Wests Go West | Nick and Marie's move to Seattle

Strawberries & Pickles

Posted on August 20, 2014 by Marie

The best thing about having your own garden is eating the food you grow. This year, we tried strawberries for the first time and we grew pickling cucumbers again.

Strawberries

Our strawberry plant (with a sign Nick’s mom made me!)

We got our strawberry plant on a whim in April. We had read that it was best to pinch off the flowers for the first season to encourage growth, so we did that, not expecting to see strawberries until next year. Our strawberry plant grew happily and sent out runners that started several daughter strawberry plants.

Earlier this month, we decided to leave a few flowers on the mother plant so we could try a few strawberries. We ate the first two berries yesterday and WOW! They were so delicious and flavorful! We’re so excited to let it grow more berries next year.

Pickling Cucumbers

Our first batch of pickling cucumbers

We had so much fun making our own pickles last year that we decided to do it again. We grew our own cucumber and dill plants from seed. Growing dill was a new project for us. It grew well, but we will try to time it better next year so that it’s ready for harvesting at the same time as the pickling cucumbers (it was a bit early this year, but we made it work).

The pickling cucumber plant has been happily producing cucumbers, but it’s a little crowded between the strawberry plants and our gigantic bean plant (I had no idea the bean plant would get so big and it’s still growing!). We harvested our first cucumbers at the end of July and we get more cucumbers every week.

Last year, we only had jars large enough to make pickle chips. We added garlic and dill and they were awesome on hamburgers. This year, we got jars large enough for pickle spears, so we have been making those, too. Pickles are so much better when they’re homemade! Yum!

Categories: Gardening | 1 Comment

Tuft & Needle Mattress Review

Posted on August 15, 2014 by Marie

Nick and I had been talking about getting a new mattress for years. The one we’d been using was 12 years old and had known 5 different homes on both sides of the country. Getting a new mattress was daunting, though. What kind do we get: spring, memory foam, latex? How do we get a quality mattress without getting ripped off? I read reviews and articles about mattresses online, but they often conflicted and we just kept putting off buying a new mattress.

That is, until one day last month when I serendipitously saw Tuft & Needle mentioned in a comment on a blog I follow. Promising quality mattresses for a fraction of the price of what you see in a mattress store, I decided to investigate.

Tuft & Needle logo

American-made mattresses for reasonable prices

Tuft & Needle is a company founded by two software engineers from Silicon Valley. They are dedicated to making quality mattresses without gimmicks and price gouging. Their foam mattresses are made in the USA using American materials, eco-friendly, and 100% recyclable. They have a 30 night trial during which you can get a full refund for any reason and rather than returning the mattress to them, they hook you up with a charity to donate the mattress to. They also have a 7 year warranty to cover any defects or malfunctions.

That all sounded fantastic and then I saw the reviews and I was blown away. Everyone was raving about it and the few who didn’t love it were still impressed by Tuft & Needle’s customer service.

Tuft & Needle makes two different mattress models: 5″ thick ($200-$500) and 10″ thick ($300-$600). At just $500 for the 10″ thick queen size mattress, it seemed like a fairly safe gamble, especially with the 30 night trial. It even came with free shipping. Nick was skeptical about buying a mattress online, but having grown up with the internet, it didn’t seem that strange to me. I used a referral code I found online and got $50 off. Nice.

Referral codes: Gift $50, Get $50

Mattress compressed and wrapped in plastic

Mattress arrived compressed and wrapped in plastic

Speaking of referral codes, I found out that using one not only gives you $50 off; Tuft & Needle also refunds $50 to the person whose referral code was used… up to the full price of the mattress. Holy cow. I posted my referral code a few places online and within a day or two, three people had already used it. The next day, I saw my credit card had been refunded $150 and my mattress hadn’t even shipped yet! O_O

Super fast delivery

Four days (two business days) after I placed the order, Tuft & Needle emailed me to let me know the mattress was on its way. It arrived via Fedex three days later (one week after I ordered it).

It came in a 67 pound box that measured 67″ x 15″ x 15″. The foam mattress inside was super compressed and rolled up in plastic. We took it upstairs, put it on our box spring, and began removing the plastic. When we cut through the inner plastic, the mattress started to suck in air and expand, which was pretty cool. The unboxing took no more than five minutes and probably a couple hours for the mattress to fully expand (though most of it happened within a matter of minutes).

