Since moving to Seattle, I have been incredibly lucky to have met an amazing group of friends through my local knitting group.  Somehow, the stars lined up in just the right way that the six of us (there are others who come, but Barrie, Brooke, Ange, Kate, and Rita make up the core of the group) really bonded within a few months of meeting each other.  So just like in any relationship, this past weekend we took it to the next level- we pooled together and rented a house in Port Orchard, WA for our first weekend getaway.

Well, it wasn’t just us- we decided to let our significant others come too.  This is partially because Brooke’s husband Shaun is an awesome cook, partially because it’s good to have people around who can lift and fix things, and partially because the boys have all met and actually get along with each other.

Overall, it was three wonderful days of delicious food, really fantastic friends, lots of laughing and a chance to knit in the middle of the day and not feel like a lazy ass.  Here are some pictures, courtesy of Rita, our resident photographer.

It was a gorgeous, sunny weekend and we had a great view of Mt. Ranier from our porch:

There was also a trampoline, which Rita put to use.  She really would have loved our house back in Orange:

Brooke and I did not partake in the trampoline festivities.  Instead, we actually got some knitting done:

Appropriately, the house had sheep on the property!

There was also one overly friendly goat.  I won’t get into details, but when I went to go pet the animals one afternoon, we had a special moment that involved his head between my legs.

Unfortunately, Mike spent most of Friday working.  At least Rita got a really awesome picture of him out of it:

Max and Kate have been married for about a month now.  Max is obviously being domesticated nicely:

On Friday, Shaun made an amazing BBQ spread for dinner.  We feasted on pulled pork and baked beans, followed by Rita’s ridiculous chocolate lava cakes.  Mmmmm….

On Saturday, I tried my hand at feeding everybody.  I bet you can guess the cuisine by looking at the condiments:

I slaved away over dinner while listening to Mike discuss the the different kinds of hotness that female celebrities fall into.

Rita was my sous chef and prepped the veggies and herbs and rolled the salad rolls, which turned out way prettier than she gives herself credit for.

The food seemed to go over pretty well- we had Chicken Sweet Potato Curry (this is probably the best dish I make), Salad rolls, Bo Luc Lac/Shaken Beef (this one needed work, which is sad because it’s one of Mike’s favorite foods ever) and a “fusion fried rice.”  (I’m calling it “fusion” because I had left the Chinese sausages at home and used some of Shuan’s leftover pulled pork instead.  Improvisation is an important skill in the kitchen.)  We also had Mango Sticky Rice and some of Rita’s amazing Chocolate Hazlenut cookies for dessert.

After dinner, we had to make room for dessert, so we went for a walk:

Brooke pointed out some strange berries, which Shaun convinced us weren’t poisonous.  Even though I was nervous, they both said they were delicious, so I tried them.  I’m not dead yet, but I still have no idea what I ate.

I’m just including this last picture because it’s an elusive image of Mike and I together, even if he is facing the other direction and I look like I’m about 9 years old:

It was a good weekend.

when they wear these.

I have probably already sent this to 90% of the people who actually read this blog, but when I read that American Apparel is now offering shiny metallic leggings for kids, I actually felt myself ovulate.  Yeah, I’m not exactly the most kid-friendly person in the world, but if having a kid means I could dress it up in all the clothes that I really want to wear but know that I can’t actually get away with due to age and a too-vigorous love of food, like GOLD LEGGINGS, then hell, that may be worth the stretch marks.

Ok, so the kid thing isn’t exactly imminent, but I am tempted to pick up a couple (dozen) of these because I highly doubt that skin tight sparkly toddler wear will still be in production when I actually am ready to start spitting out tiny Bachs.  (And maybe I’ll get an extra pair and send them to my friend Zona.  Her daughter, Gigi, could and would happily rock these with pride.  Is it sad that I want to live vicariously through a 6-year-old?)

I actually have REAL stuff to blog about, like the awesome garden that Barrie and I planted in her backyard yesterday (home-grown strawberries here we come!), but shiny gold kid leggings took priority for today.

(Special thanks to my Google Reader for keeping me abreast of really important news like this as it becomes available.)

I finally got Mike back from the clutches of a crazy work schedule and we’ve spent most of the weekend so far attached at the hip.  Unfortunately, instead of romantic dinners and long walks in the park, we’ve filled the time searching for a new place to live.

When we got back from anniversary-palooza that the owners of our building weren’t going to renew our lease so that they could put it back on the market.  On one hand, this totally sucks, because I really really really really really hate the thought of moving, and this time we won’t have the high-class movers who do all the work for you courtesy of Microsoft.  Lame.  On the bright side though, while we like our place, there are some things about our current place that are really annoying, like the fact that we have only have one closet in the entire freaking place.  You have no idea how inconvenient this is when you have guests coming over and you don’t want your vacuum cleaner hanging out in the middle of the living room.

