Seattle: Part 2

On Saturday morning we headed over the bridge to Seattle for a food tour at Pike Place Market.

We've actually been to the market several times before, but we've never done the food tour, which is something everyone was excited about. We really wanted to do the chocolate indulgence tour, but that one was sold out, so we went for the market tour instead. Not that that's a bad thing, it was an excellent tour.

The tour group met at Starbucks...not the original one, but a different one in the area. There we had a sample of the Pike Market Blend coffee, which is good of course....everyone knows what that tastes like.

Once we started the tour, our first stop was at The Daily Dozen Doughnut company where we had two mini cinnamon sugar donuts. They serve them to you fresh out of the fryer, so they're still hot when you eat them. Yum! They're super soft and delicious!

Next we had some MarketSpice Tea. I forget what the tour guide called it, but I think it's their signature blend, with a mixture of cinnamon, orange, and cloves. My favorite part is that it's was fairly sweet on it's own without having any added sugar.

The next stop was at the fish market where we had three different flavors of smoked salmon. We tried the original, garlic pepper, and a third that was kind of like a salmon jerky. The first two were good, but the last one was too chewy and weird for my taste.

Then they started throwing fish, but they had one of the ladies from our group go behind the counter to catch it.

And catch it she did!

Next we stopped at Frank's Quality Produce and sampled the honeycrisp apple and some pear. All I can say is that it's a good thing we live in apple country, because those honeycrisp apples were $3 a pound there at the stand. Wow!

Here I am with a slice of apple in one hand and a slice of pear in the other, but you wouldn't know that, would you?

On with the tour. That's our guide up front with the pink umbrella, so that everyone can see where he's going.

Our next stop was at Pike Place Chowder, where we tried the classic clam chowder and the seafood bisque. The clam chowder is my all time favorite, the seafood bisque....not so much.

At Chukar Cherries, we had samples of the cherry salsa and some of the different candies. My favorites were the Chocolate Honey Pecans and the Dark Chocolate Cherries. Mmmmm.

Next we stopped at Beecher's Cheese and tried the Flagship Cheddar sliced on crackers, which was crazy delicious.  We also tried the mac n' cheese, but I think I preferred the cheese cold.

Nearing the end of the tour, we stopped at Piroshky-Piroshky. They had all sorts of yummy looking things in the window, but we had the apple cinnamon and the potato onion piroshky. They were both good, but my favorite was the apple cinnamon.

The last stop of the tour was at Etta's where we tried the signature crab cake with tomatillo salsa. All I can say is yum, can I have another? It was seriously the best crab cake I've ever tasted.

After the tour was over, as if we hadn't eaten enough food, we went back to get another helping of chowder. We had to stand in line for awhile, but it was well worth the wait.

The boys shared a bread bowl, while I just had a plain cup of chowder.

It was cold outside, so it was nice having warm soup for lunch.

For dessert, we stopped at Cinnamon Works and got a snickerdoodle cookie. As you can see, it was bigger than Tyler's face, so there was plenty to go around.

Okay, now I'm ready for the Chocolate Tour....I think we need to go back!

Seattle: Part 1

We spent the weekend in Seattle for the CK Scrapbook Convention, but the surprising part is that it was all Rick's idea. We got a flyer in the mail about a month ago and he thought it would be something I would enjoy doing, so he set it all up, making the reservations and even helping me pack my supplies.

We stayed at the Hilton in Bellevue, which is where they held the crop nights.

This is the view from the hotel. It looks nice outside, but the sun and blue skies only lasted for a few hours before the clouds and rain moved in. So for the majority of the weekend it was kind of cold and rainy. Typical Seattle weather, I guess.

The vendor fair and all the classes were held at The Meydenbauer Center. The hotel offered a free shuttle to and from the fair, but dorks that we are, we decided to drive there ourselves. Mistake. $13 for 3 hours of parking? I think we'll take the shuttle next time.

This was my first time attending the convention, so I didn't quite know what to expect. I was thinking the vendor fair would have more product specific booths, like a Basic Grey booth, a Cricut booth, and so on, but it more like online stores with miscellaneous product. So in that way, I found the fair to be a little hit and miss. I was really hoping to see some of the latest and greatest from Basic Grey and October Afternoon, but that didn't happen.

I ended up buying mostly loose paper sheets and a few embellishments, but nothing to write home about, as they say.

Thank goodness for Rick's fancy phone and all the games that came with it. There's nothing like Sodoku to keep Tyler occupied for endless amounts of time.

The crop nights were from 7:00-11:30 p.m downstairs in the ballroom of our hotel.

Friday night was the busiest of the two nights...it was packed in there! They had around 350 scrappers stuffed into that room. And again, since I've never been to a crop before, I didn't know what to expect. But I found the whole thing to be overwhelming and really distracting. 

The first night I tried working on my Project life, but the environment was so awkward that I didn't get very much done. I found that I kept sitting there watching what the other people were doing.

And my luck wasn't much better on Saturday night either.

