Sadly, our ballroom dancing class was canceled. Under-enrollment. Boooooo. I've always wanted to take a couples dancing class. I know it'll happen one day.
We found other ways to kill time this weekend though, namely the Chowder Cook-Off on the Santa Cruz boardwalk and the Mystery Spot! What's the Mystery Spot you say? Well check it out:
They say it's some sort of gravitational vortex thingamajig, (yeah, that's the technical term for it) or just a highly effective visual illusion. Though, if you visit the place, I think you'll be surprised at how much it'll influence you.
Our guide Ana demonstrated how this seemingly upwards slanted plank with a groove in it pours water out - uphill? It's all pretty amazing.
She warned us that we might feel dizzy and disoriented and there was a railing we could hold onto if need be. I laughed, what me? need that? no way! uh, yes way. I took maybe five steps and then made my way to the railing to hold on.
This is what we all looked like...
If Ed had wanted he could have placed his right foot on the wall and lean out even more away from the way.
Annnnd I ran (read: stumbled) out of there pretty quick. :)
So after that mind bending experience, we made our way down to the boardwalk for the chowder cook off. We've never been there before and I am pleased to report it did not disappoint. It was massively crowded and I think we might enjoy it a bit more in slightly warmer weather and with slightly fewer people.
The chowder cook off got crazy real quick, so I only snapped one pic of the places we tested. We first tried the Santa Cruz Firefighters as seen below, and then we tried.... "jam out with your clam out" and "rack o'clams" and "Amish Paradise" and "family divers." Our favorite was Jam out's, that had this herbal/bacon-y, briny Boston chowder. We only tried one Manhattan style since I'm not a huge fan of that in general. It tasted like vegetable soup with some clams so... there's that.
It was a great adventure. On the way back we stopped through Saratoga to explore a bit. Found some places I'm excited to take Michelle when she visits. Brian and Ed can always hang out at this Irish cocktail lounge nearby...
I keep meaning to post this below, it's the underside of the overpass of 17 near our house. I love little insertions of color into daily life like this. I don't get to see the lights often, I run here every other day, but always in the daytime.
Other than all of the above it's been quiet here. I've been dieting. I had a doctor's appointment and some bloodwork done that really lit a fire under my butt. I'm not dying, but there are some things that could be serious if ignored for the next 10 years. Adding family planning on top of that, I've always wanted to be as healthy as possible for having kids - namely, not overweight or having high cholesterol or elevated blood sugar - and I'm certainly not there. So I'm dieting. And it has made me SUPREMELY grumpy. I'm still running as well and getting a bit further and faster. But the dieting... blerg. It turns me into a monster. I know there's nothing wrong with being hungry and I know I eat too much. But tell that to me at 10:30 in the morning and 3:30 in the afternoon and I will punch you in the face. I just try to remind myself that high school kept me on a regular diet that really worked. I don't want to bore you with more talk of weight loss, suffice it to say, it's working, and it's hard, and I can't say I like it, but I've got some increased motivation this time around. Thanks doc! So forgive me if you speak to me during my grumpy times, it's not you I swear, it's that I'm desperately trying to remember what your face looks like instead of the talking blueberry muffin my stomach is projecting.
What to look forward to next week? I'm reading The Magicians and I'm in love. Anyone else a fan? Also, next Monday will be the last many of you hear from me for awhile because the brand new SimCity releases next Tuesday! And Sims 3 University Life! So yeah, my schedule is full up :)
It was a pretty quiet weekend round these parts. We needed some recovery time post Seattle adventures. We both got back on track with training routines and enjoyed some much needed sleeping in time. I realized I hadn't posted anything on Valentine's day about what we did, but once again we stayed in and had a nice meal together. Of course, Ed bought me another gorgeous bouquet. He never really goes for straight roses because I usually swoon over the ones with some variety of color and flora. But I gotta say, the rarity of these makes receiving them now much sweeter. Thaaaaanks Ed :)
Rosie approves with her mouth. Ugh.
We hit up some of our favorite local places, including the goodwill where we thought we scored a jackpot with a new cat toy. Rosie loves hollow toys with a ball to push around so this one below looked perfect. The design on the box showed a racetrack set up... but unfortunately, it was missing a connector piece. So here we have an almost loop with two dead ends sealed up by Ed with wine corks and tape. Rosie enjoys pushing the ball against the dead ends almost as much as she enjoys chewing on the tape.
