Last week was simply too busy and too long ago to do a full recap, so I’ve decided to post some random pictures and write haikus instead.

at last my mom learned

how to take a self-portrait

soon she’ll forget how.

After years of hype

I went to the Wine and Cheese

Shop with Mary.  Yum.

High School Reunion

Tony came even though he

is 2 years younger.

Mike showed up too

and laughed at my class photo

I hate Scott for that.

These are probably

my 3 favorite people

in the whole wide world.

I look like crap at

7:30 am when

I am hungover.

Amy and I ate pho

after the Korean spa

where they scrubbed our skin.

Our moms came too but

they don’t like pictures where they

don’t have makeup on.

Pho makes the pain of

over-exfoliated skin

go away real fast.

Why can’t Seattle

have awesome fruit stores like this

one in Lil’ Saigon.

I would eat this

every day if they were here

(it’s a mangosteen)

Plates like this would be

strewn across my house and I

would sparkle with joy.

I SHOULD be packing right now.  I mean, considering the fact that we have to be out of here by the 31st and we haven’t even STARTED putting crap in boxes, AND we’re not going to be able to pack anything this weekend because we’ll be camping at Mt. Ranier, I should be packing.

But I’m not.  I’m telling you more about my weekend.

On Sunday morning Mike texted me to let me know that he, An and Jaime were leaving their haunted hotel in Oregon and would be back home in the afternoon.  Then he texted me again telling me that he wanted crab legs for dinner.

Amy and I decided to combine our culinary prowess and dedicated most of the day to welcoming the boys home with meat.  First stop, the Ballard Farmer’s Market:

Remember how Saturday was beautiful and sunny and warm all freaking day?  Sunday was a little different.  We left the market looking like this:

Awesome.

The next stop was Uwajimaya.  When you’re on the hunt for crab, it’s always a good idea to seek out an Asian grocery store.  And since Uwajimaya is the most badass Asian grocery store in the world, I felt like it was my responsibility to share it with Amy.

There was crab:

And that was just the beginning.  We also found stanky-ass dried squid, aka Mike’s mom’s favorite thing to snack on when she’s near me in a small, enclosed space:

You’re a liar if you say you’ve never felt like this:

GIANT POCKY!!!!:

And finally, the best freaking frozen yogurt in the universe, courtesy of Utopia.  Considering the fact that I like frozen yogurt more than anybody else I’ve ever met, my official endorsement means a lot.  I even prefer it to Yogurtland. I know that verges on heresy, but you’d understand if you’d had their black sesame flavor with mochi topping.

With plenty of Pocky, bellies full of yogurt and $70 of crab and korean bbq in hand, we left Uwajimaya and headed home to cook

The night’s menu was pretty fantastic-

• Broiled Crab Legs
• Korean Style short ribs
• Bouchon’s French Lentil and Feta Salad (courtesy of Anticiplate, one of the prettiest cooking blogs you’ll find)
• Green Salad with sauteed garlic shoots, Japanese Black Truffle Tomatoes (I am going to cry when the season ends for these amazing tomatoes) and homemade creamy Balsamic dressing
• Cherry dumplings a la mode (kind of a bastardized version of this recipe from Gourmet)

We had just about finished when the boys drove up.

After 5 days of riding, they weren’t only tired and hungry, they all smelled really bad to boot.  So we kept the food warm while they showered.  And then we ate.  I think the meal went over well.

That’s a picture of An and Jaime telling Mike they can’t BELIEVE how lucky he is to have the best wife ever.  Mike is looking a little bashful, so as not to appear boastful, but agreeing nonetheless.

Or it’s a picture of An talking about how hot some waitress they saw on their ride was.  You can choose to believe whichever version you like.

And that’s how the weekend ended.  The boys crashed out on the couch, Amy and I cleaned up, and we were all pretty much asleep before midnight.  But at least we were full.

Saturday was Amy and Derek’s last full day in Seattle, so we made it a point to pack in as many activities as possible.  I think we succeeded.  I was certainly exhausted by the end of the day.

The day started early, at least according to Mike time- we were all out the door before 11:00 AM.  Since Mike is a world champion sleeper-inner, Amy, Derek and I had already had time to walk down the street to grab some coffee and check out some pretty impressive foam art:

Once Mike was conscious and clean, we headed over to Pike’s Place Market, where we had a decent lunch with an amazing view at Lowell’s:

We also bought Mike’s mom a salmon (it’s the only souvenir she would ever actually use):

Once the Market was checked off our list, we made our way to another huge tourist attraction in Seattle, The Experience Music Project.  This was actually really cool- it features all kinds of cool stations where you can learn about Seattle’s musical heritage through every sense imaginable.  Plus, we took advantage of Mike’s fancy Microsoft Discount AND two free tickets he had gotten from a friend, so the whole afternoon only cost us $10!

The building was designed by Frank Gehry, if you couldn’t guess.

The tower of guitars is really impressive.

One of the most popular features of the EMP is a section where they have all kinds of musical instruments and tools for anybody to play, even if you have zero musical ability whatsoever (like myself).  We played with keyboards, drums, guitars and even a mixing board, but I was most excited about the turntables.

Um, needless to say, I couldn’t even successfully match the tempos on the pretend turntable.  I am officially the whitest white girl on the planet.