So far, we’ve seen 4 places, and we actually liked 1 of them!  It’s a duplex where the owner lives in the top unit and we would have the bottom.  She travels a lot- like 8-9 months a year- so most of the time it would just be us.  The rent is really cheap- like almost $400 less a month then what we pay now, which would be awesome, and it has two full bedrooms, lots of storage, a walk-in closet, an amazing yard with a barbeque and deck, and plenty of room for a dining table.  The only downsides are that there is no garage- but our other favorite doesn’t have one either and Mike says he can deal with it- and it has an electric range.  I’m really bummed about the electric range, but the rest of the kitchen is roomy and has tons of counterspace.  And did I mention that it’s an amazing deal?

There was one other place that we liked, but it had a fairly dingy bathroom that didn’t jive with Mike’s mildew-phobia.  It did, however, have one feature that made me audibly sigh when I saw it:

Yeah, that’s a freaking Viking stove.  Dear god, all I want in life is a really amazing stove.  Ok, maybe that’s not ALL i want in life, but it would be freaking swell.  Oh well, one day…

Thankfully, we don’t have to make the decision all by ourselves, since our friend Ben is still in town this weekend.  Ben’s been giving his input, which is especially valuable because Mike and I are the least decisive people on the planet, and also found time for a yumtastic lunch at Paseo and a quick trip to the Science Fiction Museum to check out the Jim Henson exhibit (Which was awesome by the way.  I was expecting something lame like the Robot exhibit that preceded it, but this one had really great sketches and video and made me feel super nostalgic for my childhood, which was chock full of Muppet-related entertainment.  I highly recommend it.)

In the gift shop, I found this amazing Hello Kitty bag.  Too bad I’m too cheap to spend $60 on it- how badass is this?

The speakers even play music when you plug an mp3 player into it.  I would so rock this around town.

Unlike me, Ben is NOT a pussy, and bought this sweatshirt.  This is only one reason why I love Ben:

(Yeah, he’s wearing the infamous Amazon wolf shirt too.  If you haven’t heard about it, follow the link and read the reviews.)

Upon our return to the real world, there have been some definite ups and downs.

It started with ups because we got back Saturday and the weekend had really just started.  After a nice lazy morning, Mike and I put our cheesy Seattle tourist hats on and went on the Gourmet Savor Seattle Tour.  I know that it’s a given that all tours are cheesy, but I figure we have a year before we are officially “locals,” so we might as well milk our “newbie” status for all its worth.  This was actually really cool- we spent three hours wandering around downtown Seattle eating and drinking our way through some really delicious restaurants.  My pictures all sucked, so I’ll just summarize the yum:

• Duck cakes (like crab cakes, but with duck) and sangria at Andaluca.  It was my first time eating duck (yummy, at least in cake form) and the sangria was amazing.  It didn’t even have sugar added to it- therefore I’m counting it as health food.
• Pizza at Serious Pie.  I didn’t think we would find any pizza better than Veraci’s in Seattle, but then I had a piece of the Chantarelle Mushroom and Truffle Cheese Pizza and fell in love a little.  Not only did it combine the magic of truffles and cheese, but the crust was wonderful- thin but not too thin, crispy but still a tad chewy, and obviously made the the genius bakers associated with Dahlia Bakery.  This was my favorite food of the day- it was so yummy that we ordered the same pizza for dinner the next day.
• Risotto and wine at Il Bistro.  Il Bistro is and ADORABLE little restaurant hidden away in the bottom of the Pike Place Market- it’s all soft pink lighting and curiously bowing ceilings, but the risotto we had was delicious (and inspired Mike to ask me why mine always ends up so much more sticky than theirs) and the whole decor made me want to go eat a heavy meal in a corner late at night with a lot more wine.
• Salami and sausage at Bavarian Meat Delicatessen in Pike Place Market.  This was good, but I honestly think I’ve been spoiled by Salumi.  The guy behind the counter who spoke about the company cracked me up though- both Mike and I thought he went to the Sham-Wow! school of public speaking.  If the meat thing doesn’t work out, he definitely has a future in informercials.
• Chocolate at Fran’s Chocolates.  I love chocolate.  Mike doesn’t.  That means I got double samples!  At least until they brought out the Gray and Smoked Salt Caramels.  The savory-sweet combination was so universally appealing that Mike wouldn’t give his up.  ::sigh::
• Gelato at Gelatiamo.  Yum.  I forget what flavors we had- one was a fruity sorbey style, one was a nutty flavor (I think).  I was super full, but I still made room for some gelato, cuz I’m a trooper like that.

