Seattle 2017 - Abridged Version

We were expecting our first trip with Lucas to be to my family reunion at the end of July. But, Steven got a job interview in Seattle, and after thinking about it for a bit we both thought it would be a nice place to live. It was definitely worth the trip to check it out.

Lucas's First Flight

The flight went better than expected. Lucas mostly didn't like standing in line to get off the plane, but during the flight he seemed to be enjoying himself. Note for people trying to fly with kids in diapers, airline changing stations are ridiculously small. Lucas barely fit with his legs up! He's tall, but still only 4 months. 

We had planned to take a taxi from the airport to the hotel, but after we got off the plane Lucas fell asleep while I was wearing him so we opted for the train so he could stay sleeping. It is definitely easier travelling when we don't need to put him in a car.

We met up with an old friend for dinner. He very nicely picked a place near our hotel so that we didn't have to walk very far. After a lovely meal, we ended up walking all around downtown anyway. We almost caught a ferry to Bainbridge Island, but it would have taken too long. Instead we ended the night by finding a fabulous little cupcake shop. I got a strawberry rhubarb cupcake. 

Seattle Selfie

Steven had his interview all day Friday, so Lucas and I the day to see the city. I had two goals. First was to see this yarn art exhibit I read about at the Seattle Center. Second was to eat a crumpet. 

We took the Monorail from near our hotel to Seattle Center. The doors were loud, but other than that Lucas enjoyed the ride. It took me awhile to find the Yarn Art, not a good sign. Turns out it was yarn tied from a tree to a fence. It was supposed to be some sort of calendar? 

The yarn things turned out to not be worth it, but thanks to a well timed nap I went to the Chihuly glass museum. I took a lot of pictures, there were so many interesting sculptures. I also got to look at the Space Needle. One of these days I'm going up in it. 

Goal two of the day was getting a crumpet. Observe below, crumpet. It was delicious. I also went to the yarn store that is on the same block. I got yarn to make Lucas a penguin hat for winter. It came with the penguin to put on the top.

I wandered around Pike Place Market for a bit, got some fancy cheese, and then tried to find a cute baby clothing store. Supposedly it was right there. Near as I could tell someone decided to build Pike Place on the side of a cliff and not think about how tired people are going to get to their stores. There was no elevator I could find to get to this store and I certainly wasn't walking down and back up 6+ flights of stairs for a store of unknown coolness. 

All this I managed to do before 2. This is what happens when you get up early, you end up tired before the day is half over. I went back to the hotel to wait for Steven to be done with his interview. He got back in time for us to try and catch the ferry. Of course this was a long walk to get there and no buses seemed to be helping the situtation. We rushed and made it in time to stand in line waiting for everyone who was arriving to get off. 

In theory this was a good plan. Hop on the ferry, walk over to the yarn store, come back. It was a lot further than I expected, most likely since I was tired from having walked all day already. Steven was fine. The yarn store is a combination tea and yarn shop, which I personally think is a fabulous idea. I really didn't need any more yarn, but I found some very adorable buttons. Hopefully I will finish the project they go to before Lucas grows out of it. Walking back the food options were not nearly as desirable as expected. The place we thought looked most promising turned out to not even have food, so we had to backtrack for pizza and get something better once back in Seattle.

Better turned out to be a little fish n chips place near the ferry dock. This place apparently encourages the feeding of seagulls. The staff brought out some old food for them and they were very skilled at catching it. Not sure how good of an idea this is, but there is a sign.

The next day we had planned to rent a car to go explore potential neighborhoods. We didn't count on all the cars from every rental place being gone, so that didn't happen. We decided to be tourists instead. First we met up with my cousin Michelle. Lucas was wearing his new sunglasses. It's a good look on him. 

Our next stop was Pioneer Square. The stop off the Link was not the nicest, we left there very quickly. There was a surprising lack of restaurants that we wanted to go to. Everything that seemed to have decent food, but be casual enough to have a baby at was full and loud. I blame sports. There was some sort of sports thing going on. 

I had read about a "giant" chess board in Pioneer Square. I took a picture of it. I didn't zoom. I probably needed to for it to be visible... Also it was fabric. So basically it was a little blanket. Santana Row wins this one and they don't call it a "feature". For the second time we decided not to do the underground tour. We did get closer. The entrance is right behind me in the picture below.  We also found a toy store with a great collection of baby toys. Lucas decided (he actually did, by grabbing it) on getting a Whozit. It is a blanket, a rattle, a teether, and it hangs off things. 

By the end of two days of walking I was done walking. I had a coupon for Lyft, we made good use of it. We had a nice dinner at a seafood restaurant. It turned out to be near my friend's house, but at the time I didn't know where she lived. Afterwards we went to the best bookstore ever. I liked it even more that Powell's. It isn't as overwhelmingly huge as Powell's, but the selection was like they read my mind. I think I could have happily purchased half the books in there. Definitely a selling point for living in Seattle.

Another selling point for Seattle was this Molten cake place. An entire place devoted to making delicious Molten Cakes. The Bay Area needs this. 

Lucas takes up a lot of room for being so tiny! 

