Happenings in the Household

So I haven't written in here for awhile but I'm not going to beat myself up over it; I'm just going to get down to business and tell you (show you) all that is going on at the home of us.

Lately I have had a crafty bug and decided I wanted to learn how to quilt which after more thinking sounded like a bad idea, at least for now, due to the expense of a sewing machine and such. With the holidays coming up I thought, well, we don't have much for decor. See below for my homemade goodies...

Female robot ornament :)

Felt wreath!! This puppy took forever to make!

Our future tree topper. A work in progress.

Delicious zucchini, freshly foraged chanterelles, onion, and mozzarella fritatta.YUM.

We re-arranged our living spaces to fit in the massive new 46 inch TV we bought.

Our new office space.

The dining room table is now where it belongs. We have to keep the TV box for 30 days in case we need to return it. The box is so large that it doesn't fit anywhere except the middle of our apartment.

And the ever glorious TV that we sit 3 feet away from in our little whole-in-the-wall of an apartment. 

 Alright. Life shared. Done.

Kansas

Time for some more stories. This time we will travel to a small town in Kansas called Liberal. Here is where Elias' family resides and where his little sister recently graduated from high school. This is also where I got to learn how to cook real, good Mexican food. I have never seen a bucket of lard so large but yet oh-so-tasty. My low calorie, light meal, hot weather thoughts were thrown out for pure delicious cheesey-fried goodness! I have never had better Mexican food and I promise I am not saying this because my possibly, maybe future mother-in-law made the majority of the food. ;)

This picture needs to be clicked on to see larger because HELL-OOO, this is a beautiful thing. Fresh homemade tortillas (like fresh meaning just before the meal was served, they were made), homemade Mac N' Cheese and the main event - Chile Rellenos. Lord have mercy these were good... I don't know if you can see but there is also a homemade salsa on top of the relleno. I swear this woman would just put things in her pan or her blender and they would come out tasting like pure delicious wonderful. The chiles were filled with Mennonite cheese that yours truly stuffed in there. In fact, that tortilla is possible one of the ones I made.

That's right!! I can make tortillas! The real deal people! haha... I obviously feel very special in this picture.

So I had to cover the food portion first and these two pictures really only hit the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the food we ate.  There was roasted pork (for the meat eater), salsa de aguacate (no not guacamole), beans, rice, etc. etc. SO the reason we were out there (besides the food ;)) was for his little sister's graduation.

This is Marina (little sister and graduate) and the momma. You can see Abel in the background which is Elias' nephew. The guy in the cowboy hat is Julio, the man of the family. :)

Marina hugging Julio. On the left there is again Abel and on the right, the momma.

Myself hugging Marina and you can see to the right of her (and Elias') sister Veronica (also called Vero). Vero is holding Marina's baby, AJ who is fricken' ADORABLE. To the left in the background there is Frey and Mareli.

Here are some pictures highlighting some of the other fun times we had out there...

Elias and I all ready for graduation on the front porch.

The cute little baby AJ taking a snooze while we were out on a walk around town.

Elias and his sister, Marina.

The storm moving in. There was really cool lighting, so we took a couple of pics.

Hail. 

It was pretty decent size hail too!

Reading and snuggling in the heat and rain.

Elias' mom lit this candle when we first arrived and let it burn the whole time apparently. I think Elias told me this is to bless our trip or make our trip a good one. Not sure. He is not home right now but if I am wrong I will let you all know. 

Grandma and happy baby!!

His mom whipped out some of the old pics. Check out Elias looking so put together! You can't see it in the shot but he is wearing cowboy boots. I guess this is one of his teachers from elementary school and then his mom is on the right.

I swear this is how he still sleeps - on his belly with his mouth wide open! ha!

I love this one. He was called a "cry baby" when is was a kid. The outfit he is sporting is actually his older sister's graduation gown from like the fifth grade. Elias was so upset that he didn't get a "gown" to wear that he cried until they gave it to him to put on. This is too funny! :)

Scrub-a-dub-dub. Always have to have a naked baby shot.

The ice cream man! He went around the neighborhoods selling delicious fruit/ice cream bars of all different flavors. Some were pretty exotic, kind of reminded me of my time in South America.

Saying goodbye to the madre. :(

The flight to Denver where we caught our connection back to Seattle. Pretty. I miss those Midwestern storms!