The next day, we ended our weekend of gluttony with brunch at The Corson Building.  I was extra excited about this because I had been DYING to eat here and this was the first week they started to offer brunch.  It definitely wasn’t a traditional brunch- you sit at community style tables and are encouraged to strike up conversation with your neighbors, and the food consists of a constantly changing buffet of Mediterranean style sides (chickpea salad, home-pickled farmers market veggies, house-made sausages and other such fare), French macaroons and homemade yogurt, compotes and toppings.  In addition, they also have 2 different kitchen-made dishes each week.  We got one of each and split it- I had some Porcini mushrooms in a cream sauce with a poached egg- delicious if you’re a mushroom lover- and Mike had roasted quail with eggs.  This was my other new poultry experience of the week- it was so teensy!

Even better than the food was the fact that we were seated across from another couple, and after we started to make some smalltalk, I suddenly realized that the woman sitting across from me was the author of one of my favorite local cooking blogs- it was Kari from Anticiplate!  In a weird, only-in-the-internet-age semi-celebrity moment, I went from talking about what restaurants were still on my “must eat” list to blurting “OMG I totally know you!” to a total stranger.  Thankfully, Kari was really sweet and didn’t seem to think that I was a crazy stalker at all, and we had great conversation about food and cooking while Mike and her husband talked about computer stuff.  I really hope to see them again in real life.  (If you are at all into cooking, definitely check out both of her blogs- her cooking blog, Anticiplate and her new blog where she chronicles her summer cooking internships, Summer Spoon.  They should both be on your Google Reader stat.)

Post brunch and some midday napping, we started gearing up for the week over that Truffle Cheese pizza from Serious Pie.  I was terribly sad to see the long weekend end.  Unfortunately, after this week, I’m even sadder, because Mike’s work schedule has been ridonculous all week.  The upside was that it gave me some time in the evenings to spend time swapping yarn with my favorite knitters and indulge in a long walk and some happy-hour vino during the week, but the downside is the fact that it’s 10:22 on Saturday and Mike is still working.  On the campus in Redmond.  And did I mention that it’s Saturday?  FAIL.

Sorry for the wordy post- I promise to impose my terrible photography skills on you in the next post.  Scout’s honor.

Ok, so the main reason I’m being timely with this post is because I thought of the title yesterday and have been absolutely giddy with excitement at the mere thought of using it.  Yes, I’m that easily amused by word play.

Anyway, day 2 of our adventure started with the best meal we found within the city limits of Port Angeles at First Street Haven, a tiny little neighborhood breakfast joint that is so small they don’t even have their own bathroom- you have to walk into the boutique next door that sells formalwear to pee.  I am still sad that we didn’t take pictures of the food, because it was freaking delicious- my Roasted Vegetable Scramble with Marscapone Cheese was probably the only evidence of non-grocery store generic cheese within the city limits and my berry bran muffin was a magic mouthful of delicious goodness. (For the record, i go apeshit over a good bran muffin- boring old blueberry muffins just sit there wishing they were awesome bran muffins.  Maybe it’s because they trigger something in my brain because bran muffins were the only kind of muffin we were ever allowed to have in our house growing up- gotta love my mom’s genuis semi-hippie parent logic of “if it has something healthy in the name, it’s gotta be good for you” logic.  We blissfully ignored the fact that the muffins had so much honey in them that they barely stayed together when they were warm while we smeared them with glorious amounts of butter…  ::sigh::)

So um, yeah, now that my bran muffin diatribe is over, I will summarize by saying that breakfast was good.

After eating, we jumped in the car and headed out for the next leg of the adventure- the drive to the Hoh Rainforest.  In case you were wondering why Mike agreed to put up with a trip full of kayaking (he gets seasick), Italian food (he thinks he hates Italian food, but he’s wrong- I’ll write more about that subject some other day) and hiking (he calls walking “inefficient” and thinks it is disrespectful to the inventors of the wheel), it’s because he got to drive.  A lot.  On some very windy roads.  And because I am totally immune to motion sickness (obviously a sign of a higher level of evolution), he can go as fast as he wants while I fall asleep or happily knit.

The road along Lake Crescent is blissfully windy.  Mike called it the best road he may have ever driven on.  I’ll upload some video of his death-defying rally later this week.

We drove 88 miles to the Hoh Rainforest in about an hour and a half- pretty good time considering the windy roads and occasional slow driver in front of us.  We stopped to get some picnic goods at this little “last stop before nature” camping store.  For such a little place, they had a lot of signs.

