For the lunar eclipse last Sunday, Nick and I went to Magnuson Park to watch and take photos. A bunch of other people had the same idea; we couldn’t believe how busy it was!

We got there at sunset, about an hour before the peak of the eclipse. The sky was pink and Mount Rainier looked gorgeous, so I snapped a few shots.

We stayed for a couple hours, drinking hot chocolate, watching the night sky, and taking photos. It was a nice end to the weekend. Unfortunately, the moon was pretty dim during the eclipse, so my photos came out grainier and blurrier than I thought they would. I got a neat photo of the moon as it was coming out of the eclipse, at least!

Nick’s first earthquake – woo!

2015 4th of July Fireworks in Seattle; Photo by Tim Durkan

For the last several weeks, the weather here in Seattle has been stupid hot. Temperatures have been in the upper 80’s and low 90’s almost every day, which is pretty awful in a city where very few people have A/C in their homes. We’ve been breaking all sorts of temperature records.

Seattleites typically joke that summer doesn’t start until July 5th (because of soggy 4th of Julys), but the 4th was hot and sunny this year.

Anyway, it makes me very happy to see a little break from the heat wave in our current weather forecast. Maybe even rain on Monday? Yippee!

A couple months ago, Mom found out she had a gigantic cyst on her liver. Although the cyst was benign, its massive size was causing problems for Mom, so she had surgery at the beginning of the month to remove it. The surgery went well (although the tumor had wreaked more havoc than anticipated, making the surgery take longer) and she went home the next day, tired and sore, but glad to have the surgery behind her.

Mom in her hospital room after surgery

A week after her surgery, Mom was getting worse and worse, so they readmitted her to the hospital. She went in for minor surgery a couple days later to take care of a blockage in her intestines that was causing the problems. After that, she was able to start eating again and they sent her home a couple days later.

Today, she’s still really weak, but she’s recovering and feeling better. We went in for her post-op doctor appointment this morning and they told her everything looks good, but she’ll probably have another two weeks of weakness and fatigue before she starts feeling back to normal.

Nick’s Mom

Nick, Mom, and me hiking Wallace Falls

Nick at the Seattle Pinball Museum

For the past few years, we’ve been alternating between Nick’s mom visiting us in Seattle and us visiting her in Michigan and this year, it was her turn to stay with us. She spent almost two weeks with us this month and we really enjoyed spending time with her.

Nick curling

Nick’s mom had done most of the touristy Seattle stuff before, so this trip was more low key. We walked around our neighborhood, went to the farmer’s market, had game nights, cooked a lot of good food, and painted the living room and kitchen (I protested having her paint while she was on her vacation, but she actually wanted to help us and teach us how to do it — which was a big help; thank you!), but we had some fun highlights, too. Everyone’s favorite activity was when we hiked Wallace Falls, which was an absolutely gorgeous hike (post coming soon!). We also really enjoyed going curling (again, post coming soon!) and playing pinball at the Seattle Pinball Museum. We were sad to see her go home on Tuesday and we’re looking forward to visiting her in Michigan next year!

The news has been going crazy over today’s snow for the last week or so, claiming that we would probably see 2-4″ in Seattle. We didn’t get that much, but any snow is enough to make schools and businesses close and a lot of people (Nick included) just stay home.

The snow will probably be gone by late morning and we’ll get up to a high of 44° later today.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We went up to my grandparents’ cabin and had dinner with the family.

We got to Mom and Amanda’s house just as Mom was leaving to take the dogs for a walk, so we decided we’d all go along with her and have lunch afterwards. We went to Lincoln Park, which is a big park on Puget Sound in West Seattle. It was a beautiful day to walk along the waterfront! We found the driftwood art in the picture above and we saw a couple making another one on our way back. We had lunch at Duke’s Chowder House on Alki Beach afterward. Mmm… fish and chips and chowder!

Romaine Lettuce & Broccoli

Our romaine lettuce started out well. We had 5 lettuce plants and we were able to make a handful of salads with them… until the slugs got to them. We used Diatomaceous Earth to ward off the slugs, but we didn’t know it needs to be replenished each time it rained. At least we’ll know that next time!

