Seattle

I had a fantastic trip to Seattle to visit our friends Heather and Paul a few weeks ago. Mike, unfortunately, did not get to join me this time around :-( I didn't get a ton of pictures, but highlights from the trip included a shopping day with the girls, where we were joined by Carrie Householder, a brunch at Heather and Paul's full of Amazonians, lot of great food including fresh dungeness crab, and the inner city transfer station (see picture below)

Dungeness crab at Chinooks, where there were real fishing boats out front including a couple from "The Deadliest Catch." Apparently they winter over here. Also note the majestic Thor. If anyone knows the history of this boat, we are very curious! Paul's brother Mark, who just moved up to Seattle with his wife, was my stand-in date for the night as both of our spouses were out.

 The ferry to Bainbridge. That's Heather and Paul on the left, and me with the space needle in the background on the right. I swear that coat I'm wearing is green. Lime green.

The troll under the bridge and a giant Lenin in Fremont, where we had dinner on my last night. The picture is a little dark, but the troll has just eaten a VW bug. You can see the tire under his hand.

In spite of the troll and the Lenin statue, this wins the award for strangest sighting of the trip. It is half bus, half truck bed and roams Seattle collecting trash, and giving hair cuts. Such a combo! There is an additional sign in the back that says "no asbestos, chemicals, dirt, toilets," but it is unclear whether you cannot get rid of toilets or there is not a restroom in the barber shop. Maybe both?

On the last night, after dinner, we drove across town to buy the perfect eclair. The ordering process went something like this,
Heather - "I'll have a vanilla eclair, please."
Store lady - "No. We close in 10 minutes. We only have creme puffs."
H - "OK. I'll have a cookie cream puff"
SL - "No. We only have cookie cream puffs with green tea filling."
H - "Okay. A plain vanilla cream puff"
Sarah - as the lady goes to get Heather' cream puff, "Make that 2."
SL - "We only have one."
At this point, tired of playing the guessing game, and not really wanting green tea filling (which by default was our only option), we came home with one cream puff and split it among the 3 of us. It was delicious, even though the story may not be as funny in retrospect :-)

Valentines Day Part II

So, I actually did an embarrassing job on my 12 day of Valentines. Mental note for next year - do 10 days of valentines, and take 2 days to plan! A few of the highlights are below.

We made valentines for friends and family. Somehow I missed pictures of this, but we had glitter, construction paper, lace, and everything you would need to make homemade valentines!

I decorated Mike's car

A romantic evening, complete with fire and candles

Sent a box of Valentines goodies to my brother in Estonia (Garrett, if you haven't gotten this yet, there may be a chance it's still sitting in my car!)