This was my favorite:

Unfortunately, Mike found a favorite sign too.  Well, he found two:

And he bought them.  Which made me sad:

Seriously not cool.

With peanut butter sandwiches, plenty of water and some Theo’s chocolate bars in hand, we made it to the Hoh and set out for a hike.

I showed off my mad log crossing skills and only almost fell 4 times.

Club moss growing on old trees makes for surroundings that are both eerie and beautiful.

As if I could resist taking one of these pictures again.

We saw these rocks and had to take a picture for my mom.  She loves rocks.

A rare find- a picture of Mike and I where neither of us are holding the camera ourselves.

Mike is very passionate about finding awesome walking sticks and then pretending he’s a ninja.

Awww. Sweaty love.

We covered a total of about 8 miles on the Hoh River trail.  The trail itself actually goes on to the foot of Mt. Olympus, but that is almost 18 miles and we do not have the gear or the stamina for that.  Mike did admit that he kind of liked the hike though, and we even talked about buying backpacking gear.  Because that’s what you do when you do something once and like it- go buy accessories!

The drive and the hike took up most of our day, so dinner consisted of grabbing a quick bite at a local hamburger stand called Frugals.  Mike actually raved about the burger- if you’re ever driving through Port Angeles, try it!  Even though my chicken sandwich was only okay, the meal was redeemed when I popped into Wendy’s down the street to get an iced tea (Frugals only had sweetened Raspberry crap- vomit) and the cashier gave me the drink for free because I had a pretty smile.  Random, and slightly creepy, but I really really love getting stuff for free, even if it is just iced tea.

So in summary- First Street Haven = good, driving fast = good, signs that are blatantly anti-dog=  bad, hiking in the only temperate rainforest in the world = super good, burgers at Frugals = good, free iced tea = bonus.

We’re back from our much-needed 2nd-anniversary-palooza.  We’re well-rested, well-fed and ready to face the real world again.  Well, kind of.  If we have to.  Ok fine, I have no desire to go to work on Monday.

Mike did an amazing job planning the weekend, which is particularly notable because he HATES to plan things.  Like, seriously, it’s his least favorite thing in the world.  He would much rather wander through the day and just take things as they come.  I, on the other hand, feel loved and comforted by knowing what the day will bring.  So the fact that he thought of activities, made reservations and generally stuck to the plan is proof that he still likes me.

We left Thursday for a couple of days in the Olympic National Forest, which necessitated a ferry ride.  Who doesn’t love a ferry?  For some reason, and maybe it’s just the novelty of moving a car across water, like fording a river Oregon-Trail style but modernized, I get really excited when I go somewhere on a ferry.  I can’t wait to get out of the car and walk around the boat, even though it’s nothing new.  Of course, then on the way back, I get super annoyed and impatient with the whole process, but that’s just because I’m usually tired and cranky.  Shocking.

Anyway, the ferry ride was cool.

I made it through the entire ride resisting the urge to pull a Titanic and instead only looked off the side of the boat demurely.  I feel like that was a big excercise in self-restraint.

After the ferry ride, we hit the road again and drove to our adventure of the day- kayaking in the Straight of Juan de Fuca.

We booked with Adventures Through Kayaking.  They were super professional, easy-going and reasonably priced.  Plus, when Mike got a little seasick (which we both totally forgot that he was prone to, but yeah, he totally is) our guide happily towed him while he gathered his bearings and gave me pointers on where we else we should explore on the peninsula.

I don’t have any pictures of the actual kayaking to share because we were too nervous to let the camera loose out on the water.  They did sell waterproof cameras, but they were traditional film style, and lord knows I’d never get around to developing those.

During the trip, we did get to see bald eagles, harbor seals, Dungeness crabs and all kinds of other fantastic critters.  The only negative was Mike’s queasiness- now we know that I need to add Dramamine to the pharmacy I carry in my purse whenever we travel.

However, the entire adventure ended on a definite high point- once we headed back, we found out that every trip with Adventures through Kayaks includes a free wine tasting at their sister business, Harbinger Wineries.  Free wine tasting = just about the greatest thing in the history of the universe.  There was even one variety- a white blend called White Dynamo- that Mike liked enough to buy.  As for all the other varieties that he didn’t dig so much, I gladly helped him finish some of those tastings.  By the time we left, Mike was feeling better and I was feeling faaaaabulous.

We headed to our hotel, checked in, and promptly took a really fantastic 3 hour nap.  I like to think of myself as somewhat of a nap aficionado, and this was a particularly wonderful one.  Unfortunately, by the time we woke up and got out the door, it was after 8.  Since we were staying in Port Angeles, there weren’t a lot of dinner options left that were still open.

