Category: Seattle

Port Townsend

At five weeks post partum, with Kevin’s 8-week paternity leave more than half over, we felt up for an adventure and decided to try an overnight – our first family vacation! The goals were somewhere pretty, not too far away, not too long of stretches in the car, with somewhere we could walk around and see sights or shops and get a latte and some food. Ferry rides prefered. We debated briefly between the Olympic Peninsula, Victoria, and the San Juans. Victoria got nixed due to the international issue – I don’t think infants need a passport, but crossing the border still seemed like added complexity. Then I found Port Townsend which seemed made-to-order, and a B&B that was so well reviewed, only had two rooms (neither of which was booked yet), and claimed to welcome children. So off we went!!

We were aiming to leave at noonish, but due to a very late night were pleased to be out the door and on our way by 3 pm. In the vacation splurge mentality , we stopped at Starbucks for some coffee to begin the trip – here’s a parking lot view of my knitting (a baby pumpkin hat)! Advantage of the carseat: hands free time for me!

We caught the ferry at Edmonds, and I nursed in the car while we waited for the next boat. The ride across was so warm and beautiful, with the Olympics peeping through the afternoon haze and an amazing Rainier view behind Seattle’s skyline. I was proud of getting the Moby wrap on without drooping it across any Ferry surfaces. H snoozed happily while we went up to the top deck to enjoy the crossing.

The drive was a lot of fun – long enough to feel like we were seeing the sights, but short enough to be sane with a baby in the back and semi-sleep deprived parents in the front. We were particularly delighted to see a herd of (captive) buffalo – I was desperate to see some on our cross-country drive out to Seattle in 2004, and since then the dearth of buffalo has become a standard roadtrip joke. We also enjoyed more of the pioneer location names on the atlas, especially Point No Point and Useless Bay.

The B&B was so much more perfect than I was anticipating. I knew that it was a Victorian full of antiques, but wasn’t expecting all of the renovations – the owner said that the previous owners had brought in shipwrights to do all of the cabinetry and detailing. Very Not-So-Big-House, and we had the top floor all to ourselves which worked beautifully. A lovely view of the water and the little Whidbey Island ferries from high up on the hill – such a picturesque nursing spot.

We went out to dinner for the first time with Henry after admiring the Olympics at sunset from the wharf. Our initial choice was a seafood place on the water but after peeking in the door we didn’t even bother going in – too quiet and full of older couples. We next tried the Public House across the street and were delighted with it. White table cloths and candles, but they also had a cup of crayons on the table. Lots of local beers on tap, but the table next to us had a toddler crumbling his dinner onto the floor (his dad got down on hands and knees to clean it all up at the end of the meal). Perfect for this new stage of life. I wore Henry in the Moby wrap and he was perfect – slept all through dinner (we even stayed for dessert and coffee!) and the walk home, and then woke up to eat again as soon as we were back. He slept as well as he ever does through the night, then Kevin moby-wrapped him for breakfast. (Go us, only a few minutes late for the 9 am serving time!)

We explored the town (including its two yarn shops!) then had lunch at one of the cafes. Henry woke up shortly after we arrived, and I was so proud to actually discretely breastfeed in public – a major obstacle to have conquered.

The sandwiches were great and we enjoyed our coffee before taking dessert on the road. Before we left the area, we drove up to the Fort Worden State Park and walked a bit around the beaches at the northern tip. Pretty views of the fog over the water, tankers and tugboats, dunes, red-roofed lighthouse, and the Whidbey Island cliffs.

The wind was cold but the beach was lovely. I didn’t envy all of the kayakers gathering for their convention, though – while the skies were sunny, I bet that water was freezing.

Such a wonderful overnight trip. 🙂

Holiday Weekend

We decided to make the most of our three day weekend by taking a trip into Seattle to explore a new-to-us neighbourhood. We chose Madison Park because it had a beach in close proximity to restaurants. Between the holiday and the gorgeous weather (80s and sunny), we weren’t the only ones with that idea. (This picture looks like it was merely sort of busy, but there were hundreds and hundreds of people, both in the water and with spots staked out on the grass.)

