. whisk until everything is blended.

-lesson learned, if you want to reheat this the next day, or even for a late-night snack, do it over low heat in a saucepan. not in the microwave.

this sauce was so amazingly good, easy and so healthy for you too ;), not really, but i have to say this sauce is worth a little indulgence every once in awhile. It's a little richer than alfredo sauce, we dipped crusty bread in it and it would be so tasty over some pasta. mckay thinks it would also be great on a burger. this is a new favorite. so when youre in the mood to spoil yourself (or your diet) give it a try, and just balance it out with lots of fruits and veggies to avoid feeling too guilty. I'm speaking from experience.

Ode to 50 cent

this is 50 cent. our most treasured turtle, an international traveller named both for the rapper and for the fact that he used to be the size of a 50 cent piece. now he's a tank.

-this picture (circa 2005) shows how tiny and precious he was, a size i naively thought he would stay.

~ sorry i cannot for the life of me get this picture to rotate.

He's been with us throughout our entire marriage, and despite his occasional stink and the catlike noises he's started to make in the middle of the night, i think he'll be around for a long time. hopefully he stops growing.

This weekend we took him outside for the very first time, and let him wander around the yard. he was quite the explorer! we also tried to get a picture of him eating out of mckay's hand, something he's done before. we're convinced it would have worked this time if we'd tried feeding him something else besides a juicy pineapple.

Some may think its silly to devote an entire post to a reptile, sorry, but he's our baby. plus he's super awesome.

New Ride and an Addiction

It's been said before that we were experiencing MAJOR headaches with our beloved car debbie. Let me be more specific, in the last two years we have replaced: transmission, timing belt, battery (twice), 4 tires, front and back break pads, turbo carbon intake and most recently the alternator, those are just the major replacements. When she basically died on us on the freeway I vowed through my nervous breakdown that I would NEVER drive her again. Recently, through many miracles we were able to acquire this little lovely:





We were so lucky to find it when we did and for such a good deal. Everything worked out perfectly and we are so grateful to have a safe and reliable car. The car is used, but the past owner took such good care of it and everything is in such good condition. We are hoping this car will last us for years and years. I do feel a little guilty giving up on our sweet little debbie but the time has come.

In other news, Im officially o.b.s.e.s.s.e.d. with quilting. It's literally taking over my life. I've had some self control this week, so far, but last week I started this second quilt, a more girly one. I love the bright springy colors. This quilt came together so fast, I cant wait to finish it.

in the mean time

Last weekend Mckay and Janson took a little trip down to St. George. They spent the weekend climbing and bouldering in the nice hot weather, and hanging out at the pool.

The boys had a blast! Hopefully us girls will get to go next time!

While Mckay was gone I got to do some girly stuff. I spent my weekend sewing lots and lots of these:

that eventually turned into this:

I started sewing my first quilt! With only a bedroom and an office there's not much to do in the decorating department, and since we don't have kids to craft for I haven't been doing much in the crafting department lately. I ambitiously decided to do a quilt for our bed. I realized pretty quick though, that I should start out with something a little easier, so I settled on a smaller quilt and I'm really liking how it's turning out! and I'm having tons of fun doing it! I figure once I get the hang of it I'll move on to a bigger quilt for us. I fell in love with quilting though and went back and bought a little too much fabric for some more projects.

and remember that Quiet Book I started all those months ago? I'm happy to say I'm finally on letter G. (I hadn't worked on it for awhile.) So the Garden page is almost done. I have high hopes for getting to Z by the time I'm 30, only time will tell.

All the climbing and crafting has been a wonderful vacation from the more stressful things going on lately and we welcomed the break :) we're definitely loving the free time that comes with the end of school.

lately

We've been doing lots of this lately with Janson and Tara and it's been loads of fun. We've become complete addicts and even bought our own gear. Climbing is a great sport for those of you like me who were never good at the whole hand eye coordination thing that so many sports require. And it's great to be building up some much desired arm muscle. I keep flexing my little biceps proudly haha.

While I'm posting I thought I should finish up on the events of April. Not much of an event really, but we did head down to Utah lake one Sunday with the camera.

and my family decided to go to the Jazz game last minute. We all got decked out in our jazz gear for what ended up being the final game in the series against the Nuggets.

It was such a fun game and the fans were once again crazy loud. Chris and JJ drove down for the game, it was so much fun!

oh mckay....that mustache, with that shirt.... I'm happy to report that the mustache was out once the Jazz lost to the Lakers, bittersweet, but now I have my husband back.

cinco de mayo.

we ate thai food to celebrate. not very festive i suppose, but family dinner at thai village was bliss. my belly is full of curry and pad thai, and a little bit of shrek twinkie with ogre green filling, which I'm now thinking was probably a mistake. our conversation at dinner ranged from how much we hate the lakers and wish Gasol was not so tall, to politics...., to adam complaining about taking humanities and having to go to a van gogh museum while he was in the netherlands and hating it, which kind of throws the oh....last 41/2-5 years of my college career down the toilet. but oh well. he thinks wax museums are art... so I guess I shouldn't take him too seriously.

anyways, being cinco de mayo and all, not really sure what it celebrates but its a wonderful excuse to celebrate mexican food. Lately I've been organizing my many many recipes and came across one that instantly became one of my favorites, i would have made it for cinco de mayo but the thai intervened. This recipe is super simple, and great if you want to use up a bunch of cans in your pantry. I'll be honest I originally tried this recipe because it has ranch in it, which intrigued me. everything is made better with ranch dressing and such was the case with this recipe. we feasted on this for about a week. so to celebrate cinco de mayo:

Taco Soup
from fortheloveofcooking-recipes.blogspot.com (an all time favorite food blog)

Taco Seasoning:
1 tsp each of cumin, oregano, chili powder, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, coriander
salt and pepper to taste ~ We didn't have onion powder and corainder and it still tasted great

Soup:
1 lb of lean ground beef
1/2 sweet yellow onion, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup of frozen corn
2 cans of diced tomatoes
1 4.5 oz can of diced green chilies
1/2 a packet of ranch salad dressing mix
~ our soup was a little thick so I added tomato sauce until it got the "soupiness" we wanted. I also added a litte more than half the ranch dressing packed, just cuz i had to.

Heat a dutch oven over medium heat then add the ground beef. add the taco seasonings and mix into the ground beef, making sure to break it up into crumbles. add the diced onion and garlic then mix thoroughly for 4-5 minutes.

add the beans, corn, tomatoes, green chilies and ranch dressing packet, mix well then cover and simmer on low for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. taste and re-season with salt and pepper if needed.

thats it! so easy and so yummy :) we also added things like grated cheese, diced avocado, baked tortilla strips, and sour cream on top.