Nick trying out the new mattress

A good night’s rest

Nick and I have been sleeping on the mattress for three weeks now and it has been great. My main concern with a foam mattress was that it would sleep hot, but the foam Tuft & Needle uses is breathable and heat hasn’t been a problem. The firmness suits us well (we’d give it 7 or 8/10 in firmness) and our quality of sleep has improved. Definitely worth the buy.

Thinking about getting one?

If you’re looking for a new mattress, Nick and I highly recommend that you check out Tuft & Needle. Make sure to use our referral link to get $50 off! 🙂

Updates

September 17, 2014 – Referral program ended: Tuft & Needle ended their referral program today, so the $50 off referral links will no longer work. You can read Tuft & Needle’s statement on ending the referral program on their website. It’s a bummer that they aren’t doing referrals anymore, but I get why they ended it. Nick and I are still very happy with our mattress and think it’s still a bargain even at full price. 🙂

August 6, 2015 – Extended trial: Tuft & Needle’s trial period has been extended to 100 nights. It’s been a year now that we’ve had our mattress. We still love it and haven’t had any issues.

(Cross-posted on my other blog, http://xaben.com)

Categories: Home Improvement, Townhouse | 6 Comments

End of July Update

Posted on July 28, 2014 by Marie

Here’s what we’ve been up to over the last week:

Woodland Park Zoo

My Aunt Brooke took her kids to Woodland Park Zoo on Tuesday and since I’m only 5 miles from the zoo, she asked if I wanted to join them. Yes, of course! 🙂 I brought my camera with and the three pictures above were my favorites.

Caleb liked the elephants, Stephanie liked the owls, and Keegan liked the penguins. My favorites are probably the the tree kangaroo, sloth, and red panda, but they were all hiding like usual.

Marie’s Birthday

Nick and I had planned on visiting Snoqualmie Falls and hiking Little Si on my birthday, but the weather thought otherwise. After weeks of warm sunny weather, we had record-breaking heavy rainfall on Wednesday. It was so wet we cancelled our backup plans and opted for a relaxing day at home instead. Hopefully, we’ll make up our hiking trip soon. 🙂

Mom’s Birthday

July is a busy month for birthdays in our family and Mom’s comes just three days after mine. To celebrate, Mom and I met Amanda for dinner at Tutta Bella’s Westlake location. We got a table on the patio, where we ate wood-fired pizza in the sunshine and enjoyed a great view of the Space Needle.

Horseback Riding

Little Marie on a horse

Grandma and Grandpa invited Nick and me to go horseback riding with them on Sunday at Lord Hill Park, a 1400 acre park filled with wilderness trails. Nick, Grandma, and I rode their Norwegian Fjord horses while Grandpa joined us on foot. The covers over the horses’ mouths are grazing muzzles, which keep the horses from getting distracted by the yummy plant snacks along the trail.

Nick has ridden horses before, but I think this was my first time riding a horse (though I have been on horses a handful of times). When I was little, I was sitting on a horse when someone opened the gate to the lower pasture and the horse took off. Dad bolted after me as I screamed. Thankfully, nothing like that happened this time and I now have a much less traumatizing memory about horses. 😛

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

Garden Update

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Marie

Here’s what’s going on in our garden right now:

Beans

I wanted to grow some green beans this year and since we don’t have a lot of space in our backyard, I wanted to go with pole beans (which grow tall) instead of bush beans (which take up more room). The only pole bean variety I found at the nursery was the scarlet runner bean… which I learned later is not particularly edible and is primarily grown as an ornamental. Whoops! It has grown huge since we planted it 3 months ago, outgrowing the support cage we got for it. It has pretty reddish orange flowers and long beans growing on it.

Bean plant

Bean

Bean flowers

Pickling Cucumbers

Nick and I had a lot of fun making pickles last year, so we decided to do it again this year! Our cucumber plant took a while to get going, but it has really grown in size over the last two weeks. It has yellow blossoms all over it, as well as the beginnings of a bunch of cucumbers. I think we’ll probably start picking our first cucumbers by the end of the month.

Cucumber plant

Cucumber

Strawberries

We got a strawberry plant this year for a fun experiment. We’ve been plucking the blossoms off of it to encourage the plant to grow. Next year, we’ll let it blossom and make berries. So, nothing exciting to report about the strawberry plant right now, but we’re looking forward to eating its berries next year.

