Seattle Washington

I just had an amazing trip to Seattle to see my good friends Maren & Stephen! They were such wonderful hosts and tour guides showing us everything they could in one day! We drove up there after work on Saturday night took about 4hrs stopping in Kelso, WA for a bite to eat! They have done such a wonderful job of decorating their rental, Maren has real taste for it, its small kinda European set up but such a cute place! We started of our day with Coffee and croissants @ home than got ready & took off for our adventure. Mike started his morning with a cat cuddle..animals just love him!

These are the cats who are afraid of outsiders lol!

The morning was a little chilly but by 10am the sun started peeking out and it was one of the most gorgeous days I have seen in awhile! it ended up being 63 degrees and sunny with no wind, clear as day! We started our tour walking to Nordstrom Rack just cause we're in downtown Seattle so you cant not shop!

Walked our way down to Pike's Place Market somewhere neither Mike or I have been too! It was so much fun to walk through and look at all the artist work, there were some amazing flowers in all colors and I wanted so bad to get some but they would not have made it all day and home :(

Mike, Me, Maren & Stephen going to market!

After walking the market we started walking down the water front, it was so gorgeous out you wouldn't even believe it.

waking to the water frount! we forgot our sunnies :(

Had to have a pic w/the blue trees!

city scape in the park

 Ate at this yummy fish & chips place were the best thing about it was the feeding of the seagulls lol! Yes you save some extra long french fries and than after your done you hold them out and segulls come by & snatch them from your fingers!

This one ate our fries!

Me feeding seagulls..

Mike feeding seagulls...

Maren feeding...

Stephen feeding birds..

After our entertaining lunch tour guide Maren took us on a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island!

Maren teaching me how to do a jumping pic

view from the ferry of Seattle

1st ferry ride

us with Seattle in the background, beautiful!

Maren & Stephen jumping!

Maren & Stephen enjoying the romantic view!

Land on Bainbridge where we did Mike & I's 1st wine tasting at Eleven winery! We tried 7 different wines and ended up taking home one called Elevate balance funny thing is not till we got home did we realize it was an Oregon grape wine lol so much for liking other states wines..Oregon snobs lol!

Oregon Wine form Washington

Mike sipping on his chocolate wine cup!

My chocolate wine cup with Sweet Sarah dessert wine!

A toast to our 1st wine tasting!

It was just a wonderful trip, ended up cramming so much into our day doing so many things that after our wine we were all pretty tired & sun soaked ( but i am not complaining about that one) took the fary back home for some pizza & beer from the Magic Pizza Train (aka me & Mike still have no clue of the actual name lol).

after wine tasting

after wine tasting waiting for ferry

long day, sleeping on ferry

That's were our amazing adventure ended than it was back home to Oregon!

Driving home! Finally got our sunnies back!

Run...Stop...Run...Stop

I have had one of those crazy days where all I did was put things in my calender. I know everyone knows those days where every time you turn around someone else is asking you to do something and your answer is "oh let me look at my calender..." "Why yes! I can do that on such & such date." I have been booking app & activities well into August, It seems tonight I am already tired from doing the things I have planed but have not done yet lol! With all that being said its nice to feel like your wanted by people, and be that busy at work! Sure don't leave a lot of wiggle room though for some small unplanned adventures but knowing me ill find a way to sneak them in!

 

I do have some huge news! My little sister is graduating on June 17th from Oregon State University, and has informed everyone that she has decided to walk in the ceremony! Her reasoning is because Michelle Obama will be giving the commencement address which is a once in a life time opportunity, very cool but I think she is just super excited to be done! Oh geeze the lil one will be graduating COLLEGE seems like only yesterday she was graduating high school.

What a goober! Now she is graduating from the big leagues! I am so proud of her, she has pushed herself so hard to make this happen and her road has not been easy. On top of all the other shit she has accomplished along the way like...Getting her privet pilots licence! Yep my sister fly's planes, its pretty freaking sweet! Now I just have to hold back the tears from her accomplishments and from me feeling old ;) where in the hell did time go!

I have to give a little shot out tonight to my amazing man Mike! He has just been a trooper though all of this, letting me sink my calender to his calender every 5 seconds and being totally game for everything I throw at him! Than on top of that grabbing me some food even after I said that tonight was a YoYo (your on your own) dinner night and "not to worry about me" famous last words!

I Rawr You GIR!



Happy Easter Everyone!

Its not even 8am and I am already procrastinating the making of homemade rolls and individual lemon cheese cake fruit tarts. oh man I have to get going lol! I just don't want to move from my couch with my warm coffee! I wish I had some pictures of Easter through the years but none that exists on computer yet...

