Spring Update!

I don't even know when my last blog post was, but I'm back at it, as I watch the replay of the Sounders game today. It was a bittersweet game, because we were playing at home and scored first but we only got a tie out of the game, which isn't bad considering we played the last 30 minutes after man down after a red card. The Sounders had a great start winning their first 3 games without giving up a goal, but have gone 1-2-2 (which means 1 win, 2 losses, and 2 ties) since including today. They just announced that the Sounders are playing Barcelona later this summer, which is exciting because they are playing for the European Championship in a few weeks and because they are one of the most storied teams in the world. Whenever I wear my Sounders gear or talk to people about it they always ask me if I've been to a game yet. Well, the answer is no, both because I haven't made the effort to buy tickets and because the game are sold out really fast. The next 3 home games are sold out already. They play at Qwest Field, but don't open up the upper sections so seating is maxed out at about 29,o00. I've heard rumors that they may open up more seats for the rest of the season or for next year. I'm planning on going to a game with my family this summer and it looks we we all will be able to go the August 29th game against Toronto. Go Sounders!

Well, what else have we been up to besides watching Sounders games each week? Um...multiple trips to Tacoma/Puyallup, a few visits from Christy's dad Rich (with even more visits from the Olsens expected the rest of the year...more on that later), walks around Seattle, an impromptu weekend adventure to Port Townsend, a trip of the mountains to visit mom and dad for Easter, a few business trips to Portland, lots of home-work for Christy on the 17th of May Norwegian Celebration in Ballard, culinary adventures in our kitchen, and fun planning for the summer.

So lets start with all the trips to the South Sound. We went to the annual PLU Spring Donor banquet last weekend, where we got to see a lot of alumni friends and enjoy the music and stories of alum and EMAL Michael Peterson. We got to spend the rest of the night with our dear friend's Ellen and Kyle. We all watched the Sounders game that was on during the donor banquet, which they tied. We had a great breakfast with them on Sunday morning and played some Trivial Pursuit on their Wii. On the Friday night before, we went with Rich to the PLU Relay for Life to hang out with Caroline and Taylor. That is always a special event. We went to Ellen and Kyle's a few weeks before that for a PLU GOLD alumni group. Afterwards, we went to visit our dear friend Molly Olmstead. She graduated with us last year from PLU and has been doing student teaching and working on getting her Masters in Education. She just moved into a new condo in Puyallup and we had a wonderful time catching up with her!

We've been trying to enjoy living in Seattle by going on walks around the city. We walked down to the Olympic Sculpture Park and then north along with waterfront by some huge gain elevator silos. We came back through Interbay and then through Queen Anne. I probably wasn't super far and it wasn't the prettiest part of Seattle, but it was nice to get out enjoy the nice weather. We went on another walk yesterday, this time exploring Woodland Park (thats right, next to the zoo). We parked by some soccer/baseball fields south of Green Lake, walked west towards the zoo, then wound up in Phinny Ridge. We checked out a new townhouse, which was way out of our price range, but had an incredible view over Ballard and the Olympic Mountains. Then we stopped at our favorite burger joint in Seattle called Red Mill, where we shared a burger with caramelized onions, fries, and a yummy chocolate peanut butter shake. We finished the loop by walking down the hill towards Green Lake, where we found some grass to throw the frisbee around before heading home. Good times.

I got to take two business trips to Portland to work on a new website with our department management. It was a great opportunity to interact with our director, assistant director, and managers! I've been working on this for a few months and it is more than just a new site for our department. It is a new intranet for the entire company which allows departments to create their own pages, which is new, and have it all on one platform and one common template instead of the many different sites currently across the company. All that hard work paid off as our new site launched this week and I spent a lot of time getting the site ready. I'm proud of my work and am grateful for this opportunity to be valuable and visible to the rest of our department (I got that valuable and visible bit from my high school coach...applies to football and life. Also, check out this new website called Healthy Heights that Regence built to teach people about how healthcare costs can be managed in a community. Let me know what you think! Its like a sims city simulation thing.

Well, as I type this I am sitting next to my parents on a flight to New York to attend my sister's graduation from NYU law school. I'll take this as opportunity to give a shout out to my fellow blogger/sister and her delicious food blog called What's in the Pot?, as well as her gig writing recipes for Airfield Estates website called Chef's Corner! Check out her blog, which features her favorites restaurants around New York and the world as well as new recipes that she puts together. She is a brilliant cook and soon to be lawyer (don't worry, she'll be the good kind of lawyer defending human rights and saving the world). I got three days off of work for this trip and had to leave Christy behind because she had to put all the finishing touches together for the 17th of May Norwegian Constitution Day on Sunday. Luckily, I fly back on Sunday morning and get to attend all of the festivities! So what am I going to be doing with my parents and two sisters in the Big Apple? We're going to see Guys and Dolls on Thursday, Jeannie's graduation on Friday, a Yankees game at their immaculate new stadium, and a whole slew of fancy/fun restaurants. I even bought some sweet new shoes (Echo brown leather European style classy looking loafers on clearance at Macys!) and brought my sporty gray jacket. Watch out New York City!