I sat at a different table with different people, but that didn't seem to help. I just think I was unprepared for the whole thing. I should have bought a kit or something that was predesigned to work on. Something that didn't require much thought or concentration. Or, if I had taken any of the classes, I could have worked on those projects at night. Oh well, I'll know better next time.

Here's what I tried to work on Saturday night. A two page layout of our 4th of July weekend in Portland. That wasn't going anywhere fast, so I went back to working on my Project Life and at least I can say that I'm all caught up with that now.

So if I go back next year, I'll be sure to take some of the classes. Those were a much bigger deal than the vendor fair and I'll have something to work on during the crop nights.

Easy Cheesy

It was Tyler's pick for dinner tonight. Easy Cheesy Quesadillas. A recipe he's been hounding me all week to make. We would have gotten to it sooner, but I was too busy making the most delicious Beef Burgundy, which he did not appreciate by the way, and the famous Tuscan Chicken, which he didn't appreciate either. Hmpf, well we'll just see how he does now that it's his turn.

The recipe was super simple to put together.  The only real prep work I had to do was chop a little bit of onion and shred some cheese....the rest was up to him.

The first step was heating up the filling, which was a mixture of shredded chicken, salsa, onion, and green chilies.

Then he divided the filling mixture onto two tortillas, sprinkled them with cheese and then topped them with two more tortillas.

After 15 minutes in the oven, the quesadillas were nice and crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside.

Then it was time to eat! We added a little bit of sour cream and salsa to the top of our wedges to make them even better. Okay, so the quesadilla dinner wasn't as fancy as the Beef Burgundy I made earlier this week, but according to Tyler, his dinner was much tastier.

Craftiness

Last month when we were at Joann's getting the things for Tyler's Halloween costume, I also ended up buying several apron patterns and multiple yards of fabric. The patterns were only 99 cents a piece, so I couldn't really pass them up, but once I picked out the fabric, I was sort of committed. So while I still had the sewing machine out, I decided to dig in and get them done. Well at least one anyway.

So here's the first one. It's got kind of a retro feel to it. But can I just say one thing....bias tape is the worst. The.Worst.

It came out cute though, right? I'm in love with the cupcake fabric. The neck straps are kind of funny and might take some getting used to, but it's so cute....who cares.

Happy Anniversary, Girls!

Yesterday marked the two year anniversary of the day we adopted Coco Bear and Carmelita from the Humane Society. Two years to the day. And how did we celebrate? With a trip to the vet. 

I hate always being the bad guy, but the girls were due for some immunizations. Rabies and Distemper boosters.

What the ......!?!

What do you know about this?

Sorry girls, it had to be done. Now how about a nice can of tuna? What, I said I was sorry?

Good Food and Fun

Over the weekend we were out running errands and stopped to eat lunch at Flaming J's. We don't eat there too often, but the food is fantastic. It's the best Chinese food in Yakima, as if there was any question. But it's been so long since we've been there that Tyler actually forgot about the place. He started protesting as soon as we pulled into the parking lot....."but, this isn't where I wanted to eat". We went in anyway, knowing that after one bite he would change his mind.

While we waited for our food I pulled out the camera. You know me and my project life....I'm always taking pictures of anything and everything. I told Tyler to give me a smile and he gave me the famous head tilt, to which I told him it looked like he was drinking with his ear. That made him roar with laughter and (the best part) I was able to get an honest smile out of him.

Then our food came. I had the Chicken Yakisoba....what can I say, I'm a sucker for noodles.

Tyler had the Teriyaki Chicken. Super yum!

Afterwards, we headed over to that great park we discovered last month. We're running out of time before the really cold weather moves in, so we're making use of the semi-warm days that we have left.

The Lowest of The Low

I'm not quite sure what happened, but November hit and I've been completely drained of all energy. At first I tried blaming it on the lack of daylight we've been having lately. All of a sudden I'm like Max. As soon as the sun starts to go down around 5:00, I just want to go to bed. I feel like I need to go hibernate or something.

I also tried blaming it on my workouts. This week was the last of the third mesocycle of STS....in other words, I was finishing the program. The weights were higher than ever, making the workouts that much tougher. And on the days off from STS, I've been running. Previously, I'd been running 3 miles at a time, but that finally got too easy and I had to bump my run up to 4 miles. So this week I ran 8 miles. The last 4 were a challenge, because like I said, I've been struggling with low energy levels. But somehow I made it through.

Then this afternoon I had an appointment at the Red Cross. Those vampires were after my blood once again. Normally I don't mind going, but today I just didn't feel good about it.  I had visions of fainting on the floor, which is not a good sign. I went anyway, but thankfully didn't get very far in the process. My iron was too low.

But not just low, it was super low! I mean it was so low that the machine didn't even register a number, it just said 'LLL'. At first I thought it had errored out, but no, I guess all those Ls stand for low, Low, LOW! Low iron is nothing new for me, I struggle with it all the time, but I've never seen it so low. Ever. So yeah, it was  kind of shocking to see. But maybe this is the real reason I've been so crazy tired.

I think I need to go eat a giant steak, spinach and bean salad or something with a ton of iron in it. Or maybe chug my bottle of liquid iron supplement.