The broccoli just didn’t work out. We planted 5 broccoli plants and we weren’t able to harvest any of them. They started to form little heads of broccoli, but warm weather made them bolt.

Parsley & Chives

Our parsley and chives have been a great success. They’re super easy to care for and although we use them frequently, they grow back faster than we can use them!

The picture above shows half of our parsley and chive plants in a pot next to our pot of lemon balm. We had to move the lemon balm to a pot because it was getting out of control in the raised bed.

Basil & Cilantro

We planted 2 basil plants, one in a pot and the other in the raised bed. The basil in the raised bed grew really well and was super happy, while the basil in the pot stayed relatively small and wasn’t as happy. We’ve used the basil in all sorts of things from pasta to soup, but most especially homemade pizzas and pizza sauce. We’ll definitely plant basil again next year, but probably only in the raised bed this time.

Our cilantro didn’t really work out. We planted the seeds in a wide, shallow container as per some instructions I found online. It seemed to be doing well at first, but my guess is that it got too crowded. I tried to take out some of the seedlings and a few of them survived after that, but not enough to really make use of. Maybe we’ll try again next year.

The picture above shows one of the basil plants back when it was still really small (I don’t have a picture of it at its full height) and the sprouting cilantro. One of our parsley plants is on the right.

Rosemary & Tarragon

We didn’t really have a plan for the rosemary; we just planted it to see how it did. It grew, but then it started turning brownish. Not enough sun? Too much water? I’m not sure what its problem was.

The tarragon hasn’t grown a lot, but at least it’s staying green lol. Neither of us were familiar with tarragon, so we wanted to see what it was like. I found a recipe for Chicken in Tarragon Sauce, which we’ve made a handful of times already using the tarragon from our garden.

In the picture above, the tarragon is in the back on the right (behind the basil) and the rosemary is in a pot on the right. The picture was taken shortly after they were planted.

Raspberries

Nick and I had intended on experimenting with strawberries when someone at the nursery suggested raspberries instead. They had a brand new thornless dwarf raspberry plant that had just arrived that is ideal for growing in a pot outside. Seriously?!? I got so excited and came home with one. It has grown a lot since then (we had to move it into a larger pot), but there are little holes in some of the leaves that I need to investigate. It hasn’t produced much more than a handful of berries so far, but they’ve been delicious and I hope it produces better next year. It’s still working on a few last minute groups of berries and I ate one of them today.

The two pictures of the raspberry plant above were taken just under a month apart and it’s grown even more since the latter picture was taken. The third picture shows some of the berries turning red.

Thai Chili Peppers

On a whim, Nick bought a Thai chili plant in June. It started out as just a tiny little thing, but it’s grown into one of our most successful plants of the year. There are over a hundred peppers on it and they just started turning red. I have no idea what we’re going to do with all the peppers, but Nick said he wants to make a ristra. Anybody want any hot chili peppers?

Pickling Cucumbers

Our pickling cucumber plant was another of Nick’s experiments. It started out so small and we had no idea it would try to take over the raised bed, but that’s exactly what it did! We ended up taking out our sage plant (left from the previous owners) to make room for it. Next year, we’ll plan a little better.

Nick made and canned pickle chips and spears with the cucumbers, which was our first time canning. The problem with making pickles is that it takes time for the cucumbers to pickle, so you can’t taste them for a few weeks. He added garlic to the first few jars, but the garlic flavor ended up being too strong (they taste great on hamburgers, though!). We’ll definitely give it another try next year and see if we can perfect the recipe.

Nick and I have a lot to be thankful for. We’re both really happy in general with how our lives have been going and we’re glad that we were able to get our first house this year. Nick enjoys his job and people seem to really appreciate his hard work. As for my job? Well… I just found out that the company is going to close its doors due to financial struggles. I’m not looking forward to looking for a new job, but I’m grateful for the time I got to work there. I learned a lot of new things and had fun doing what I love.

So does anyone know of any good game development jobs in the Seattle area?