We still managed to get a table with a great view for lunch. I checked out the fabric store next door while Kevin paid the bill – quite the hodge-podge, with bolts stacked everywhere and a very chatty owner who kept bringing over fabrics and offering baby advice. A bit overwhelming. It was a relief when Kevin appeared a few minutes later and I could make a fast exit. We walked around the neighbourhood and checked out real estate – quite the pricy little places, but loads of character so it made for a fun walk. Then we stopped by the beach to enjoy the view and so that I could put my feet in the water. So cold and wonderful.

(34 weeks pregnant – getting closer, but it feels like I’ve completely run out of space in the last week or so. I’m a bit anxious about where six more weeks of baby growth will go.) We stopped for ice cream before heading back home – delicious.

Then on Saturday, Larry had us over to his place up on the hill in Kirkland for fireworks. It was the perfect spot – a clear view of the Lake Union fireworks across the lake, plus most of the Medina and Kirkland shows, and a great panoramic view of the lake. I love watching the boat traffic (esp when everyone’s zooming home in the dark), and it’s fun to see everyone setting off their own private fireworks. Some of the Evergreen Point and Hunts Point ones were particularly spectacular. Plus, no problems with parking and Larry had brownie sundaes, so all around a wonderful evening even though we were too busy gabbing to get good sunset photos before the colors all faded to muted.

Hiking at Mount Rainier

In August, Larry had been trying to organize us all for a day hike to see the wildflowers at Paradise (on Mount Rainier). Kevin and I waited too long to be start getting enthusiastic, and Larry decided it wasn’t a good weekend. This week, he tried again (with a very reasonable 10 am leaving time), so Kevin and I jumped aboard enthusiastically. Well worth it. It was quite cloudy when we arrived, but every now and then, the glacier peeked through in extremely dramatic fashion.

There were slight calibration issues – Larry had proposed a “picnic” and “bringing up a bottle of wine” to share, and “looking at the wildflowers”. So Kevin and I hemmed and hawed before choosing hiking boots over sneakers, and packed supplies including a cutting board, crackers, lots of cheese in a soft cooler bag, a picnic blanket, etc. We all climbed a quarter mile of rock steps up from the parking lot to the main trail, then over a ways to this stunning waterfall.

I was still feeling quite enchanted, but then Larry pointed out the real trail and I realized that perhaps I hadn’t understood his “wine and cheese” concept correctly. This is a poor picture of me climbing switchbacks, but I find it gratifying since you can see how steep the hill was.

(Larry ran the switchbacks, and occasionally cried out things like “hoo-yah!!”. Such glee, whereas I’ve always only been a peer-pressured hiker.) Similarly, here I am concentrating my way across a slippery snow field.

You can see Sanna (yellow shirt) and Shawn’s shoulders behind me. (Also, behind all of us, you can see the grey and red martian rock. Never forget that Rainier’s a volcano.)

Despite the unfortunate shock of both elevation gain (1700 ft) and distance (5.5 miles roundtrip, plus the preliminary hike up from the car), the Panorama Point hike was gorgeous, both as we walked and whenever we stopped. The wildflowers were great. We saw tons of lupine (both purple/blue and a cream version), magenta paintbrush, several kinds of alpine lilies and daisies, something that looked similar to queen anne’s lace, heather, and many unidentified pretty things.

The views were amazing. We could see Mount Hood (especially later in the day) and there were several contenders for Mount St. Helens, but I’m not sure which one it actually was. Here are Shawn and Sanna posing against the mountain backdrop.

And me and Kevin with the glacier behind us.

And Larry in his element.

On the way down, things just kept getting prettier as the air cleared and then got more golden. Here’s Kevin with the Nisqually Glacier.

It’s so sensational and enormous and yet is apparently a shadow of what it was even a few years ago, as the glaciers here melt.