The next morning we had a lovely brunch with another old friend. She encouraged us to take Lyft and walk around the neighborhood we were most likely considering if we moved. It was a great idea. I think more than anything else this made me want to live in Seattle. The community is centered around a Lake and has a beautiful park. There were so many families outside enjoying the nature. The lake even had a roped off area for swimming with a diving board and everything. I may have to come back just for that. 

San Jose parks are not this beautiful.

Indian Cookbook: Book Review

This cookbook would have been great to have 6-9 months ago when I was needing to eat vegetarian food. There are some recipes that look really tasty in here, so I am still looking forward to making things from it.

I know next to nothing about cooking Indian food. I enjoy going out to eat it, but the closest I have come to making it is a curry from a Blue Apron box.

This book had a good section at the front that explained about all the spices. It was really helpful, but also a bit overwhelming and complicated.

The only downside is that there are so many recipes that don't have pictures. I bookmarked quite a few things I want to make in the near future. One I skipped over because it didn't have a picture, but later in the book it was featured again in combination with another sauce. It looked delicious in that picture! I probably never would have made it based just on the name.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

I actually finished a knitting project!

I had started making a baby sweater a week or so before Lucas was born. I had planned to make it a larger size (6-12 months), so that he could wear it next winter. It seemed huge on him when I got the base of it done a few weeks ago. Apparently some time in the last month he became huge. It fits him perfectly now. I had to rush to finish it before he outgrew it. 

The buttons I found in a cute little button shop in Paris. I wanted a simple pattern so they would stand out and be cute.

The pattern is Flax from Tin Can Knits. The pattern as written is a pullover sweater. I tried to find a pattern for a plain worsted weight cardigan, but strangely I couldn't find one. It only took a little bit of math to make the Flax into a cardigan. 

Unfortunately the weather is not cooperating this week. Not overly useful to have a new sweater on a week that will be 90F! (I need to live somewhere cooler...)

Book Review: Road Food

Since I am planning two road trips this summer, and I'm anticipating many stops along the way, I thought this book would be great to plan a great food filled trip. I don't think this will end up working in that way.

This book has over 1000 restaurants, but it seems that most of them are not where I am planning on going. Which will be 5-6 different states, so it isn't like it's a small trip. With a name like Road Food, I would have expected that going on a typical road trip to be able to use this book to find great food. There is a lot more representation of the Midwest and East Coast. Also certain cities seem to have more options than others.

I live in a very food centered place, and there very few selections from where I live. None of which I have heard of. There is no shortage of destination worthy places near me.

I will probably throw this book in the car when we go just in case we happen to get hungry near a suggested place. But, sadly I won't have an exciting list of food places to visit.

Jellyfish Lamp

I have been looking all over (and by this I mean mostly online) for a cute lamp for baby's room.  Our basic theme is ocean. Everything I found was either absurdly expensive for something I'd use only a few years, or really ugly. You'd think there would be a market for inexpensive but cute nursery lamps... 

I had to go to Ikea for some other items and I was hoping they would have something cute. For kids they mostly have toys and beds. The section seems smaller than it used to be. I didn't find anything. I figured I would at least take a look at the lamp section on the Marketplace floor. This is a long chairless walk, but I found one bench right in front of this lamp. It is not a very pretty lamp, but the lampshade is made of fabric. I thought it looked vaguely like the top of a jellyfish. Since I had a bench I spent a while thinking about how I could make it into a jellyfish. I decided it was possible. 

Being divers, it was important that the jellyfish lamp be as accurate as possible. I did some research online about various species of jellyfish. The closest match was a Box Jellyfish. These are the kind in Australia that will kill you if they touch your skin. 

My first attempt at this lamp is not shown, but has resulted in my never wanting to use that type of fabric again. My second attempt I like better anyway. The fabric is leftover from my Dickens Fair costume, but worked surprisingly well.

Finally a hat!

During my birthday month two years ago I was at a yarn store and saw this super soft and fuzzy white yarn. I realized how silly it was to not have a homemade Santa hat, since I love making hats and have a Santa hat for Christmas time. 

I made one last Christmas and Steven really liked it, so this year I made one that fit his head. 

Book Review Time!

I really need to do more things so that I can blog about more things. I did read this book at. So, at least it is something.

This book is a young adult magical world type book. It takes place in an alternate Victorian England, where magic exists. The story is about a girl who is prophesied to be the one to defeat the monsters attacking her world.

Overall I enjoyed this book. It was a quick read and a fun story. Mostly what I enjoyed was the fact that it was a story with magic in it.

Despite liking it I wouldn't say I really recommend it. I didn't really like any of the characters. Some of them I couldn't really remember who they were for the book. They seemed like just a name that kept popping up.

Although the book was set in Victorian England, there was very little that made it feel that way. In the beginning there was mention of fires being used for heating, so you know it was without technology. Later there was a carriage mentioned a few times. Nothing really stood out at specifically England or specifically that time period. They threw in meeting the queen at the end, but that really didn't do much.

This book seems like it was written to be a movie. A lot of the things I think it was lacking could be filled out with visuals you'd find in a movie. Maybe that was the intent? I don't know.