Eye Exam

After nearly failing the vision test when getting my driver’s license in July, I needed to see an eye doctor. So on Tuesday, I had my first ever eye exam.  They started with a weird test that blew air in my eyes. Then, I had to read letters under various scenarios. They put some drops in my eyes to make them dilate and then ran some more tests and used the tool with all of the dials and lenses on it (a phoropter – thanks, Google). After all that, the doctor told me my eyes really aren’t that bad; I just suffer from mild myopia (nearsightedness). He gave me a prescription for eye glasses that he said I’d probably hardly ever use, but they might come in handy when watching a movie or concert. The doctor sent me home with a sexy pair of cheap, cardboard+plastic sunglasses to help with the brightness due to my eye dilation. To be honest, the brightness didn’t really bother me much more than normal, but I wore the glasses anyway because they were just so awesome… lol. 😉

Lunch at 909

Lunch at 909

Mom drove me to and from the eye doctor because they recommend not driving right after your eye exam (until your eyes get back to normal). The two of us went out to lunch afterwards at 909 Coffee & Wine, a cute little restaurant in Burien. We split a Beef & Blue salad (steak, artichoke hearts, onions, and blue cheese) and a soup with beef and greens in it. It was really yummy. 🙂 We walked down the street to visit the little Danish Bakery, but it has apparently shut down. Zut! The new chocolate shop sounds promising, though. We poked our heads in a little kitchen shop instead and I found some super cute gnome glasses (drinking glasses, not eye glasses!). Nick’s and my kitchen cupboards are cramped (we really lack in cabinet space in this apartment), but I took two of the glasses home with me anyway. 🙂

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Piroshky Piroshky

On Saturday, Nick and I went to Pike Place Market with Mom and Amanda. Mom and Amanda took light rail and Nick and I took the bus. We met up at Westlake Center (a few blocks away from Pike Place Market). It took us 45 minutes (including walking 1/2 mile to the bus stop) to get to Westlake Center and an hour and 20 minutes on the way back (including walking 1 mile from the bus stop) from Westlake Center… so it’s definitely not the fastest way of getting to downtown Seattle. It’s certainly cheaper than paying for parking down there, though!

Bacon and sausages

We saw some delicious-looking bacon at the market

We went to Piroshky Piroshky (a Russian bakery) first and gobbled down a rhubarb piroshky, a beef & onion piroshky, and an apple cinnamon roll. They were quite tasty. 🙂 We then walked around Pike Place Market and Post Alley. We stopped in a German meat market and were extremely amused when we saw two small blonde-haired girls walk up to the glass meat counter with their mom. The German lady behind the counter asked the girls (with a German accent), “Would you girls like to have a wiener?” The girls got so excited and exclaimed, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” The woman behind the counter handed each of the girls a wiener (like the one in the foreground of the picture to the right). It was terribly cute. ^^

Nick and I came home with a bag of vegetables for a stir fry, some paprika, and a German chocolate bar. Mom found some tea and gluten-free pasta. We had a good time and certainly wouldn’t mind going to Pike Place Market more often. 😉

Categories: Outing, Restaurant, Seattle, Social Gathering | 1 Comment

Our First PLU Concert & Other Stuff

Before we left Michigan, Nick and I had a friend of ours (Shaun Pezeshki) take some pictures of the two of us around Wayne State’s campus. We got the pictures back a few days ago and I think they turned out pretty well. A few of the best pictures are below:

Marie & NickMarieMarie & NickMarie & Nick

I have been craving turkey (it’s that time of the year!), so Nick and I got a turkey breast and had that for dinner on Saturday. Super yummy! 😀 I made leftover turkey soup on Sunday, so I have that to hold me over until Thanksgiving. 😉

On Tuesday evening, we went down to PLU (Amanda’s college) with Mom and Dad for Amanda’s first choral concert of the year. It was the first time either of us had been to one of Amanda’s PLU concerts, so it was nice to see her perform. Before the concert, the five of us (Mom, Dad, Amanda, Nick, and I) went to 208 Garfield for dinner.

Dad celebrated his 50th birthday yesterday, so Nick and I took him out to The Keg Steakhouse to celebrate. We had amazing bacon-wrapped filet mignon and twice-baked potatoes. It was so good. Mmm!

Amanda has a short mid-semester break, so she’ll be home for the weekend. We’re planning on going to Piroshky Piroshky (at Pike Place Market) for nom noms on Saturday.

Categories: Daily Life, Outing, Restaurant, Seattle, Social Gathering | 2 Comments

Bananas!

While Nick and I were in the grocery store this evening, we saw a mom and her little girl (who was sitting in the shopping cart). As they passed by the display of bananas, the little girl could hardly contain her excitement. She shouted “BANANAS!!!” and got a HUGE grin on her face. It was terribly cute. 🙂

Categories: Daily Life | 3 Comments

The Burke Museum

Fish

Dad in a mask

Dad in a Carnival mask

On Thursday, we took advantage of free museum Thursday and went to The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, which is on the University of Washington campus. Dad had never been to UW’s campus before, so we walked around campus a bit and saw where Nick works. It’s a very pretty campus and Nick and I are excited to see it in the spring when the cherry trees are in bloom. 🙂

The Burke Museum was founded in 1885 and is Washington’s oldest museum. The special exhibit when we visited was Carnaval, which was all about Carnival celebrations throughout the world. There were lots of bright colors and fun outfits and at the end of the exhibit, you could try on some masks yourself. Dad had fun trying on all of the silliest masks. Elsewhere in the museum, there were lots of fossils and artifacts showing the history of life in Washington. On the lower floor, there was art, clothing, instruments, ceremonial items, etc. from all sorts of different Pacific cultures.

