Other Fall Happenings.

The October weather has continued to be absolutely beautiful. I babysat in Seattle the other morning and it was so pretty driving out as the sun was coming up. I do love being so close to Mount Rainier out here and I so enjoy watching how different it looks depending on the light and the time of day. I wish I had a good enough camera to catch the way the moonlight shines off of it on clear nights.

I have recently discovered this fun little market in Maple Valley though, unfortunately, I'm a little late as they'll be closing for the season this coming Sunday. Their prices are so good though and the apples I got there were super tasty! And only 59cents a pound. How's that for a good deal?

We finally bought the Zombie game -- Last Night on Earth. We were planning to spend the day in Seattle last Thursday playing board games at Blue Highway before a dinner reservation that wasn't until 6:30, but when we got to Blue Highway, they had the game playing area closed. They were getting ready for the auction they had that weekend and had board games covering all of the tables. We decided to go drink hot chocolate at Pete's and play cards but that only lasted about an hour. Then we caved and we had to go back and buy the game for ourselves and take it to a coffee shop. What a sneaky way to get business!

We finished the day with dinner at the Pink Door. It's always fun to try new restaurants and particularly fun to go on a date that's worthy of some dressier clothes. How bad is it that this purple outfit I wore is a "new" outfit and has never been worn but it's been hanging in my closet since two Christmases ago? Pretty bad.

Thursdays that Steven works seem to be my "friend days", or at least that's the trend so far. Yesterday I drove into Seattle and enjoyed coffee with Lena over a game of Ticket to Ride at Blue Highway and then met up with Hilde and her housemates for dinner followed by the Ingrid Michaelson concert at the Showbox SoDo. Lucky for me, Lena and Kira were also on their way to the concert so I got to meet up with them there as well.

After finding a FREE parking spot we noticed that they still hadn't opened the doors to the concert yet and there was a huge line outside to get in... so we made a quick stop in Krispy Kremes instead of standing in the cold. Yum! And yes, it's true, the only reason I chose that particular doughnut was because of how it was decorated.

One of my favorite moments of the evening was as we were walking into the Showbox. There was a guy walking up and down the line telling everyone to have their bags out and open to be checked before we walked in. He was telling us to make sure that we didn't have any food with us "...no banana chips, no chocolate bars, it's not coming in here!" I started laughing because I knew Lena had had banana chips in her purse when I was hanging out with her earlier and she must have been the reason he made that reference. Then I got up there and held my gigantic hand bag open and moved my scarf out of the way so the security man could check it out. The guy was poking around with his flashlight and then just stopped with this super confused look on his face... and pulled out a can of Progresso soup. This I found particularly hysterical but probably mostly because I was rather embarrassed about it. I explained that I had taken it to babysitting to eat for dinner but had just forgotten about it and left it in my purse and that he could have it if he wanted it. He slowly dropped it back into my bag and said "Please don't eat that in there." and I walked in still giggling.

The Guggenheim Grotto opened for Ingrid, they're from Dublin, which means they have cool accents. They're pretty talented too :)

I just love Hilde :)

Ingrid was very entertaining. She's funny and silly and witty her music is quite fantastic. She puts on a really great show and I hope to see her in concert again. Though next time I'll make a point of learning more of her songs first. I always like concerts better when I can sing along.

****

And in case you happened to notice, yes, I did get a haircut yesterday. (Before picture below). I really liked it the length that it was but it's so fun to have short hair again and I think it's quite cute. But I'm already planning to grow it out again :)

Friends.

I still have them! Well, I mean, of course I do, but sometimes living out here in Enumclaw I forget a little bit. But today was FULL of them and I loved it. I had a text exchange with Rachel and an e-mail exchange with Whitney AND Paige is back from Europe (praise the Lord!!!!!) and we had a lovely phone chat this afternoon. I was sitting at a picnic table in Tiffany Loop and the sun was shining through those enormous trees with all of their changing leaves and it was just such a perfect, fun and rather nostalgic moment. Plus I was feeling super cute because I just purchased my first pair of jeggings (finally! they're probably out of style now that it took me the whole year to get some!) and I was wearing them with my velvet boots that I bought for 5 pounds in a charity shop in Virginia Water last fall and the Anthro shirt that Chelsea gave me last Christmas and my brown DKNY jacket. I love the fall in Seattle. And then I got to talk with Chelsea on the phone while enjoying a phenomenally tasty pumpkin chocolate chip cookie in Macrina. Then off to Lena's house for a nice visit, and some toe-nail painting, and soup and grilled-cheese sandwich dinner, and then pumpkin cupcakes with maple frosting at Cupcake Royale for dessert. Then home to my husband who I love and adore. I think I want to have more days like this. Like, every day.

Enjoying October.

