Friend Fun!

One of my best friends from high school came to visit! She's visiting the U.S. for a while and made a special trip up to see me :D We had lots of fun. Highlights included exploring boutique antique shops, watching movies, making homemade Norwegian pancakes & Belgian waffles, wandering around Seattle and more. Here are a few pictures:

Nice hat!

I think this dress is SO FUN (it comes in blue, too)

Yummy prawns

The fuzzy penguin in Seattle

While we were in Seattle I also picked up another jar of Tayberry jam (combination of raspberry and blackberry?). AND it started raining. I was one happy girl! 

Mom and Dad Come to Town

I've been intending to write this post all week but just haven't found the time. My parents came up and visited! We had a lot of fun with them while they were here.

The first thing we did was find the train station since they decided to ride it up as opposed to driving or flying. It's actually really close to where we live - only about 5 minutes away. They completely sold me on wanting to take the train down to California sometime, even though it takes longer and seems to always be behind schedule. It sounded much more comfortable than flying and more leisurely than driving. 

After hanging out with us for the night, they went up to visit some family friends on the San Juan Islands. It looks BEAUTIFUL there. I can't wait until Matt and I have a chance to make it up. Not only did they come back with gorgeous pictures, but my mom also found a really cute jacket and an extremely soft alpaca hat and set of gloves. Just from the way they told us about it, I could tell they had a lot of fun visiting.

Over the weekend they were here we did a few different things with them:

Visited Experience Music Project and the Science Fiction Museum. Both were pretty cool and worth checking out. I'm my father's daughter, so I liked the Science Fiction Museum better than the music part, although the room where you got to try different instruments was pretty cool, as were the band pictures we got to take!

Wandered around Pike's Place Market for a while. My mom even found this guy selling ocarinas and discovered her favorite ocarina back at home was made by his father. She talked to him for a while and even got to try out one of his flutes.

Finally at ate Ivar's. A few years ago when my parents were dropping me off at school, we took some time to head over to Bainbridge Island to see my dad's cousin. He saw Ivar's from the ferry and decided we should eat there. Of course, we didn't have time that trip since we ate dinner with his cousin on the island, but he remembered it when we were talking about what to do in Seattle, so we took them down to the waterfront so my dad could eat at Ivar's.

Played a rousing game of Scrabble. Back when I was in high school, my mom and I played Scrabble and I won. She refused to play with me again, which just shows how competitive she is. Apparently, she didn't know she was refusing to play with me again and the only reason we didn't play again was because we never got around to it...needless to say, my mom won, but only because I had so many Os. You can't make any good words when you have four Os, two Es, and a U.

Ate at Daddy O's, The Ram, Brewery City Pizza and Safura's  Mediterranean Cuisine. Yes I'm my father's daughter, but I'm also my mother's daughter. I really enjoy eating, so where we eat is usually a highlight for me. The four restaurants above are some of our local favorites. I would also add Koibito to the list - we just didn't have the time to take them there, too.

Took them to church. They decided to stay through the weekend so they could check Life Pointe out. I love how the week they visited, the sermon started with the play as an example of how something might seem over, but it's not. I would have been excited about that any Sunday, but the fact that my dad was there, too...there were two happy Cal fans sitting in that cafeteria.


Needless to say, Matt and I had a great time with my parents. We love it when people visit! Especially people that want to take us out to dinner...although that's not a requirement =)

Friday's Excursion

I know it's been a few days, but I thought a couple of things from Friday would be interesting to share. After working in the morning, Matt and I took the ferry over to Seattle to meet up with a friend from California that's also moved to Washington, although she and her husband live on one of the islands further north.

The three of us had a late lunch that afternoon at the Museum of Flight at Boeing airfield. It was really fun to watch planes take off as we sat outside the cafe to eat. Someday, I'd love to go back and explore the Museum of Flight. Although it wasn't nearly as large as the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH that my family visited a couple of years ago, it still looked like they had some pretty neat attractions. Here's what I'd love to go back and see:

• The Airpark, which features one of the former Air Force Ones and the world's fastest jetliner, the Concorde.
• The Great Gallery, which includes Cockpits, Flight Simulators, the Museum of Flight Tower, and a lot of cool looking planes.
• The Lear Gallery, which is all about space exploration and includes a full size replica of the International Space Station’s Destiny Research Laboratory that guests can climb in.

After we finished up lunch, we went back to Seattle because Matt and I had tickets for the Mariner's game. We got there right when the gates opened, so we had a few hours to walk around and look at the park. Of course, I've always loved the roof at Safeco Field - I think it's so cool that it can open and close depending on the weather. It ended up raining during the game, so we got to watch the roof close that night! Yes, I know I get excited easily...

Anyway, another cool thing about Safeco Field is the "Hit it Here Café" in right field. Anyone can go eat there up to a half hour before the game starts, and then whoever bought those tickets for the game gets to eat there while they watch. Although the seats are $44 - $48, they come with an $18 food credit, so it feels like you're getting a discount. If money were no object and my stomach didn't have a limit for how much it could hold, this is what I would order:

• Beer Battered Onion Rings and Poblano Artichoke Dip
• Hummus, Sundried Black olives with Pita chips
• Ribeye Steak
• Mini Corndogs
• Cloverdale All-Beef Hot Dog
• Fish and Chips
• Chocolate Cake

We ended up sitting on the third deck because that's where are tickets were for, but it was a fun game. We also discovered that sitting in the front row up there = a great view of the game. Not only did the Mariner's win, but so did the Giants (although I didn't see that game beyond the score updates in the park). The game even got out early enough we were able to briskly walk (plus a slight run at the end) to the ferry terminal and hop on one that left almost an hour earlier than we had planned on leaving.