Since we were just hopping from Denver, CO to Liberal, KS we took a propeller plane.

We just walked right off and then into the airport. Fun!

Finally home and relaxing!

Can't wait to see his fam again! We had a great time but it is always good to be back home on the couch drinking beer. Amen!

Next story and pics: our first camping trip in Washington! Stay tuned!

A & E

You thought I gave up but no, I'm not done bloggin' yet!

Oh lordy there is so much to say. I will try to keep the descriptions brief and let the pictures do most of the talkin'! I have a lot to share.


So I will start with my mom, dad and aunt Camille visiting Seattle WAY back in April. My dad had a Microsoft conference for work and decided to  take advantage of the opportunity and come see Elias and I. This is our house to the right... well... not really our house, the only part of "our" place you can see is the top right windows into our living room.

 If you were to walk along the path that goes along the left side of the house you would come to our front door which is pictured to the left here. Currently there are a bunch of plants on our little patio. Hopefully I will get those pics up soon.

This is me trying to raise some seedlings into adult plants. As you can see I am crazy about my plants. Today I was actually talking to my plants like they were my pet dog or something. Oh what I wouldn't do for a pet dog. :/

My ma, pa and aunt stayed at a great Bed and Breakfast called Shafer Baillie Mansion. This is just the front door... the place was huge and very nice.

My dad was unable to play for the first couple of days so we had a girl's day where we went to the spa and got pampered. Afterwards we checked out Poppy Restaurant in Capitol Hill. The Chef for the restaurant was on Bravo's Top Chef which is way coolio. 

Now this to the left is a picture of Poppy's food. It is called Indian Thali but the food isn't necessarily Indian. In fact it is considered Pacific Northwest foods. Anyway there is one larger portion and then a variety of small dishes to go with it. The cocktails (as pictured above) are interesting and delicious as well!

Oh this was earlier in the afternoon right after the spa. My ma and me rockin' it out. Check out her mod squad glasses. Just another 50-year-old trying to be fashionable! ha! Sorry madre.

Dad finally shows up and we head out for some good Mexican food in Ballard: La Carta de Oaxaca. They have some pretty delish selections. Elias says that it is pretty traditional too although maybe more Southern Mexican. It really doesn't matter though, as long as there are good margaritas.

Out on the town tasting vodkas and whiskeys. This was a beer festival in Fremont (Hop Scotch?). We weren't that impressed. Once you have lived in a place like Colorado there is a certain expectation (not to sound snobby but it is true!).

Finally getting a chance to show my dad around our place! I was pretty excited to see what he thought. It is always fun to show your 'rents how you have settled into your own place. This is kind of like my "first" place since Elias is a little more than a rommate.

This is our dinner table all nicely set for the first time. Elias and I always stand up and eat our food, don't know why but we do. Probably because we are always seemingly in a hurry.

And actually we ended up not sitting at the table either. I think we had all eaten sooo much that we didn't want to sit straight up in a regular chair!! The face I am making is because I have a HUGE food baby and I am hugely uncomfortable. :(



It was a great time though. Always love seeing my family and hanging out with them. There are not enough pictures of my aunt Camille but it was awesome having her with us too!

Soon to come: pics and stories from Kansas when we went to see Elias' fam, from our first camping trip in Washington, of our plants, of delicious food we have made and eaten, and a lot more!!

Much love from the West Coast!

Weekend Getaway with TV

Elias and I decided last week that we needed to go to the mountains this weekend. At least for a night. The weather has been nice and the hikin' itch has been a-itchin' so we looked up some B&Bs (I know, we should have gone camping but a bed and breakfast is soo nice) and found a good place called Roaring River (check it out: http://theroaringriver.com/ - we had the The Tall Firs Room). I think my parents are rubbing off on me except they didn't decide to start frequenting B&Bs until they were in their 40s. They have turned me over to the wonderfully dark side of traveling at a young age. :) Anywho we only booked it for one night since we can't really afford more.

On Friday night we went and washed our cars as a couple (so romantic, I know - almost beats our PBS nights) and then went to dinner using one of our Groupons (those things are amazing). We went to this place in the Wallingford neighborhood called Julia's which was supposed to be a real veggie friendly place but kinda lacked in the creativity department. The place was kind of dead for a Friday night in a hoppin', young neighborhood for 830PM but I shouldn't complain. We practically had the place to ourselves and one bottle of wine later the waitress was mopping the floors and we were heading out into the dark night. It gets dark at ~9PM! Crazy how fast the short winter days turn into long summer sunny days.

