Tim's B-day (and a Sunday in Seattle)

Hey, gang. Sorry I haven't up-dated the blog with new pictures in a more timely fashion. This week was kinda crazy. The event that garnered the most attention was Tim's birthday! Yes, Thursday was Tim's birthday. Woo hoo! Tim's a quiet guy, so we celebrated in a quiet way - homemade pizza, his requested birthday fruitcake (complete with candles), & episodes of Dr. Who - and he said it was perfect. We continued the celebration on Saturday night when the gang came over for shepherd's pie & games. The game of choice? Tim's own creation. For years he has been working on this board game called Empire. George and Derek have road-tested an old version of this game, but it's even better now. Tim tweaked the rules a bit and made some truly fabulous game pieces (I'll have to take pictures next time he gets it all out). Well, the game was a big hit with this geeky crowd. It takes a long time to play (after 3 hours it still wasn't over), but they ate it up & want to play again soon. So yay! Good times!

Now we are enjoying a quiet Sunday. Don't you love those? It's sunny and happy outside & we're cozily sitting around in our sweaters, playing about on our computers. Tim is working on yet another game. And I am watching cooking shows while updating my blog. Such a perfectly happy day.

Another perfectly happy Sunday from my memory occured 2 weeks ago when I was in Seattle with George & Derek. For brunch, we went to a diner (can't recall the name) where I ordered the cheddar pancakes. Yep, you read that right. Derek had the bacon pancakes, which sounds even more amazing! George had something with fruit on top so that she could pretend that she was eating something healthy, but Derek and I were under no delusions. We even had sausage on the side. "Heart attack on a plate? Why, that sounds delightful! Bring it on out!" We needed to walk off this amazing meal and luckily for us, Seattle's new sculpture park was nearby.

Have I mentioned that it was GORGEOUS the whole time I was in Seattle? Not a drop of rain. Most days looked exactly like this - sunny with beautiful views of the water & mountains. Marvelous.

Our next stop was the glass museum in Tacoma. Well, honestly, our next stop was the apartment where we sat around & said, "Whaddayawannado?"
"I dunno. WhaddaYOUwannado?"
"I dunno. WhaddaYOUwannado?"
Repeat for a couple hours until Derek suggested we go to the glass museum. It is a really cool looking museum. If you get the chance, you really need to check it out.

The problem, sadly, was that we got there kinda late (we got stuck at a railroad crossing for aaaaages) & the museum was about to close, so we decided to keep our 10 bucks. But the good news is that they had a lot of Chihuly pieces on exhibit outside. Yes, Chihuly! OUTSIDE! We got to see them for free! How cool is that?! All the pieces were located on a pedestrian bridge that goes over the highway & connects the glass museum to the rest of the Tacoma arts district. I thought it was super cool.

That last picture is from the tunnel-like feature that Chihuly does so often. It's about 50 feet long and above your head are all of these piles of twisted, brilliant glass. Most pieces look like strange sea creatures, but there's the occasional cherub thrown in just to keep things sureal.


Next stop: Chinatown! Which I LOOOOOOOVED. My new goal is to live in a city that has an asian quarter. Something about all those signs I can't read makes me pretty happy. Plus, there's good food and all the Kawaii you can buy! We stopped at a Chinese bakery & had dessert first. "Please do not squeeze the bread too hard. Thank you." :)

We drove past a chinese grocery store & we just HAD to stop in. And this was no little corner shop in a strip mall. It was a full sized grocery store! I confess to spending a lot of money on adorable San-X stationary goods here. I also got quite a kick out of the food on offer. There was a whole aisle dedicated to ramen! And the cookie aisle was even better.


We polished off the night with some Ethiopian food. A new culinary experience for me (and another ethnic food to add to our list for the week). It was certainly different, but I really enjoyed it. A lovely way to end a lovely day.