In terms of wildlife, there were surprisingly few birds and insects, but we were gratified to see MANY mammals. Our first fun siting was the marmots. Think of something about raccoon-size but that looks like a prairie dog. They were exceptionally chubby and munching away on plants, which seemed counterintuitive until I noticed that the lupine produces a fuzzy bean-like pod which I’m sure has lots of protein and fat for them. Here’s Kevin on the hike up, and a marmot looking out from the rock above him.

Then we saw a mountain goat! He was lying in a snowfield, so the pictures didn’t come out a bit, but this description of goats in the park has a picture. There were many very bold chipmunks – about three times the size I am used to so it must be a different creature even though they looked the same?? On the way down, we saw four deer! This guy had antlers:

And we’d just arrived back at our car and were stretching and (blissfully) removing hiking boots, when this guy came scavenging around!

He looked like a black fox with a white-tipped tail, and was utterly fearless as he checked things out.

We got back to the car about 7:30, and home for the night right around 10. It was a fun, interesting, conversational ride home despite the dark – I love driving new routes with Kevin. Sanna posted her pictures here, and my full flickr album is here (both have photos with comments). A great way to spend twelve hours, thanks to Larry! 🙂

Labour Day Weekend: Sunset

Labour Day Weekend was mostly surprisingly cold. The general Seattle reaction seems to be a little bit of grief for the summer that we feel like we never had. But it stopped raining, got a bit sunny, and climbed into the lower-sixties on Sunday and so we jumped at the invitation to go grill on Shawn and Sanna’s roof. They live in South Lake Union, and there are great views of the Space Needle …

… and all the way around to Gas Works Park. The rooftop garden and grill area is great. Here’s Capital Hill across Lake Union, with a seaplane about to land.

(See it? Look just to the lower-right of the six white smokestacks in the middle of the photo.) Shawn and Sanna are farmers’ market mavens, and they had prepped a feast. Lots of purple vegetables (including Dragon’s Tongue beans – if you ever find these, buy them! They’re awesome.), delicious potatoes and sausages.

The clouds were amazing — tall and spectacular (I wish I knew my cloud types?), and once the sun began to set at a too-early 7:20, they became increasingly dramatic.

And then even more so:

The roof is great because it’s planted with gardens and people bring their dogs up. Very social. Once the sun was officially down, we needed to make a run to the apartment for blankets and more sweatshirts, but better staying up there in the twilight and prettyness than heading inside!

Free Falling

Way back in May, our friends Shawn and Sanna bought tickets for the Tom Petty concert at the Gorge. We hadn’t been out there in ages (in fact, not since the Pearl Jam concert the evening after Kevin proposed), and Tom Petty is of course a favourite, so we glommed on.

Friday was very hectic. I worked from home so that I could be here while the plumber installed the ($150/hr + materials) line to our icemaker. Ouch. Kevin was in meetings all day. I was supposed to be at his building at 4 pm (right on that cusp of Friday rush hour), and didn’t make it until a somewhat frazzled 4:15. We were planning to take back roads, to try to avoid some of the end of workday and weekend traffic. Kevin took over driving, I got out my knitting, and he took a right according to his online directions… onto a brick road.

We laughed and laughed. Apparently it was built in 1913 and is designated as historic. 🙂 (At risk of “explaining the joke”, I spent most of my childhood outside Boston. Kevin grew up west of Philadelphia. We are both 300 years of seeped-in history sort of people, and yet we moved to the west coast, and somehow 1913 is incredibly old in our town. We have no idea why the mapping software chose to send us down *that* road. We were already running late. Some things are just too funny.)

As we got closer, I kept being awash in happy memories. The first time we went to the Gorge (in 2002), we were barely/almost dating, and such magnets for each other. The second/last time we drove to the Gorge for a concert, we were calling our families along the way to announce our engagement. Beyond happy. And now, between that significance and the gorgeous views? Such an important and wonderful place to me to revisit.

The opening band started at 8, and we got in line off the highway at 7:15. The line of traffic moved in fits and starts, so much so that after the first two pauses we took to turning off the engine. We pulled into our camping spot at quarter of. Kevin set up our tent, we got organized, and I took photos of the sunset (circa 7:51).