Mike did much better when he took over.  If we ever decide to become a musical duo of any sorts, I’ll just have to be the hype-man.  I can’t make music, but I am damn good at encouraging people.

Another section of the EMP is a compilation of thousands of hours of interviews and monologues of all kinds of people involved in the Seattle music scene over the years.  While poking around, I found Mike McCready’s interview and naturally had to take a picture with his virtual self:

Randomly, my mom is besties with his wife.  When he gave her a Pearl Jam CD, she told him that their music was okay, but she couldn’t understand what their lead singer was saying.  I love my mom.

Right next to the oral history compilation, Mike found his favorite thing in the entire freaking museum, the egg chair:

After we finally wrested Mike from the grips of the very soothing musical egg chair, we finished our tour of the museum and checked out the Science Fiction Museum, which is attached to the EMP and included with the price of admission.  There were some cool/kitchy alien and robot stuff, but we didn’t get any pictures because they are really strict about photography.  Boo to them.

We then spent some time wandering around the Seattle Center.  We were all too cheap to go to the top of the Space Needle, but we did take pictures in front of it:

We finished the day with dinner and drinks at Boom Noodle in Capitol Hill.  I had gone there with Justin the week before, and we liked it.  Derek is a conisseur of ramen, so I wanted to take him there to try it.  It’s not the most authentic ramen in the universe, but it’s decent, and they have really good gyoza and a cute, modern decor.

I had mussels for the first time.  They look scary but taste delicious.  Yay mussels! I also made Amy stick the pretty pink sake bottle in her purse so I could bring it home and use it as a vase.  I’m nothing if not classy.

We finished the night by going home, where we got our domestic on by making homemade Nilla Wafers and eating ice cream.  Cookies are always a good way to finish a day.

Between Justin, Amy and Derek, we had 10 solid days of entertaining out of town guests.  Thankfully, Seattle has a lot of things to do to aid us in this task.  Evidently, we constructed some sort of “pop art” theme when we planned out what to do to keep Amy and Derek entertained.

On Friday, while Mike worked from home in the afternoon, the three of us went to check out the Great Seattle Graffiti Wall.  Amy, our resident photographer and art aficionado, had specially requested that we check this out during their trip.

Finding it was kind of a pain.  I had tried to Google it, but I kept getting different intersections, so we ended up driving around aimlessly for an extra 20 minutes.  When we finally found it (we finally noticed a graffiti-covered wall at 3rd Ave S and S Stacey Street) we were thrilled!  Derek and I were even more thrilled because it was right by a McDonalds, so I could feed my Diet Coke addiction and he could snack on some Chicken McNuggets.  (Seriously, Derek loves chain and fast food more than anybody ever in the history of the universe.  It’s comical, but it’s also comforting, because I love Derek).

After Derek’s snack, we proceded to do exactly what you are supposed to do when you see a giant wall of brightly-colored legal graffiti: we took pictures of ourselves!

Uncle Dung!

Derek giving me a boost.  I know you’re marveling at my grace.

Sister act!

I actually really like this picture.

Amy had tried to get us to take a group shot using her camera timer.  We ran away just before the camera went off.  She was irked.

Finally, a semi-successful group shot.

Amy took video to get a picture of the entire wall if you want to check it out (warning: you can hear a lot of wind in the background):

After spending an hour or so jumping up on walls that were covered in bum pee, posing like giant nerds and marvelling at the wall in general, we were cold and hungry and ready to go clean up before getting dinner at Lunchbox Laboratory in Ballard.  I was really excited to try this restaurant out- it is a build-your-own-burger place (a lot like The Counter in SoCal, only with a wider variety of meat and a decidedly less bourgoise feel).

There were definitely a LOT of choices, which Mike found a bit overwhelming.  We both said we’d like to try it again, but The Counter ekes out the win in head to head burger competition.  Mike and I split a Butterfinger Shake though, which we agreed was the best milkshake ever.

The smile is Derek’s seal of approval.

As awesome as Mike and I are, this latest crop of visitors didn’t fly all the way up here just to see our shining faces.  In fact, the main reason that Amy and Derek came to Seattle was to see The Stars.

The Stars were playing at The Showbox at the Market, right by Pike’s Place Market.  What a great venue!  It held a good amount of people but still felt intimate.  Plus, for the lazy amongst us (ie Mike and I), they had plenty of tables around the bar that allowed us to sit down and still have a great view of the concert the entire time.

We started off all sitting at the table, where Mike and Derek engaged in some fascinating conversation:

Most of their conversations seem to center around their mutual love of computers, mountain bikes and chain restaurants.  God, how I had missed listening to it all.

None of us had ever heard of the opening band, Think About Life, before, but I immediately developed a crush on their lead singer.  Amy, our official photographer, failed to take a picture of my future husband, but here is one I stole from Google Images:

He was wearing a bow tie last night, which made him even more awesome.

Then The Stars took the stage!  Yay!

I really hope that this was a good omen for future musically themed outings.  Their playlist included Amy and Torquil, the lead singers, kept me thoroughly entertained even though I have the shortest attention span for music EVER.

The pretty flashing lights probably helped up the entertainment value too:

Yay for living in a city with such a great music scene!

On Wednesday at 2:00 pm, we bid adieu to Justin.

On Thursday, we said hello to them:

Yay!  Amy and Derek are here!  The girl Bach and the white Bach!

Many adventures to be recapped tomorrow.