2hrs later...I am done with the fruit tarts and they are chilling in the fridge, Mike and I make a good team! I will post recipe later on my whats cooking page.

The roll dough is rising and i am back to relaxing on the couch with Mike before I have to shower bake rolls and get ready for Easter lunch/dinner with mikes sister (Angela) and brother-in-law(Travis)! Its going to be a nice Easter, we get to see Angie for the 1st time since her big baby news and soon we get to find out the sex!! than its quilt making time for me!

Enjoy your Easter everyone! I know Tajuan did!

Tajuan waiting so patiently for his Easter gift!

Really enjoying chewing on his Easter bunny!

An exrta day at Home!

I had today off which is a rare thing now a days so its kinda like my spring break! What did I do with my day off? Well I made taco soup in the crock pot, baked lemon blueberry crumble muffins using my own version of Oregon Transplant recipe! She inspied me to make them!

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cups sugar
1 tbsp lemon extract
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/3 cup canola oil applesauce
1/3 cup milk
1 egg
1 cup blueberries

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, mix flour through lemon zest. In another bowl, mix oil through egg. Add liquid into flour mixture and mix until just combined. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin pan 3/4 full (I recommend using liners on this recipe).
3. Bake 18-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool on baking rack until muffins are completely cool.

Topping-
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp flour
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp butter, cold
To make topping, combine brown sugar through cinnamon. Cut in cold butter until it resembles coarse sand. Fill cups 3/4 full. Sprinkle topping over batter.

Lets see what else..Oh yes I read while bubba napped in the sun..

I know its a hard life for us lol! It just felt so good not to have to go to work today! I got all my work papers organized for the past 3 months cause I have been bad and been behind. I just needed a breath and to step away from the shop for a bit! Having your month by month planed out into the fall can be a little over whelming for a 25 year old. So I have to take these random days when I can! And today has been lovely!

Reading

I am finally making some time for reading! I have been reading this serious called the Lying Game Novel by Sara Shepard. Its been very good and a quick read..except for the second one I have not had a chance to finish it with the 3rd book already out and talk of the 4th coming out :(


I started the 1st one Called the Lying Game in December when I got it for Christmas 2010

#1

When I finished it I was excited to read book #2 Never Have I Ever, which didn't come out until July 2011 so I pre ordered on amazon and got it the day it came out...(no I did not get so into it that I had to watch the TV show)

#2

I was sure I was going to finish this one before the next one came out, so that I went slow on this one. It was a little too slow I think. Now the 3rd book came out Feb 2012 Two Truths & A Lie so I am behind a bit. Thanks to my amazing boyfriend & amazon he got it ordered for me and it will be here any day...Now to finish the 2nd book lol!

#3

Now lets see if I can get this one read before book #4 Hide & Seek is expected to come out in July 2012?

#4

Here is to an afternoon reading in the little bit of sun coming through the windows!!

April Fools!

Well I have no jokes to play on anyone today (sad face) but I have been busy baking up a storm and revamping the blogs look! I loved how it looked before and it was totally my style but I also have a softer side, plus my old eyes were having trouble looking at it all the time! So walla I came up with a theme that had some of my favorite color combinations on it!

I added a new treat to my Whats Cookin page! Its peanut butter chocolate chip mini cupcakes!

Oh they were so tasty!

I can not believe its April already I am having a very hard time keeping up on this calender day/week thing I think my mind is still stuck back in the middle of March (hurry up mind my body needs you lol)! I am hopping spring is right around the corner, this rainy gray wet snowy stuff ain't cutting it. let me give you an example of what happened to good old Oregon valley peps on March 21st-22nd..

Woke up on Wednesday 21st not really expecting anything out of the ordinary. Looked outside to judge the weather and bam was hit with a bright white light (no I was not having an out of body experience) but in fact it had snowed ALL night! WTF..

Not just a light dusting either

My poor tulips

I ok well its not so bad and the roads were clear enough that I had to still make it to my doctors app this day. Blah blah after all that and I got to work most of my clients for that day started canceling boo on them. At worked it snowed all dam day, non stop not one break but it was not sticking on the ground cause it was too wet & warm. later that night when I got home (7:30) still no stopping & the temperature was dropping and now the snow was starting to stick to the roads..

Wednesday evening out our front door

 Where dose the yard & sidewalk stop and the street begin? Yes it continued to snow non stop, it was beautiful but not what I really was hopping for as the weather for the 2nd day of spring. Lets move on to Tuesday morning...

Eye popping 4" of snow right out the door

The street was much and driving to work sucked! but by 2:00 it was mostly all melted and we were having non stop rain with lots of flooding! Yeah!