There was a smog warning in effect for Seattle on Friday, and while that did not particularly bother me, the visible low smog in the middle of the state was horrifying. It was eerily close to driving through northern CA earlier this summer with the forest fires. The one advantage is that the sunset was sensational – orange and pink, plus all of those desert mountains for contrast.

The concert was amazing. I’ve been a fan of his since early high school, and there are several CS classes in college that I passed thanks to endless repeats of certain Tom Petty cds in the small hours of the morning. Kevin and I tend to have divergent taste in music and classic rock is one of the common grounds. Tom Petty and his band seemed dedicated to the show, the playlist was awesome (though I was surprised that they didn’t play anything off of his new-ish album – some of those songs are quite good), and the lights and showmanship were great. So, great music, incredibly beautiful surroundings, good friends.

It was a long day. After the show, retiring to sleeping bags in the tent felt amazing.

We were all up by 8 the next morning (I wouldn’t have been up if everyone else hadn’t been – that tent and sleeping bag combo is incredibly lulling to me), and after a breakfast of cinnamon rolls and melon from the CSA, I packed the car (a challenge now that we had two extra people and had to keep the backseat clear!), and then we were off.

We stopped in Cle Elum for a rest break and coffee, and found that there was a classic car show underway. 🙂 Neat! We ended up spending well over an hour walking around and looking at all of the cars. I’ve been to shows where people restore the cars to the way they were (always fascinating), but 90% of the cars here had been souped up to the sexy, classy versions of themselves that they’d always aspired to be. New paint jobs, upholstery, mirrors, engine, dash & meters, etc.

Shawn and Sanna checking out a majorly modified pickup from way back when:

Kevin just looking:

(This viewing posture is “interest”. The longer we stayed, and the more classic late-60s muscle cars he saw, the more his posture changed into all-out covet. Shawn was equally afflicted – apparently in high school he’d stalked a classic car of some sort (clearly my attention level for the details of make/model/year was dysfunctionally low) and his heart was broken when a mechanic declared the thing impossible to drive safely/a bad purchase. As we walked, there was all sorts of talk about emptying our garage so that “we” (Shawn and Kevin) could use it for side by side muscle car rehabilitation. Desires certainly die hard.)

100% guarantee that this Model T was not sold in gold out of the factory…

(They are such elegant little things, but how tiny!! Current-day Americans would not fit. I love the long stalk of a shifter.)

I have an abiding love of the fins on these cars. They are truly boats, but if you drove something like this, you would feel swank. Need to buy the matching sunglasses and scarf first, though!

My favourite/most unique car looked like something straight out of the Jetsons. Or perhaps the Pixar movie “Cars”.

I love the lavender. Kevin pointed out that the back almost looks like more of the front than the front does.

Such a fun diversion on the way home!

Beach Camping

Oh, did we ever just have the weekend we needed. Larry’s hiking club does a beach clean-up on the Olympic Peninsula every Spring, and he invited us along. It was my first time seeing the Pacific coast in Washington, and my first time camping on a beach (also my first time hiking in to a camp, but that part was less magical to me – I either need a real pack, or I need to stop packing as if I’m car camping). We took the ferry across Puget Sound, then got on 101 and took it past Forks, WA to Oil City Road, and hiked a little over a mile from the trailhead to the beach. You can see a map here. (You may need to zoom out to see the pushpin).

We left later than intended on Friday – out of work a bit late, and then there was a Mariners game right next to the ferry terminal. Oops. We had an hour and a half wait for our ferry, so we went next door to Ivars for some chowder to pass the time. Delicious. The ride across was lovely as always. Rainier was semi-visible behind the stadium and shipyard cranes.

The Olympics peaked through deep clouds, doing a great Mordor impersonation. We got to the trailhead just before midnight, packed up, and hiked to the beach. We probably won’t hike at night ever again, since we managed to scare ourselves silly, but Larry showed up to meet us just as we were getting about ready to turn back and set up the tent next to the car. We were exceptionally happy to see him. Fun night, with marshmallows and a fire, shooting stars and boxed wine drunk out of mugs.