We almost made our way over to this giant media store near us, Rasputin Music & Books. This place, is incredible. If you miss the days of Tower Records or were a sucker for the movie Empire Records, this is the place for you. They had everything. I was amazed at how big it was inside. Of course we spent a good while going through everything and you won't believe what I found....
Yes. It is the actual movie soundtrack. Some of you may not know how much I LOVE this movie. But it ranks among my tops, and I may or may not know all the lines. And songs. Which are epic in their terribleness and that just makes me adore them even more. This movie inspired massive crushes on Jim Carrey, Jeff Goldblum and Damon Wayans.
And I was determined to grow up and look like Geena Davis. You can hate, but I'm so happy I can't stand it. I want to put on some negligee a blonde wig and get some take out sushi and sing along!
This is the look.
Oh, OH, I can even tie this back to my L.A. visit with Ck! Remember Angelyne???
On a less embarassing note, I also bought my very first new record! We have a ton from my Dad and I've purchased some used from the library and good will, but this was my first new record. I love Nellie McKay and I love Doris Day so I thought this was a perfect album to put on while I'm making dinner in the evenings.
Ed also found something to suit his tastes a little better, and it sounds pretty good on our tiny little stereo set-up if I do say so myself.
All in all, a quiet, nice weekend. This week we're looking forward to (wait for it!) ballroom dancing classes! Yes we can all thank Ed in advance for the hilarious stories bound to come out of that adventure. This weekend is also the chowder cook off down in Santa Cruz so we may make a trip out for that.... I'll keep you posted!
So let's see, I left off right in the middle of Friday.... we were bouncing around Discovery Park and planned on making our way a bit more north on our friend Jeanne's recommendation again and checking out the Chittenden Locks.
It was pretty nice walking around the park and seeing the boats move through. I remember the first time I had the whole locks concept explained to me when our school visited the C&O Canal. I still think it makes only partial sense.
Also did I mention I'm pretty terrified of boats? So as we're watching this process I keep turning to Ed and explaining to him how boats make no sense as well and how they are bound to topple over at any moment and sink and how I should probably go rescue that little girl that is standing on that boat oh so calmly not knowing the death trap she is on. Ed rightfully just shakes his head.
After the locks we made our way to another restaurant from The Layover that I was determined to visit: The Walrus and the Carpenter. It was a bit chaotic considering it's very small, max capacity 45 if I remember right.
Ed's excited!
Ok. Ok. Straight talk. These are the best oysters I've ever had. It was ridiculous how delicious they were. And something I wanted to say before but I don't want people to get the wrong idea. Seattle kind of smells like oysters - fresh, watery, muted ocean. I'm sure that contributed to my being so in love with it all.
I loved this little guy, all covered in his finery. :) I know, they're just barnacles, but it looked like it was all dressed up!
Don't. Even. Say. It. I was so mad I cracked the yoke before taking a picture. I got too excited for this steak tartare. It was pretty great.... I think I prefer using quail eggs just because it's a bit less yoke. And I like our Eric Ripert recipe mostly because it's tangy-er. This was more rich and meaty tasting, with a straight forward flavor. I realize I'm saying raw meat tastes meaty but, our other recipe takes a bit of the animal taste away and you have something more varied with the cornichons and a little hot sauce. Still thought this was very good, just not my all time favorite.
Ok this picture doesn't make it look great, but these brussel sprouts were fantastic. A little salty, but I loved how much they were cooked and how fresh it tasted, despite the appearance.
This was the pickled herring on toast with beets, topped with salmon roe. This was also really good. If you like herring, you'll like this. No we didn't eat the head :) We were pretty stuffed so we didn't get a dessert but I did have a liiiiiittle bit more room so.... more oysters! We picked out three of our favorites and had two more of each. If you don't like oysters you need to go here, try these oysters and if your mind isn't changed you are just missing out my friend.
We drove back to the hotel and refreshed ourselves for the evening. Now, I think I'm portraying our visit as one that followed a particular timeline, let me clarify. We did everything EARLY. Partially because of reservation issues, but also because we would generally skip breakfast and just do two meal days, cramming in activities but still ready for bed by like 9:30. I know, we're WILD! But! This night we decided to go out and enjoy ourselves, hell it was the weekend. So we went down to a bar in Pioneer Square called Merchant's Cafe. It's the oldest restaurant in Seattle and by cafe they really mean bar. It reminded me a lot of Wheaton's Royal Mile and Barnaby's mashed together. I should also say for those of you thinking of visiting, Pioneer Square is... sketchy. I felt safe with Ed and at one point we did see a huge herd of police officers on horses, but I'm not sure I would recommend hanging around there solo, late at night. That being said we had a great experience. The bartender at Merchant's was really nice and gave us free tickets to a nearby comedy club so we walked on over for that.