Well about a month ago Christy came home from work on a Friday and said "Lets go on a road trip tonight and stay in a bed and breakfast somewhere!" It took me about 10 minutes to warm up to the idea, but before I knew it we were sitting in our car in line at the ferry terminal about to head to Bainbridge Island with our GPS and Best Places to Kiss in the Northwest book. We looked up a few B&B's to stay at in Port Townsend, which seemed like a fun place that neither of us had been to and was just the right distance away. We found one called Ravenscroft Inn which is run by a sweet old couple and we just happened to be the only guests that night. We got there around 9 PM and walked to a restaurant downtown where we had free entertainment watching a bachlorette party as we wined and dined. The breakfast served up at the B&B was so delicious. We had broiled grapefruit and pumpkin waffles with diced granny smith apples drizzled with caramel sauce...yummo! Amid walking along the beach and through downtown, we enjoyed lunch at a 50's style diner and checked out the local museum (where we had to listen to the clerk talk for like an hour, as he had to stop and say hi to every person that walked through the door and ignore us for 5 minutes...he was a sweet old guy though). We checked out an old fort nearby where they filmed "An Officer and a Gentleman" which I hadn't seen, but we watched a week after. We decided to go for a bit of a joy ride and head over towards Dungeness (which doesn't have a downtown apparently) and Sequim. We say a bunch of deer everywhere, like just chilling in people's yards and they were fearless. It was weird. Since we were in Dungeness, we had to get a crab, so we went to the local "Whole Foods"-esque organic grocery store and got a previously frozen crab and a halibut steak (halibut season just started!). On the way home, we stooped by my coworkers house right by the Hood Canal Bridge and hung out with her and her two granddaughters for a few hours, which was really fun! Her granddaughters are so energetic and exhausted us for the short time we spent with them...made us glad we are waiting a few years before we have kids. It'll be fun, but we like having lazy evenings and just enjoying each other. Anyway, we finally made it home and were so glad we took this impromptu road trip. Can't wait to do it again this summer! Oh, and the crab was the best crab I've ever had...wow. I thought because it was previously frozen, it wouldn't be good, but the flavor and texture was prefect. Yummo!

Another weekend trip was to Prosser for Easter. We hadn't been home to visit my folks in a few months and they had just returned from their exciting Europe trip to visit my sister in Austria with my two other sisters. They went to Austria, Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy in their 3 week adventure. We had fun hearing all about their trip, doing a little wine tasting, gave our dog Charlie a bath, and enjoyed some incredible cuisine from the kitchen of Burrfield Manor. We especially enjoyed visiting a new winery/pizzeria in Prosser called Wine O'Clock, owned by Ron and Susan Brunnell. First off, their wine is first class and we got to sit at the bar and have Ron pour wine to our heart's content. Our favorite was the intriguing Mouvedre, a spicy Sryah-like red wine. Just as good as the wine is the gourmet, wood oven stove pizza that Susan creates. Last time we were there, she did all the food prep herself and they didn't have much hired help, so things were a little slow. This time, they had some excellent staff and man were they cooking (double meaning)! I definitely recommend a stop at Wine-O-Clock if you are planning a trip near Prosser. In fact, there are at least 10 excellent wineries within walking distance and just off the freeway and more are on the way! It was good to see mom and dad (and Charlie) and its good to be with them now! I think they are going to come to Seattle for Memorial Day weekend next week because Jeannie will be in Prosser and needs to get to Seattle to fly back out to NY. We're planning all the restaurants we want to go to (Spinasse, Taberno de Alabadero, Portage Bay Cafe, Seastar Seattle, Purple Cafe Seattle...and so many more).

Well I saved the biggest news for last. We found out that Christy's family is officially moving back to Washington this summer! Her dad, Rich, works for Lockheed Martin and they won a contract at Hanford to provide all of the business services (IT, finance...which is his specialty, HR, security and more). We're very excited that the Olsen's will be a 4 hour drive away instead of a 4 hour flight away! This means more reasons for us to drive over the mountains and more guests in our spare bedroom! Plus, we'll get to see both families for holidays now since they're probably going to live only 25 minutes away from my parents! Woot woot! Rich has been flying out every few works to get things setup at Hanford and often stays the night with us and takes us out to breakfast at Portage Bay Cafe or dinner at Purple Cafe.

Well I think that about covers it for now. We're about to land, my battery is almost dead, and if you've made it all they way to the end of this blog then you're a true fan! Don't forget to write a comment and spread the word about my blog!