Strawberry plant

Snow Peas & Raspberries

Not much has changed since I blogged about snow peas last month and I blogged about raspberries earlier this month. I think they’re both mostly done for the year, though. Our snow pea plant has continued to produce some peas, but it seems pretty unhappy with the heat wave we’ve been having (almost 2 weeks of 80+ degree weather!). We’ve had a few more raspberries since the blog post, but it seems to be done making berries for the year now.

Thai Chili Pepper

Nick wanted to do a Thai chili pepper plant again this year. If it’s like last year’s plant, we’ll get peppers in October. For now, it’s just busy growing.

Pepper plant at the end of May

Pepper plant now

Herbs

Our herbs this year are basil, chives, parsley, tarragon, cilantro, dill, and oregano. We had all but dill in our garden last year (we figured we should grow our own dill for the pickles). We grew the cilantro, dill, and oregano from seeds. The rest we either grew from starts or are plants that stuck around from last year.

Basil

Chives

Parsley

Tarragon

Cilantro

Dill

Oregano

Categories: Gardening | 2 Comments

We Have Peas!

Posted on June 12, 2014 by Marie

Snow Peas

Snow pea plant

We got a dwarf snow pea starter two months ago on a whim. It grew quickly and we realized the pea plant needed support. We initially gave it some bamboo sticks to grab on to, but it outgrew those, so we got it a plant cage, which it liked much better.

It started flowering at the end of May and we had our first fully grown peas last weekend. I gathered the peas on Monday and we made a veggie stir fry.

The snow pea plant was super easy to grow and I’m sure we’ll do it again next year.

The peas aren’t the only exciting thing going on in our garden right now. Our raspberries just started turning red. Two of them were ripe enough to eat today, so I ate those this afternoon, hehe. We’re going to have a lot of berries this year. 😀 The bean plant just started making little red buds, so I’ll probably get to blog about those soon. Oh! And we have baby birds in our birdhouse! I heard the chicks chirping and noticed the mama bird making trips to and from the birdhouse when I was in the garden last week. I haven’t seen the baby birds yet, but it’s fun to know they’ve made a home in our backyard.

Ravenna Park

I’ve been wanting to check out Ravenna Park for a while and Nick and I finally got around to it. Ravenna Park is a 50 acre wooded ravine north of the University District, about 10-15 minutes from home. It also has play areas and tennis courts and whatnot, but Nick and I stuck to the trails. There are 4.5 miles of trails in Ravenna Park. Nick and I walked a loop around the park, which was a little over 1.5 miles. It’s pretty cool to be able to walk around in a forest in a big city like Seattle.

Ravenna Park

Categories: Gardening, Park | 2 Comments

Rattlesnake Ledge

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Marie

On Saturday, Nick and I hiked Rattlesnake Ledge in North Bend (about an hour away). The weather was sunny and warm, so it was a perfect day to be outdoors.

Nick at the top of Rattlesnake Ledge

Rattlesnake Ledge Statistics:

Roundtrip: 4.0 miles
Elevation Gain: 1160 ft
Highest Point: 2078 ft

Rattlesnake Ledge is popular because of its proximity to Seattle and its beautiful views. It isn’t a terribly long hike (it took us about 2.5 hours altogether), but it is an uphill climb with lots of switchbacks all the way up to the top. The trail is fairly narrow, but there are places where you can go off to the side to rest periodically. The trail is surrounded by tall trees, which block the view as you’re hiking, but you’re rewarded with gorgeous views of Rattlesnake Lake below and the Cascades in the distance once you get to the rock ledge at the top.

Nick and I weren’t the only ones who thought it’d be a great day for a hike; we heard from several other hikers that they had never seen it so busy before. We got there around 10 am and while it was busy on the way up, the way down was a continuous stream of people. When we go back, we’ll definitely try to go on a weekday instead. 😉

At the trailhead, looking up at the ledge

View from the top

Categories: Hiking, Outing | 3 Comments

Strawberries & Pickles

Strawberries

Pickling Cucumbers

Tuft & Needle Mattress Review

American-made mattresses for reasonable prices

Referral codes: Gift $50, Get $50

Super fast delivery

A good night’s rest

Thinking about getting one?

Updates

Garden Update

Beans

Pickling Cucumbers

Strawberries

Snow Peas & Raspberries

Thai Chili Pepper

Herbs

We Have Peas!

Snow Peas

Ravenna Park

Rattlesnake Ledge

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