Seattle: Part One

After the beautiful wedding, we decided to travel north to spend three days in Seattle. We had used up our one sunny day, so the remainder of our trip was spent in either a light mist or full-on rain. Which was alright. We spent a lot of time shopping and eating. Our favorite vacation activities. We stayed at the Sheraton in downtown Seattle. The largest hotel either of us have ever stayed at. The lobby was constantly roaring with activity and elevator rides took ages. But our room was great (although they gave us one with two beds) and quiet. We were able to walk almost everywhere we wanted to go.

Our first stop was the Fremont Troll under the bridge.

The view out our window. And I constantly peruse travel books before, during, and after vacations. And I was displeased with this one and it has added "writing travel books" to my list of to-dos.


Our first stop was the Seattle Art Museum. Possibly one of my favorites.

Who decides what art is anyways?

Then we went to the Seattle Aquarium.

Then we had the thought "let's go to the zoo while it's not raining..."

Guess what? It started raining. Hard. Harder than we ever experienced our whole trip. Excellent. I think we saw five animals and were soaked through by the end of it.

Pike's Market

If we lived here, pretty sure I would need flowers every day. They were gorgeous! And infinitely cheaper than anything in Rexburg.

The original Starbucks.

Being big Travel Channel fans, we had to hit up the Man vs. Food spots in Seattle. First stop: The Crab Pot. Basically they dump a bowl full of food onto your plate, hand you a bib and a mallet, and you get to have at it! Excellent fun.

Seattle & Coffee...of course.

On our trip through Pike's Market, purchased a hand draw picture of the Space Needle from a nice little Asian man. We bought a cup of fresh raspberries to munch on while we scanned the concourses of shops and bakeries. All with the most fascinating collectibles, hand made everything, and cheesey tourist types of knick knacks. I don't normally enjoy seafood, but the Crab Pot was really good and delightfully fun.

Part two to arrive shortly...

Question: Blogger posted my pictures a million spaces apart, took me hours to post this (hence the division to two parts), am I doing something wrong?

The After Party

The reception was DARLING. All the tiniest details made up one really beautiful event. Very vintage and very Kelsey.

Lots of fresh wildflowers. How could you not love that?

The gift "table".

The sign-in table. Complete with pictures of parents and grandparents on their wedding days.

The delicious food- holy sugar rush.

Somehow Britter and I got put in charge of cutting and serving the cake. That is one messy job. Tasty though.

Receving guidance.

My Best Friend's Wedding

Our spring break was an adventurous journey to Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA for my dear friend Kelsey's wedding! Surely it was the longest drive Daniel and I have ever done together. We initially planned to switch a bunch, but we were so determined to reach our destination that we each drove half of the 10-12 hour drive (I forget). How did we get there, you ask? With our car dead and all---Daniel's parents let us borrow their car for our long journey. That was the biggest blessing ever. A great time!

Here they are! Mr. & Mrs. Dennis.

All the fam.

The ladies. Brittany, Kate, Kelsey, Myself, Julia. :D

My party planning accomplice, Julia!

The Portland Temple was so beautiful that day. Apparently it was one of the sunniest days Oregon had seen in a long time. The flowers smelled amazing and the sun just shined!

Here are a couple of shots from the Bachelorette/Vegas Night Party the night before. Disclaimer: No alcohol was consumed- just a whole lot of candy and shots of sparkling cider. Really more for giggles than anything else. :)

The darling bride.

Julia did such a great job decorating! We had a wonderful time and laughed until my cheeks hurt. It was the perfect way to send off Kelsey into marriage!

P.S. In order to keep pictures chronological- I'll probably have a few different posts. Stay tuned!

A Lack of Focus

It's true, our car is DEAD. Really it only cost us a dollar to buy from my mother, but it has cost us over 1500 to fix it on numerous occasions. It exploded the day before we left for Seattle. I walked down the stairs of our apartment to see Daniel back up the car while it made this atrocious noise. He pulled the car back in and it started shaking and died. Then with a noise much like a running faucet, oil spilled on to the pavement. So dead. Really the stress of having one day to purchase a new car has been killing me, but off we go. By four o'clock we need to have a car and be at the grocery and back to Rexburg. Talk about crunch time. Farewell Ford Focus....

When I Grow Up...

The more I plan our trip to Seattle, the more I become infected with the travel bug. There is something intoxicating about planning and sight-seeing and whisking off to an exotic land. (Well, exotic in perhaps a different way). As graduation creeps closer, the ever present question "What will you do?" grows louder and louder inside my head. If I could only make a career out of my love of travel books and overly meticulous planning. Sure, I could be a travel agent, but I very much need a different job market for anything like that (Idaho Falls I think has one travel agency). The joke back in high school was that I was going to be a tour guide at the White House-heck that still sounds good to me!! Or be a photographer for National Geographic!! :) Write for a travel magasine? Work for the Church Historical Society? Museum Curator? (I did try that whole Museum of Idaho thing and that went poorly...) Work for the State Department? (Maybe actually use my French?) Book Publishing? (Pull some strings at Deseret Book?) Who knows, mostly this is me procrastinating my last final exam. Constitutional History and Law--not favorite. I'll probably end up being a librarian or secretary at a dentist office. (Not that those are awful careers, just not exactly what I want to do with my degree) We are excited to leave for Washington on Sunday and my little brother gets back from Equador that same day. Whoohoo.