The brick walls are all part of that underground I was talking about in the last post... this all used to be street level. And wait I see a familiar face....
The comics were great, and made for a fun end to the night. It was a biiiiiig night out! And we still managed to be in bed by 11pm. That is what I call winning.
Our last day in Seattle we didn't really have any plans so we just decided to wing it. We stopped for breakfast and I got my salmon fix. Bagel and lox, one of my all time favorites. Ed did the ham, egg and cheese you see across the table from me.
Trudged over to the Aquarium which was pretty nice. Boy if you want to test to see if you're ready to have kids? Visit the aquarium on the weekend. Inundated with babies and toddlers and families desperate to stay on top of it all. Either my patience levels are miraculously growing or Seattle has some kind of niceness intoxicant in the air because I just want to pick up all the little ones and give them a biiiiiiig hug.
They also have the largest species of octopus...
Here's the big guy on the move:
And then Ed communicated with some fishies:
This little girl was entranced. She wasn't moving an inch and her dad was patiently waiting by her side.
The next part of the aquarium I didn't enjoy as much. The animals were stunning but the enclosures were.... way too small. Painfully small. The kind of small that makes your heart ache. They are building new habitats as we speak so they are rectifying the problem... I hope.
These guys below were being really active and cute, showing off. I'm glad I got the shot of the one guy in the back diving in, flippers in the air and all!
Argh! I wish you could see the below picture like we were seeing in person. There are a bunch of clouds out there but in between them you could see all the mountains and snow dotting them. It was really beautiful. Lame photo....
We stumbled onto a CSI: Seattle moment....
Yes sir, I think you are my prime suspect!
We then made our way to the art museum... it was pretty neat. The usual. They had a ton of written works and art from Egypt which is one of my favorite times. I used to be fascinated by those organ jars they used when preparing bodies for mummification.
And also we saw this piece and I swear. The women look just like that Judy skit from SNL...
We ended up walking around a bit more, headed over to Le Pichet for lunch, yes, another The Layover pick.
This was about the same size as Walrus and just as crowded. I picked out the quiche special of the day and it was everything I wanted. Light texture, rich taste, crisp top. It was just delicious.
We also tried the smoked trout with creme fraiche, apples and potatoes. I really liked it even though I was a little uncertain about it all.
We went back to the hotel to regroup again, but this time mostly a forced rest because there were no reservations for anywhere open before 9pm. We opted for a sushi place for dinner and I think we sure did choose right. Everything was delicious. We also had the sweetest waitress, named Misty I think, who misplaced our ticket and was worried we had been sitting too long waiting to order. We were absolutely fine and enjoying ourselves and Misty bent over backwards trying to accommodate us which was unbelievably nice of her, going so far as to buy us some edamame and pay for one of our rolls. Little did she know how amazing she was helping to make the end of our trip to Seattle.
I'd tell you what we ordered but all I can remember are names, dishes left to right: The Union, The Barcelona Sunset and The Last Samuri.
We walked around and took it all in one more time, even stopping by the (closed at that hour) flagship Starbucks store.
It was an amazing trip and the absolute best birthday present. I couldn't have asked for more, and I wouldn't hesitate to visit again. If our family lived close to the area it would certainly be on the list of places I would like to live.
Ok, thanks for sticking with me guys, I know this post has been looooong but let me just squeeze in the briefest recap of my actual birthday-day!
Ed got up ridiculously early and made his breakfast casserole which, admittedly, doesn't photograph well, but is hands down right up there as my favorite breakfast. Alongside honeymoon french toast with rum butter of course.
He picked out the sweetest card:
And gave me a fantastic birthday gift. I've been obsessed with this show lately, singing all the songs from it and imagining a future with three very bizarre children.
And for my birthday lunch? Ethiopian! I used to think the bread was gross when I was little but boy have I come around.
The rest of the day was spent on the phone with friends and family, a quick but delightful afternoon nap, and then an evening course sponsored by the community on Personal Emergency Preparedness. I now know what to do in a hazardous material emergency. Ask me the next time you see me!
Thanks for reading this blog guys. I really appreciate the support and interest in our lives. Like I said in the last couple posts, we miss you guys on the east coast a whole bunch and we're hoping that through this blog we'll feel a bit more conencted to you all. Like we haven't been away at all! :)