Saturday was supposed to rain, but instead was just gorgeous. It had been 38 degrees when we left the car the night before, but during the day it was several hours of t-shirt weather, and sunglasses were needed. Amazing and happy. We explored the beach at low tide,

Larry (and later Shawn and Kevin) climbed big rocks,

Shawn hunted for doubloons with his metal detector (Larry was willing to share in anything he found, but sadly, treasure was scarce on our beach) ,

and we collected two bags of trash.

Sanna and her friend Stephie drove over from Seattle Saturday morning, and joined us for the eating, vegging and wild life watching portions of the day. We saw several bald eagles (always so exciting), a hairy (or downy?) woodpecker, a pair of raccoons at the shoreline at dusk, and *many* unidentifiable creatures in the waves.

We’re guessing that they were seals (and maybe otters).

Although the sun didn’t set until after 8, the light started to get amazing around 5. The camera got taken out for some shots of the waves.

Aren’t the colors amazing?

Kevin made marshmallows over the fire while Larry boiled water on his stove for tea. (The beach was sandy, with lots of rocks brought up by the tide, and truly impressive driftwood, ranging from twigs to enormous trees, all buffeted and smooth from the sea. )

Meanwhile, Shawn and Sanna found a great piece of driftwood and a nearly round rock, and started a game of golf.

Kevin joined in. (photo credits to Larry on this one)

And the game lasted well into the twilight. Here’s Sanna celebrating a great shot.

There was pasta and sauce for dinner, more stars, and when we woke up in the morning, our tent was being drummed with rain. Between the ocean waves and the steady drops, it was such a wonderful, cozy sound. Kevin and I packed up slowly, and then enjoyed the drive back around the peninsula in the daylight. It was especially fun to drive past Crescent Lake (where we met on a camping trip in June ’02). The mountains were semi-visible, and it’s just an interesting route to drive. We decided to take the Kingston ferry back instead of the Bainbridge one, which meant that we got to have a crepe while waiting for our boat to arrive. Yum.

Moral of the story: Larry runs awesome camping trips, we should get outside more, the coast is amazing. 🙂 What a great weekend to start the summery season!

P.S. The full flickr set is here. 🙂

Saturday Morning in Seattle

One of our friends started rowing crew about a year ago, and had two races this morning in Greenlake, so we decided to go over to watch. It was incredibly busy (all of the Seattle-types running their dogs and strollers in the rain breaks, plus several hundred rowers and spectators, plus all the boats and each club had concession stands). The races were fun to watch, and it was a treat to have an excuse to go see Greenlake. Here’s Ginger racing (she’s in the 5th seat on the scarlet red boat on the far right)

And looking like she’s considering a swim after her second race (not really – the water and air were both all cold).

She’s the one in the yellow headband.

There were about 40 minutes between races, so we walked up the west side of the lake and watched all of the ducks. This pair wasn’t that impressed by Kevin’s fancy lens:

And these two were bullies, but gorgeous, and at least twice the size of the mallards.

I’ve never seen anything like them. I wasn’t sure which was the male and which the female, but one had a cream and coffee body with a dark teal head, and the other was completely dark, but then it would move and you’d see that the feathers were all dark sapphire and teal. I don’t think they were wood ducks – their bodies looked just like the mallards, but bigger. A mystery.

We went wending around the neighborhoods afterwards, and then stopped for coffee and soup at Essential Bakery. I haven’t been there in ages – a treat. As was looking at all of the Craftsman houses and the landscaping now that things are starting to bloom. Can anyone identify this tree?

I’ve been loving these since we moved out here but I don’t know what they are. Here’s a close-up of the flowers:

Too fun

The other day it got sunny in the late afternoon (a rarity) and without our dense layer of clouds it didn’t get too dark to work outside until about 5:30! Huge progress! I’m still chipping away at the enormous branch pile, so I’ve been outside more days than not in the last week, despite the gloom.