It has been another busy, and fun, week. This one (above) is from last Saturday. We have season tickets to the 5th Avenue Theater and the first show this year was In The Heights. I loved it!! The whole show was upbeat and entertaining and there were some fabulous voices. The music was hip-hop-ish and salsa-y with a little rap and it all worked really well. I'm looking forward to downloading the music so I can learn all the songs :) We weren't supposed to go until Wednesday but Papa and Grammi couldn't use their tickets for Saturday night. So, at the very last minute, they traded us their fabulous-forth-row-Saturday-night seats for our not-so-fabulous-against-the-back-wall-Wednesday-night seats. It worked out really well because we had our first small group for the quarter on Wednesday and wouldn't have been able to go because of the show that night.

The group is a movie night for 20-somethings and meets over in the Montlake area. Of course, we went into Seattle early and spent some time at Gasworks...

...where the sun was shining and it was absolutely beautiful! We walked around and sat and talked for a while and just enjoyed the glorious whether.

Next stop: Cupcake Royale in Ballard (pumpkin cupcake with maple frosting -- yum! although I think the coconut is still my favorite) and then on to Blue Highway for another game of Zombies.

We flipped through the Entertainment book and found a new restaurant for dinner. It's a place by Cal Anderson Park called Annapurna Cafe. They serve Tibetan, Nepali and Indian food there. We were a little wary when we first walked in and had to descend a flight of stairs to find the place (come on, dining in a basement on Capitol Hill? Sounds a little sketch don't you think?) but the atmosphere was pretty cool and their Chicken Tikka Masala was marvelous! Found out when we got to our group that we should have skipped dinner though because a) they had a bunch of food there and b) we were thirty minutes late!! Thought the group started at 7 but it actually started at 6:30... we'll remember that next week. The group was pretty fun. Since it was only the first week we spent the entire time playing the fish bowl game. I don't actually know if it's called that but we each wrote 4 random things on separate slips of paper and then put them into one bowl and then we went around the circle 4 times. Each person had 45 seconds per turn. The first time around the circle we played it like catch phrase. Then we put all of the papers back in and did another round where we played it like charades. Oh man, I got Wyoming on the charades one... I made a total fool out of myself but they finally got it. The third round we could only use one word to try to get them to guess what was on the paper and then the fourth round we were only allowed to use facial expressions and sound effects. It was pretty comical. The idea is basically that you start to remember what words are in the bowl which, in theory, makes it easier to guess in the later rounds when you don't have as many verbal clues. After the game we made a movie list together of all the films we're going to watch as a group over the next couple of months. First up: Just Friends. Should be a fun night.

Thursday morning we drove back into Seattle with the intention of taking advantage of "Free First Thursdays" at the EMP. Turns out they don't have "Free First Thursday" admission until after 5pm... so that didn't work out so well but we made the most of our trip into the city and it turned out to be a great day! We've been talking about going to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert for a few years now and since we were already at the Seattle Center we decided to go over to the Key Arena and just go ahead and purchase tickets. The concert is on Saturday November 13th (fortunately Steven has that weekend off!!) and we're so excited for it!!!! We got tickets to the 3pm show so we can have a dinner date afterwards. It sounds like they put on a pretty impressive show and it will be a really fun way to kick off the holiday season.

Steven also treated me to my birthday present :) A year long membership to the Pacific Science Center for both of us! He was planning to take me to the Harry Potter exhibit they're going to have there starting in a couple of weeks but since that's a special exhibit, it costs $40 per person! It was basically the same price for us to get the membership and now we can come and go whenever we like and we have 6 free IMAX tickets. Plus discounted tickets to the special feature IMAX shows, so when they have HP 7 part 1 there next month, we can see it on the gigantic screen for the same price as we would pay to go to the regular theater. Pretty cool, huh? Since we were there and since it's now free, we went into the science center for the planetarium show. I don't think I've seen it since I was a little kid. Did you know that all of the names from the Black family (Harry Potter reference in case you didn't catch it) come from names of different stars? Draco has a whole constellation!! They have a Halloween themed show in the planetarium on the weekends this month so I think we might have to go back and hear some fun stories. This is probably one of the nerdiest paragraphs in my whole blog... I love it.

After the PCS excitement, it was SushiLand for lunch, Blue Highway for Zombies and then the Queen Anne Market for the last market day of the year. The produce and flowers were beautiful. I love outdoor markets like this. I want to actually do some of my grocery shopping at farmers markets in the future. That would be more fun than Safeway.