Saturday's alarm clock rang way too early. We agreed to help out Elias' Honor Society Club out with some trail restoration for the Humane Society (yes, I did see puppies and it was amazing). I tell ya all the kids there looked to be about 16 years old, holy crap! When did I become an old lady! Elias and I got straight to work ripping up blackberry bushes and tearing through roots and trees. One kid asked in awe, "Have you done this before?" I said no but felt some pride for my northern MN adventures. :) Elias was kicking down trees and showing the kids who's boss. It was kind of hilarious seeing him be all manly. Another interesting thing was that the majority of the kids were Asian and not only that they all (even the non-Asian kids) seemed to have an accent and be able to speak multiple languages (talk about being a baddass). I find that a lot of people (old and young) come from all over the place here in Seattle.

Later in the day we finally headed up to the B&B where we found ourselves sleeping in a room with a turqouis ceiling, doilie drapes, painted wicker tables and a TV so small I had to pull a chair right in front of it to see. Although we were stuck in an 80s time warp the place was great. It was clean and right by the river with a GREAT view. We were also right next to Mt. Si so we thought we would hit up Big Si Trail in the morning and take a visit down the road to the highest waterfall in the US of A: Snoqualmie Falls. So we don't have a TV in our apt for good reason (we would watch it too much if we did) but when we are in a place that has TV and we are in control (or I am in control) of the remote it goes downhill. It is like a roller-coaster obsessed child going to a theme park with only roller coasters as rides. Seriously we plopped down on the bed and watched The Food Network for like 2 hours (I guess I was in the chair in front of the bed squinting at the TV but Elias was in bed).

Once we pulled ouselves away from cable we were able to regroup and refocus our efforts on the goal at hand: hiking. We drove down to Snoqualmie and took the mile long trail down to the outlook, hopped over the fence and (against the rules) found ourselves a rock to sit on and a better view of the falls.

 Stopping for a pose on the way down to the falls.

 Yes, this tree is growing on top of an old stump and yes, it does have moss growing on its branches.

This is part of the Puget Sound Energy Center. 

Our rock with the view. 

Exploring.

Cool lily pad-like/bamboo-ish plants by the falls. 

A fun tree I found on the way back up the hill. 

Us. 

The view from the Salish Lodge.

We ventured up to Salish Lodge (at the top of the falls) afterwards sipped on some refreshments and ate the most delish panini sandwich.... yummm.... roasted pear, goat cheese, roasted tomatoes, carmelized onions, and oh yea just a whole lot of yum. Elias got his usual bourbon, me some wine and we looked out over the falls in the lodge that costs $800/night for a room. Hey if you cant sleep where the rich sleep, you might as well eat what they eat because dang, it is good! :)

We headed back to the B&B for yes, some more Food Network. The morning came with a knock on the door and a basket of Breakfast on our front step. Corn fritters, sausage and the best part: a pear baked with cream and maple syrup. The fritter needed some salt and some spice but it reminded me of good old fashioned cooking. I should have taken pics, sorry. Elias and I day dreamed about what our future B&B would be like but then couldn't resist it any longer. The Food Network came back on (I guess it was really my fault more than anything). So remember how I said we were going to go on that hike? It didn't happen. Yes we were sore and tired from the long day but truthfully I blame it on The Food Network. This is why we won't get a TV.

After we left our beatiful mountain oasis stuck in the days of our birth we went to Costco and stared at the Big Screen TVs. Elias drooled a little and I thought about last night's episode of The Iron Chef and let out a sigh. We then moved on to get our toothpaste and granola bars in oversized packages that will last us for the next year. Next time I think we will just go camping. :) I don't think they have cable in campgrounds.

A couple more points of interest. When we got home we were CRAVING hotdogs after watching and episode of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives with Guy Fieri so we got some dogc (of course veggie for me) and this is what it looked like...

Umm... yes that is sauerkraut in a can. It was delicious. 

I always have to throw in a sunset from our living room window. 

Did I mention how cool my grandma is? :)

A