Seattle, so far

Last night we had dinner at The Corson Building, getting quite lucky with last minute reservations since our flights all landed on time. For our Austin friends, think Dai Due family style (only, if you can imagine, even better... and that is not bashing Dai Due, which I would never do-- simply paying tribute to the amount of RAIN the northwest gets! To put it simply, I-- in my total lack of culinary knowledge-- am declaring that a foraged mushroom in the NW can carry any other item on your plate to new and unknown levels of greatness. And you just can't have that kind of fungi without serious quantities of rain... Sorry, Texas.) (And I really AM sorry, because I could never live somewhere where it rains enough to grow these different mushrooms, but they are sooooo GOOD.)
Anyway, we also got lucky with the people we sat next to and really enjoyed our conversations. They snapped a photo for us...
This morning we embarked on some real exploration, beginning northwest of downtown. We headed to Queen Anne for an awesome brunch at emmer&rye, did some walking along the shops, and then drove further northwest to explore the Sunday farmer's market in the Ballard area. I liked the stalls and all their awesome looking goodies, but I also liked how everyone bought stuff to eat and then just took a few steps back, plopped down on the curb, and ate it. The curb on one side of the street was pretty well lined. I didn't get a good photo of that, but here's a snapshot of one of the entrances.

Then our day started getting a tad convoluted with driving. Being the co-pilot with the map means dealing with roads that are both grid-system and then NOT AT ALL grid-system and NEVER with exit ramps or bridges where they OUGHT to be, according to the map. This defines that first rotten day of vacation for me. You really want to relax, but in reality you spend a lot of your time trying not to get carsick while studying the insanity of lousy urban engineers. But really, it wasn't too bad-- I'm especially grateful this day fell on a Sunday, when traffic is at its lowest.

Soooo, after the market and wandering through surrounding streets, we headed east through Fremont and then south through Wallingford to see Gas Works Park. Here are pictures of views from Gas Works Park over Lake Union...

and of Gas Works Park (which is kind of a crazy place, but rather smart in terms of turning an eyesore into urban development)...

Finding no ideal resting place (the other torment of vacation, when you keep expecting to turn the corner and see THE PERFECT SPOT to stop and soak in the view, but instead find another warehouse)... we drove back west (past Ballard, this time) to the Golden Gardens Park. This had a beach overlooking Puget Sound. I don't have great photos from there (the couple I do have need dust spots on my lens to be photoshopped out)-- I'll post those later.

For dinner we wound up at Lark, which is northeast of downtown and nowhere near the beach we were at... like I said, lots of driving at times-- but worth every minute of it! In short, the food in Seattle is awesome. It's like Portland-- you could really make a hobby out of eating here. Every meal we've had has been stellar.

Tomorrow I'm on my own and not totally sure what I'll do...

post-party playing

A few of Josephine playing with her new toys after her birthday party...

I e-mailed these to myself last Thursday so I could upload some pictures while I was in Seattle with Sean. It's incredibly bizarre that she is so far away, and that we can so easily slip back into being "just us" while on vacation. (I should clarify that "vacation" is a term applying mainly to me, since Sean has to work for half of it, seeing as how we're only here because of a conference he's attending). (Come to think of it, I should also clarify that we've only been away from Josephine for 39 hours and 46 minutes, so "easily" could be a rather temporary adverb). So far, though, the report is that she's doing quite well with my folks, and Sean and I are also having a grand time.

pre-mosquito nostalgia

Found a little table at the thrift store (I love those places, in case you can't tell) and painted it white. Matches the outdoor chairs pretty well, which I found for free on bulk pick-up day a couple years ago (my love for bulk pick-up rivals my devotion to thrift stores).
Even better is how the table is a perfect height for Josephine. There's nothing really special about these pictures; they're just from a random evening about a week ago. She's playing with part of her Little People farm set that Aunt Darla gave her for her birthday. Since I was able to name a couple grandmas who would like seeing them, I thought I'd put them up.

Meanwhile, in going back through some posts looking for a better example of the chairs, I realized I never concluded my 12 steps of pregnancy recovery. Which makes me question if I ever got around to recovering! I will have to think about that.

bluebonnets

Having recently cut three molars, Josephine's salivary glands have been working overtime and her patience wearing thin. Which made for a slightly more challenging photo session (of course, she's spoiled me with her typical posing), and Sean got a good work out jumping in to wipe slobber off her chin between each shot. But her Texan roots demand a bluebonnet portrait, so we coerced the unwilling child through a fair amount of confusion and irritation...

...outright defiance......and state flower defacing......until we finally got ONE good picture! There's even a blossom perfectly hiding the drool on the front of her dress! Done!

I also shot a few pictures on my real camera with artsy film I had leftover from college, but I still have half the roll left, so it'll take a while before I get it developed. If anything good comes of those, I'll post them later.

He is risen, indeed!

That phrase carries a lot of meaning.
Including, put your kid in a cute dress and take her photo!

(Of course, in Mommyspeak, most phrases seem to carry that particular meaning...)

Thanks to Sarah's church members for the hand-me-down dress (adorable!) and to Grandma for her little ruffly socks. Put those on a 12 month old and a mildly grey Easter gets just a bit brighter! I'm already looking forward to an Easter egg hunt next year once she's toddling around...
Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!