Last night, to top off the already really awesome day, I got to go to a voice over class at Green River Community College. The guy who was teaching it lives in Oregon and does voice overs there and really anywhere else he can get work because he has a studio at home so that he can just record his stuff and send it out. He talked for most of the class but he had some scripts with him and we got to record a few things, which I enjoyed. He coached us a little and it was just really fun. I love acting and singing and talking and it was just a great little activity for me. I like the idea of getting voice over work and I got pretty excited about the idea of learning more about the industry and making voice demos to send out and stuff like that. It's kind of like running your own business because you have to market yourself so that people can find you instead of you just finding them and it would take a little money to get going but who knows, I might end up being able to do something really fun with it. They have another class where they record your demos for you and give you more info.

Let's Go Sounders!

What a beautiful night for a Sounders game!!!! I met up with Hilde after her soccer practice this evening (she's coaching 1st graders -- so cute!) and we had a lovely dinner together :) Salad at her place, pizza in the car and some chocolate chip cookies for the game. We were a little short on time plus, it's kind of fun to eat dinner in the car sometimes. We managed to find a FREE parking spot over by Uwajimia and only had a short walk over to the stadium.

We got the tickets from Steven's brother's friend and it worked out so perfectly because Hilde's birthday is next week and she'd never been to a Sounders game before. I think it might have been a little overwhelming at first but she loved it, of course.

We didn't even mean to dress in green and blue but we did a pretty good job of color coordinating. The Sounders on the other hand decided to dress as highlighters for the evening. When we were first arrived I was a little confused as to which team we were supposed to be rooting for. None of them seemed to be dressed like Sounders.

It gets so loud in there that Hilde actually covered her ears after the Sounders scored the first time. Haha! We had loads of fun and it's always nice to see a Seattle team win!! Interesting concept, I know. The won the game 2-1 as well as the 2010 US Open Cup.

Steven let me borrow his scarf so I looked like I belonged. He's so sweet.

****

As we were leaving the International District we made a quick little attempt to find the Panama Hotel -- we've both started reading the book Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and since that's a major monument in the book, we thought it would be fun to find it... I think we'll have to look it up first next time.

The Week at a Glance.

Steven and I climbed Mount Peak on Wednesday. It's a smallish hill-like-mountain-thing about ten minutes from our house and seems to be a rather popular place for people to get a little work out around here. It's not a super exciting hike but it has some nice views of the "plateau." It's strange to me that they call this place the "plateau" because that makes me think of the Sammamish/Issaquah area but anyhow, the sun was out and the mountain was out and it was really pleasant to be outside.

It's a pretty quick trip (and will get quicker if we do it with some regularity as Steven wants to) and you're mostly on this gravel road (though it's much steeper than this for the majority of it) until you get near the top. Then there's a normal dirt/rock trail through the trees to get up to the very top.

Check this out. It's probably the least rewarding hike ever! This is the top. That's it. You're in the trees so you can't see anything. There's just these benches and some rocks and then you turn around and go back down. Lame. By the time we turned around to head back, Mount Peak had been covered by a cloud. It got cold fast but we made it down the hill faster so it wasn't so bad. Then yakisoba for lunch and back home for games.

Thursday wasn't all that exciting but we did finally get the oil changed in both of our cars. The semi-exciting thing about this is that I got to cross it off my to-do list and it's been on there for two months now!! We were pretty over due... We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon running errands. I dropped off my resume for a receptionist position at the animal hospital and met with a lady about helping with childcare for the MOPS program at the local Catholic Church. Then -- big news -- we went to the social security office where I officially changed my name! Yikes! Have I mentioned I'm having a bit of an identity crisis? It's okay though. I'll have to get my new drivers license sometime soon and then we'll really be in business. Since we were in downtown Kent, we stopped at the shopping center to hang out with my mom at Jamba Juice for a bit and we managed to stay long enough so that we got free ice cream at Cold Stone before it was time to go home.

****

We got to spend Friday in Seattle -- woohoo!!! I didn't realize that I had a gigantic Seattle shaped hole in my life until we were there. It made my heart so happy just walking around Queen Anne. It was cold but the weather was beautiful. We stopped at Kerry Park for a few minutes before making our way over to The Tea Cup (Bombay Market tea -- yum! Apricot and passion fruit). Then a quick stop at Macrina, where we met up with Nicole, and back to Queen Anne Ave. for a visit to Blue Highway. We introduced Nicole to Steven's latest heart-throb, Zombies. He's been pining after this game for a while now. We played it once through and then this 10 year old (ish) boy came over and asked if he could play the next round with us. His name is Daniel. It was really funny slash brave that he asked and it was kind of fun playing the game with him :) We finished the evening with dinner at Hilde's house (spinach lasagna!!) and, of course, the long drive home.

The only other exciting news of the week is that we have a new toaster oven on the way!! For the last ten days or so we've been holding down the button to toast our food and sometimes that doesn't even work (note: I'm demonstrating the button-holding in the photo). Lucky for us we have plenty of Macy's gift-cards left and a new toaster oven has been ordered. I'll post a picture when it arrives :)