So we succumbed to tourist cheese.

Yeah, that’s right, we ate at Bella Italia, the mediocre Italian restaurant that was made famous in Twilight for being the site of Bella and Edward’s first date.  What it lacks in actual good food (it’s not terrible, but it’s decidedly “eh”) it makes up for by sheer inundation of Twilight-related memorabilia.  Movie posters?  Check.  Twilight-themed wine?  Check.  A list of daily specials that always features the mushroom ravioli that Bella ordered when Edward told her he was a vampire?  Check.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel, where we laid in bed and watched CNN.  For old married folks, it was a perfect night.

I haven’t done this in a while…

YAY: My super awesome 3-day work week is officially over!  Time for the (extended) weekend!

BOO: This week has kicked my ass.  I didn’t get home tonight until after 8:00 pm in a mad dash to finish everything at work.

YAY: Even though I only had 3 days notice, I put together a kick ass deck and presented it to a bunch of uppity-ups today and was praised.  I am awesome under pressure.

BOO: See previous boo.  I’m seriously feeling the lack of sleep that this week has brought.

YAY: We’re leaving for Olympic National Park tomorrow to celebrate our 2 year anniversary, where we’ll kayak, hike from the beach to the rain forest, take some (hopefully) awesome pictures (Mike even bought a “National Geographic” branded camera case, hehe) and relax, and then return to the city for some seriously delicious meals- Spring Hill on Saturday (which Mike picked because it’s burger was listed as one of the top 10 in the city) and brunch at the Corson Building on Sunday.  Gluttony!

BOO: We’re leaving at the buttcrack of dawn and I haven’t packed anything and the house is a mess.

YAY: Mike actually planned the whole weekend with minimal prompting from me.  Score!

BOO: The fact that I haven’t planned anything is giving me anxiety.  Ommmmm… must breathe.  Let go of control.

YAY: We’ve been married for 2 years!  And at some point this summer we’ll hit the 10 year mark since we started dating.  How the hell did that happen?

BOO: Um, there’s nothing really “boo” about that.  I still kind of like Mike.  Hopefully he returns the sentiment

So it’s been a week since I last updated.  I feel incredibly guilty about it, but I have two good reasons for hiding away in a little hole.

1. Per usual, I’ve been busy.  Ok, so that’s kind of a crappy excuse- everybody’s busy.  Fail.
2. On Wednesday, I got my hair did, and I’m not completely in love with the results, so I’ve been hesitant to post.  Yes, dear readers, I live in fear of being judged, not just by people I see every day, but by my friends and family who read my effing blog.  (This counts as a double fail.)

But this past Saturday, something happened that was definitely worthy of me climbing out of my hole and blogging about- our friends Kate and Max got married!

Yay!

I met Kate through the incredibly awesome Queen Anne Knitting Group.  (Yeah, we don’t have a better name than that.)  Kate is the baby of the group, but you’d never know from looking at her incredibly speedy, incredibly meticulous knitting.  We quickly discovered that we quickly shared more in common than just knitting- we both have significant others who are obsessed with cars.  Thus, Mike and I hung out with Kate and her fiance Max, and we had couple friends!  Victory!

Their first “official” kiss.  Awwww!

After the ceremony, we ate.  I’m bummed that nobody took pictures of the cheese platter, which accounted for probably 50% of my food intake that day.  So yummy!

And then we reception-ed it up.

Me, Rita, and the infamous orange hair.  I wanted something lighter, but I’m thinking it’s too orange.  I’m also thinking that my obsession with the color orange is getting a little extreme.

Um, in typical Aubrey fashion, I developed some fantastic blisters a few days before the wedding.  Mike took this particularly flattering detail shot.

I love, love, love this picture- Mike is smiling!  But I’m super sad that it’s so shadowy and dark.  Too bad I don’t have a husband with awesome Photoshop skills who could happily and easily fix this for me.

How awesome is this photo?  I really just love the way we’re standing- it looks very Vanity Fair-esque to me.  Sadly, Barrie is missing from this photo because she was hiking through the desert in Moab that day and couldn’t make it to the wedding.  It’s okay though, we’re plotting to photoshop Barrie and Dominic in at a later date.  We just need to find a picture of Barrie simultaneously flipping off the camer and eating an apple to make it authentic.  It shouldn’t be that hard to find a picture of exactly that.

Ok, I have to go and shampoo some gradual coloring stuff into my hair now.  I’ll update again, with much less lag time.  I promise.