We had fun hanging out with Dad and afterwards, he came over and we cooked him dinner.

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The Honest Store

Honest StoreSo, I was hungry at lunch time and decided to take a walk to Jimmy John’s to grab a #4; well on my way to JJ’s I came across this spontaneous “store” that just showed up in Red Square sometime today. It’s The Honest Store and it sells Honest Tea. It turns out for $1 you can purchase a bottle of Honest Tea. The catch was that the payment was on the honor system. The picture doesn’t show it well, but you can sort of see the clear container on the right with a collection of bills in it. It looked to me like there was a fair amount of cash in the container, so I think most people at UW were putting in their dollar.

The Honest Store has a website, honestcities.com,  that shows you where honest stores have been and how honest the customers were in each of those places. It’s a pretty neat concept, and judging by the stats on the site, most people are honest, which I think is a great sign.

Categories: Seattle | 3 Comments

Pike Place Market

Seattle Waterfront

On Saturday, Nick and I met Mom at Pike Place Market. It was the first time Mom had taken the light rail from her home into Seattle, so that was a fun experience for her.

Pike Place Market

Pike Place Market

Nick and I picked up an assortment of fresh vegetables for dinner (stir fry). Nick also got himself some more local blackberry honey. Mom found some gluten-free pasta and I came home with 4 large Honeycrisp apples. Yummy! It was a warm day, so we stopped at The Crumpet Shop for a refreshing lemonade and tea.

After Mom went home to take care of Herbie and get ready for work, Nick and I went for a walk along the Seattle waterfront. We also stopped at the Alaskan Sourdough Bakery and got ourselves a sourdough baguette. 🙂

Last night, Mom, Nick, and I surprised Amanda by visiting her at Pacific Lutheran University. We hung out in her dorm room and then we went to PLU’s candlelit Holden Evening Prayer service, which Amanda officiates. It was nice to see Amanda and get a glimpse of her college life.

Categories: Outing, Seattle, Social Gathering | 1 Comment

Rain

Out my office window

I’ve been taking the bus since mid July and this was the first time I’ve had to deal with rain. That’s almost 3 months of no rain before or after work, in Seattle. I was begining to think that the “rainy city” was a myth concocted by the folks who live here to keep everyone else from rushing in and furthering the congestion on the roads. I’d say the weather here has been pretty good.

If this is how Seattle does rain I’m not going to miss Michigan’s weather one bit. It’s a light sprinkling of drops that make a calming noise as they hit the ground. In fact my office window is open and I don’t have headphones on because the rain sounds that nice.

Categories: Jobs, Seattle | 2 Comments

Early Morning Seattle

Wow! This amazing picture of Seattle was taken by photographer Thatcher Kelley on Tuesday from a plane. You can view the original 1920 x1280 picture on Flickr.

Early Morning Seattle

Categories: Photography, Seattle | 3 Comments

Puyallup Fair

Dad with Sasquatch

Dad with Sasquatch

On Friday, Nick went on a work retreat with his Information School coworkers to Daybreak Star Cultural Center at Discovery Park. I don’t have a lot to report on that because I wasn’t there. 😛 Nick had a good time, though.

On Saturday, we went to the Puyallup Fair with Dad and Amanda. The Puyallup Fair is one of the largest fairs in the U.S. and gets over a million visitors every year. Unfortunately, we happened to choose what was probably the worst day to visit the fair, because Saturday was chilly and drizzly. The weather’s back to sunny and 70’s this week, though. Anyhoo, I quickly found myself a cute wool hat to keep me dry and warm once we entered the fairgrounds. 😉

It wasn’t long before we got a dozen fair scones, which is a necessity when you go to the Puyallup Fair. Yummy! We saw all sorts of animals: bunnies, llamas, goats, chickens, horses, pigs, cows, ducks, and more. Some of the horses were huge! We watched as some of the animals were judged, too. I think we even witnessed some people judging meat, which instantly made us think of Mom, who judged meat when she was younger. 😛 Amanda and I also recited the FFA Creed (at least, as much as we know) a few times… thanks, Mom.

GoatsLlamasPigs

Amanda playing accordian

Amanda playing accordian

Aside from the animals, there were lots of arts and crafts. We saw someone carving figures out of wood with a chainsaw. There was a junior and senior high art show with over 1000 pieces of artwork. The interactive music exhibit that let you play with instruments from all over the world was pretty cool, too. Oh, and there was a mini museum that had all sorts of old western artifacts.

There were a ton of vendors at the fair. Nick happily bought himself some local blackberry honey and then we found a new gnome to add to our collection. 🙂 Dad had fun… exercising?… on some weird jiggling exercise machine.

There were other things at the fair that we didn’t experience… like the concerts, rides, rodeos, and so on. We’ll save those for another time. 😛 After the fair, we went to a nearby Olive Garden for soup and salad.

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