Everlasting Summer.

This has been both one of the longest and shortest summers I have ever experienced. It's the shortest because I feel like Steven and I hardly got to spend any of it together (as we had been looking forward to) but definitely the longest in terms of the number of beautiful, warm, sunny days in a row. It has been nothing short of incredible. I haven't seen rain in weeks! Literally. I have completely exhausted my warm weather work wardrobe. I've worn every sleeveless dress, skirt, and pair of capris I own and am about to have to start repeating outfits again. It's pretty great.

 

I have been ignoring my blog lately. The new job has kept me more than a little busy and I haven't bee writing nearly as much as I would like to. This post is my attempt to catch up on some of the late summer happenings that hadn't previously made it onto the blog.

 

The week before Steven came back from the fire (I know, right?? that was ages ago!), Lena and I made blackberry jam together. Lots and lots of blackberry jam. I also made a batch of peach blackberry jam but I don't think it was quite as tasty.

 

 

Lena and Mom and I spent my (and Steven's) anniversary in the Bellevue park watching a movie. We had MOD pizza for dinner (it's the best! You should check it out.) and Mrs. Field's cookies and ice cream for dessert and watched Dolphin Tale. I definitely thought it was going to be cheesy but ended up loving it. It's a pretty awesome story and it has Morgan Freeman and he's amazing. Note the phone pressed to my ear -- I was chatting with Steven :)

The breakfast I made for Steven on his first day back and the flowers he brought to me. Poaching eggs is definitely not my favorite thing to do but the hollandaise sauce was fantastic. We've decided that in the future, I'll just fry the eggs since poaching makes for a messier kitchen and a frustrated chef, I mean, Steph.

The weekend Steven came home we had a house full of guests and a pretty fantastic housewarming party. Jeremy and Ronnie came up from Portland for the weekend and Chad and Whit were in town from Boston. It's always a treat to have our friends in town and it was really fun to show them our new place!! Thanks Jer for the photo that I borrowed from your facebook without asking...

The day after our housewarming party was my first day of work. I spent that entire week setting up my classroom and stressing out big time. The kids didn't start school until the following Wednesday after Labor Day.

One of my first Fridays at school, Steven met me after work and we enjoyed the 80 degree afternoon at the zoo. Yes, there's a zoo at my work, and yes, the zoo happens to have a beautiful view of the lake (above) as well as 3 cougar cubs and 4 tigers (when I say "cubs" I mean 15 month old giant cats -- see below).

Can't say Steven cared all that much about the zoo but it was just nice to spend some time together out in the sunshine. Our time together has been somewhat limited since early August with our crazy busy work schedules.

In celebration of my 25th, Tara's 18th, and Dad's 50th birthdays, we spent the evening on a ferry boat ride. We just went to Bainbridge and back but Dad timed it just right so that we would get to see the sunset.

 

And what an amazing sunset it was! I took about 200 photos. It was a bit ridiculous.

 

We are so blessed to live in such a beautiful city!

 

Sunrise on the way to work one morning. Wow, wow, wow.

 

As I mentioned, the first few weeks of school were a lot stressful and more than a little overwhelming for me. So much so that by the second week of school I was already sick. I couldn't believe it! I felt so crummy and tired and it was no fun at all. I started to have flashbacks to last fall when I was sick for three months straight and just the thought made me incredibly nervous. I started planning out in my head how I would probably have to quit my job because there's no way I could feel that miserable and continue to work in such a stressful position. This was a bit of an overreaction. My cold started on Tuesday and was pretty much gone by Saturday.



 

We had a really fun surprise the next weekend. I guess it wasn't so much a surprise for Steven since he helped plan it but it was for me! Paige decided at the last minute to come into town for a wedding and she and Steven planned a get together. Steven and I drove up to Capitol Hill and he distracted me while Paige jumped in the back seat! We had lunch together and walked around Queen Anne and it was just so nice to be near her for a little while. I hope we get to live in the same state again someday in the future -- no pressure Paige! I can love you from any state :)

 

Steven and I spent the rest of the afternoon at the Science Center walking through the King Tut exhibit and watching an imax film about Egyptian mummies.

 

The exhibit was very well done and we spent quite a bit of time in there. It was difficult to take photos with the lighting but I managed to get a few. We had been looking forward to this for a looooong time. It was the only reason we renewed our membership last year.




Last weekend, after Scott and Kristen left, Steven and I went to my dad's house to help him with the honey harvest. It was another sunny day and I quickly discovered that sunlight streaming through honey is absolutely gorgeous. A hundred and thirty five photos later, I was very nearly satisfied that I'd gotten some good shots.

That thing Steven is spinning is full of frames of honeycomb. Tara is trying to rescue the bees that fall into the honey that is dripping out of it. She would get them out with a stick, put them on the ground, and pour water over them to help de-sticky their wings. She had a nice little bee hospital. Dad didn't bring any bees with him -- he just brought the bee boxes (with all of the honeycomb) from his farm to his house, but all of the local bees near his house showed up for the occasion and there were bees EVERYWHERE! It was crazy. Dad had close to 10 stings by the end of the day. I like the photo on the right -- this is definitely a more extreme version of "licking the beater" but it made me smile. My dad definitely loves his sweets when he lets himself have them.

These bees were cleaning out the honeycomb. It was pretty fascinating actually. Those were all sticky when they were first set out on the bench but the bees licked them clean.

Love, love, LOVE Tara's hair like this. I had done one of those zig-zaggy braid for her after her shower. She said it took her 5 minutes to take it out since I had done the sections of hair so small and she looked like Hermione when she was done. I love how happy Charlie looks to be in this photo too.

Steven took me out for breakfast yesterday. It was so great! I love going out to breakfast and we were in desperate need of a date. He's the best. We spent the rest of the day running a couple of small errands and then enjoying our favorite Seattle hangouts: Blue Highway, Sushiland, and Card Kingdom. They were having an auction at Blue Highway so we couldn't actually play any games there but I did purchase a couple. One just because it looked really cool and I got it for $3 and the other is a word game for my classroom. Both were excellent finds. We did play a new game at Card Kingdom but it wasn't our favorite. Most of our entertainment came from the excellent people watching -- there was a Magic tournament. Need I say more?

 

This is one of my favorite things to eat -- crab salad tempura roll at Sushiland. We were there this weekend and it occurred to me that I'd never taken a picture of it before. It's delicious and it's almost always fresh because it's not something they keep out on the belt and you have to order it. And I want some. Right now.

 

We took Uncle Barry to the Sounders game with us tonight. October sunshine in the evening. Glorious. And we had the best seats in the house (section 304 comes with a marvelous view of the Puget Sound). AND the Sounders kicked some Timber butt (3-0), which was pretty fantastic to watch. It was crazy to have so many Portland fans there. They were a bit rowdy actually and the security guys made them all stay in their rows until the rest of us had cleared out after the game ended. The soccer culture in Seattle is a little different from our other sports.

So here we are, well into the month of October and enjoying what could be the last of our 10+ weeks of sunshine and warm weather. The fall foliage this year is some of the prettiest I've ever seen! I just hope the weather holds out through tomorrow as our entire school is having zoo day and that would be positively miserable in the rain. I am ready to transition into fall when it comes though. I certainly won't complain about the sunshine and would love to have more but I have some lovely sweaters and boots that would like to be pulled out of my closet and when the time is right, a pumpkin latte will suit me just fine!