Jazz Mania

As of late, we have had the fortune to attend three, yes three, Jazz games. For having never been to a NBA game myself, this was nearly overwhelming. Game one came as a complete shock. One day, Daniel called me at four o'clock while I was on my way to work and he said, "You don't have to work tomorrow right?" and I replied that I did not and he said, "Good, because we are going to a Jazz game." Fun Wednesday afternoon activity. It was indeed exhausting driving there and back in one day (I even attended all my classes the following morning). Anyways, Daniel had won the tickets from work for being the highest on the score card for the month--pretty dang good incentive if you ask me. And after working full-time at that awful place, Daniel really did deserve such a treat. It was exciting to be so spontaneous. We had great seats too (my pictures are out of order so I will label them accordingly) and exceptional free parking. Melalueca can spoil their employees well. This game was against San Antonio and turned out to be a really great game. (Jazz lost unfortunately)

The above and below picture are from the 2nd game we went to: Jazz v. Thunder. We went with our friends Jonathan and Celeste and again did the drive there and back in one day. We were all a little puffy eyed for church the next day. For the first time Daniel and I ate at PF Changs-which we thoroughly enjoyed. Our seats were the exacted opposite as the previous game, we were three rows from the very top of the arena. Although we had a splendid time, those seats were not worth the exhaustion felt afterwards.

Pictures from Game 1.

And the 3rd game. This one we had been planning for a while. My dearest best friend Kelsey bought tickets for her fiance for Christmas so we volunteered to tag along. This one was Kings v. Jazz. Our seats were the perfect combo between the other two games and the Jazz WON-in a most exciting overtime where were screamed ourselves hoarse.

Before the game we went to Provo to pick up Kelsey's wedding dress and visit with our cousins Jason and Kayli-who are always fun to hang out with. :)

The soon-to-be weds. Kelsey and Eric.

This time we made the decision to stay in a hotel. Was this a better idea than driving home until two in the morning? Possibly not. We made the last minute choice to use Priceline's "name your own price" option and it landed us a night at the Red Lion just seven blocks from the arena. Sounds good right? Well, the hotel seemed kinda old and smelled odd. But the staff was friendly and they gave us a free ride to the game. We wandered around downtown afterwards and ended up at PF Changs again for lettuce wraps and the Great Wall of Chocolate cake. Then we made our way back. First red flag should have been the bar connected to our hotel, second: the largest, dirtiest lingerie store with which we shared a parking lot and third: the bar/movie theater next to the dirty shop. Around one o'clock I woke up with a very frustrated spouse. Once I was awake I had no idea how I slept through the enormous amount of noise coming from below us and out in the parking lot. The "gentlemen" below us were hollering out their window at girls. Fortunately they even used their room number, while calling out said girls. After a half hour of incessant noise I got to call security. And I called them again. And again. And again. Until three in the morning. Apparently they have an inadequate security crew because nothing seemed to stop that party. And when the bar closed every drunk was left on the curb outside. Even though we were on the fifth floor, it was as if they were yelling directly at our window. Rough rough night. Daniel may have chucked pillows at anyone who snored that night. (Sorry Eric)

That morning as I checked us all out (Daniel prefers to not talk to people he is raging mad at), I got to chatting with the desk clerks and mentioned how awful a night we had, etc etc. And they offered us free breakfast! :) I have such persuasive skills sometimes. Still probably not worth it. But we all had fun in the process.

Lately, Daniel has just been working full-time and I've been a horrible senior student. I just want to be done. In three weeks we are driving out to Portland/Vancouver for Kelsey's wedding and then spending three days in Seattle just for kicks. We are very excited for an opportunity to escape responsibility. More then.

One Step Closer

I am almost there. After much deliberation and careful planning, I have organized myself and my classes so that I might successfully graduate this July. This July?! I'm estatic. After years and years of study I will depart the academic probation of my life and step out into the workplace. [That adventure is a whole other story]. For now, I am content with the fact that I am going to actually succeed in finishing a Bachelor of Arts in History with a minor in International Studies. The original plan was minoring in French, then International Studies, then it was French again. Ultimately that resulted in my being only one class away from a minor in French & International Studies--unfortunately the class I need to complete the French minor will not be offered until Fall. Too bad, guess I'm sticking with the International Studies. Which is just peachy for me.

Next semester is all planned out-lots of classes. I even threw tennis into the mix. I figure I might as well learn how, since I am certain that there is some athleticism in my body somewhere, but it is lost along with my dedication-to-learn-how-to-play-sports gene. And perhaps if I yeild that talent now, our posterity will gravitate towards being active in a way that never transfixed me. If they are all going to be freakishly tall, they best do something with it. :)

I'm taking French again. I love that language. Nothing beats it. I just need someone to talk to.

Daniel and I hardly see each other. This semester is always worse than others. He works full time late into the evening and I am bouncing back and forth from school and work which results in exhaustion. Daniel said just the other day, the majority of time he spends with me, I am asleep. Kinda lame.

That's really all for now. We are trying to make it to some Jazz games this season. We've got one in March and probably another one in a few weeks. Ciao everyone.