Ben came and visited us this weekend!  Since Ben used to live with us back in Anaheim, having him around really made it feel like we were back at home.

We did a lot, thanks to some fantastic weather- ate some awesome meals, caught up with some old friends and wandered around in the sunshine.  Ben is one of the owners of Hibbleton, a really fantastic art gallery back home that he runs with some friends (Mike’s brother Tony is one of the Hibbleton honchos too), so we made sure to make time to check out the SAM (Seattle Art Museum) while he was here.

The SAM was better than I expected.  They had a nice mix of modern and more classical pieces, but mostly I was surprised at how much I liked the featured exhibit.  Based on the name, I had kind of written it off.

If you have a chance, definitely check it out.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to take many pictures thanks to the standard museum “no-photo” rule.  Boo.  Luckily for us, the most entertaining thing we found in the entire museum wasn’t part of any official collection and therefore could be photographed freely.

As you leave the museum, you walk by a tiny room dedicated to the SAM’s 75th birthday.  They have some pictures of the museum over time and some notes about some of its greatest exhibits.  Standard stuff.  But then we struck gold- in the middle of the room was a guest book where people could sign their name and wish the SAM a happy birthday.  Some people simply signed while otheres wrote deep philosophical notes about the nature of art itself.

And then there were these random ass entries:

Obviously some kid who really likes Transformers wandered away from a tour group.  I love this kid.

Awesome.

No words.

Day = made.

So this is my cubicle.  It’s not exactly… thrilling.  In fact, it’s blah.  I don’t do blah.  Any ideas on how to jazz it up a bit?  I don’t exactly have a ton of pictures of Mike and I (sad), so any other ideas are welcome.  Be creative.  Be colorful.  Bonus points for cheap and easy.  If anybody gives me an idea that really knocks my socks off, I’ll buy you a drink.

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.

On day 2 of our trip, we woke up at 8 and were looking for apartments by 9. At 10, we were discouraged. At 11, we had pretty much decided that we were going to end up settling on a place that we had seen the day before and kind of liked. At noon, we randomly checked craigslist to look up a leasing agent’s phone number and stumbled upon a listing we thought sounded too good to be true.

At 12:15 we saw OUR new house. At 1:00 pm we were signing the lease application. It was a good hour!

That afternoon, we were incredibly excited about our new home and indescribably relieved not to have to househunt anymore. We celebrated by going back to the hotel to take a nap. (We are both excellant nappers). Then we realized that we would have time to actually check out Seattle during the next day and a half.

This is what you get when Mike and Aubrey explore a new city:

We checked out the views:

We took in some culture:

We ate at the best museum cafe EVER!

It is called Taste Cafe and it is part of the Olympic Sculpture Park near Pike’s Place. I know, usually museum food is about as satisfying as the accompanying gift shop, but this place was a-m-a-z-i-n-g. No wonder, since it is run by Bon Appetit, which is hands down my favorite cooking magazine ever.

I had the most amazing panini ever- Tillamook Cheddar, apples and carmelized onions. The best part was, I was just trying to convince somebody the day before that apples + cheddar cheese = delicious. This sandwich totally vindicated me.

Mike had a turkey sandwhich and Kettle Chips. Both were good, but as usual, his facial expressions were even better:

We also had a really good dinner at Union in DownTown Seattle. I highly reccomend it! It is a small plates restaurant, but the chef makes an effort to keep prices reasonable (They have a special where you choose any 4 courses for $50. It’s an awesome way to try a bunch of different things). We both had lobster gnocchi for the appetizer (Mike claims i ate a piece of bacon but I choose not to believe him). I had Fresh Grilled Halibut with sunchokes (mmmmm, sunchokes). Mike’s main course was Tri-Tips. Both were good, but we both agreed that I had once again made the superior choice. As always, I was right.

What really made me fall in love with this restaurant was when the waiter came to pour the glass of wine I had ordered and let me taste it first. Unfortunately, my choice was a lot sweeter than what I had expected. I guess my face betrayed my disappointment, and the waiter jumped right in, laughed at me a little, and then told me that he didn’t like that one either. He came back with a really yummy dry Muscadet that I loved immediately. Nice servers make me extremely happy. Yay for generous tips!

We enjoyed our nice, long, late dinner and didn’t get out of the restaurant until almost 11. Being the old fogies that we are, we were asleep before midnight.

Oh, one thing Mike had to do before he went to bed:

Shocking.