It’s so neat – we’re just now seeing the first signs of Spring. Usually it irks me to no end that Spring starts to appear in February instead of the far more civilized April, but apparently I’ve finally adjusted to the seasons out here because these glimpses seem so welcome and encouraging to me. I have a bunch of theories (more snow this year, looking forward to evenings spent in the yard and on the patio, general attrition…), but regardless of the cause, I am so delighted to present: Crocuses!!

Yay!! And these plants, which I hated in the fall because I had to cull off all of the slimy black leaves that rotted underneath the plant, are now budding. Definitely winning their way into my heart.

I have to say, while the previous owners of the house were incapable of mounting anything (toilet paper holders, electrical outlets, towel bars, etc.) at level, they had a genius for landscape, or hired someone who did. It has been so fun to me to watch our yard change – even through the winter there’s so much going on, and with the number of buds I’m seeing already it seems like the next few months will be genuinely riotous with flowers and color. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

My potted mini daffodils are making an appearance, love the little bulb nubbins:

Other notes: the primrose came back after the snow, happier than ever!

My parents brought three more primroses when they arrived, and they’ve been living in the kitchen window until it gets warm enough to plant them. (I’m almost sure they’d make the transition to outside now, but they look so pretty in the kitchen that I don’t want to risk it.) I wouldn’t have chosen the colors of the one in the rock wall (maroon and gold), but it looks so cheerful from the house that I can’t wait to have more next year. The store up the street just put out a bunch of new colors, including many blues and purples. I may have to swing by tomorrow and pick up a few of them. I think the blues and purples would look so pretty with the yellow that my parents brought, and the pinks and reds would make another great spot.

In less happy news, the bamboo is sending up shoots like mad. Does anyone have advice for getting rid of it? Should I just dig? I’ve been searching online and not coming up with many shortcuts that seem viable…?

Six seams to go!

Here are the 7 strips!

I’ll need to do a little bit of trimming (probably on the kitchen table?) before seaming these guys together. And I’m getting awfully close to needing to figure out batting and whether it will be possible to quilt this.

Regarding quilting, I’m sort of torn. The intense quilting (and the oddly stiff, oddly puffy result) is so much work, difficult on the machine that I have, and really not that attractive to me. YET, people (on the internet, my source of all information) really do seem so happy with and proud of the results. What to do? The cheat answer is to just use knotted embroidery thread to hold everything together. Compelling, but I would like to say that I’ve quilted something. Another thought is to just sew the exterior of some of the squares — easy, not fussy, but not particularly impressive, and I’m concerned that I’ll like the pristine pieced top more than the half-heartedly quilted one. I’m just not a fan of prissy things, and too much of the quilted things I see fall in that camp. It’s like knitted things from the 80s — no appeal. Can anyone offer a good guide to (machine) quilting that’s a little bit more modern?

In other news, Larry gets into WA tomorrow. I’m so excited. And I think I need one of these:

It has been SO GRAY here for the last two weeks, and I (never the up-and-at-em type, even under the best of circumstances) am running out of ideas for actually waking up and getting to work at a respectable hour. It’s funny, the culture out here makes a lot out of SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and espresso as a mood disorder treatment during the low-light months, but I don’t find the grey season(s) depressing. The moss and the clouds really are beautiful, and I love the January full-day glimpses of mountains and blue sky. It’s just very, very difficult to get up in the mornings. The cat option makes me laugh. Too bad Kevin’s allergic.

Snow

We’ve essentially lost all credibility with our former claim that it never snows in Seattle. I’m really quite sure that in the first three years we lived here, we saw flurries five times. But we’ve had real snow that many times just this winter. The new house is only four miles from the old one, so I doubt that’s the difference…?

In any case, I was so happy that the first day of my parents’ visit was all blue and mountains, and that the third day brought snow that lasted through the night. My mom misses winter now that they’re in Florida, and I thought it was unusually decent of the weather to cooperate.
From her camera, here’s the backyard seen through the living room windows (with tulips in the foreground!):

And she took a picture of the snowy driveway that I just love. Doesn’t it look like it’s black and white? Until you see the headlights, and the brick on the front of the house, and realize that the light out here is just so dim in the winter when it’s cloudy that the color just disappears.