the goose loves tuesday's ten (seattle style!) (#14)

What is full of rain, inhabited by seahawks and mariners, and 180 miles away?

Seattle!

Billy and I drove up to Seattle on Friday night for the weekend - he had a pipe band competition, I had a conference there on Monday/Tuesday, and we figured we could visit Monika while we were there.

1. While Billy was at his pipe band competition on Saturday, Monika and I had a girls day! We had indian food for lunch (SO GOOD!) and when she ordered a vodka seven, they brought her a glass with vodka and a glass with 7-Up, separately. She mixed them in her mouth instead.

2. We then went to the Pacific Northwest Ballet Company showing of Coppelia, which is about two lovers and a doll maker. Sounds weird, yeah. But it was good. And our cousin's cousin was one of the dancers!

3. No girls outing is complete without getting pedicures. Thank you, Monika, for treating me!

4. That evening, Monika went babysitting and Billy was still in Bellingham for the competition, so I took the dog for a looooong walk. After spending the first hour sniffing/peeing/trampling nature, he found a stick. And at that point, it was full-speed ahead. Despite passing two dogs and a bunch of people, he sped right along, gripping the stick with all his might. I was practically running to keep up with his pace.

Here's the end goal: a nice long stick-chew session.

5. Once he got over the stick, he decided to attack the fence, which borders the sidewalk of a busy street. Anytime he heard cars or people go by (i.e. always), he'd run up and down the fence, barking/howling, and then would start jumping up, even though he was at least 4 feet too short to actually get anywhere. It took me probably 34 pictures, but I finally got a mid-air leap.

6. Then Billy came home in all his Scottish finery. Loving that skirt kilt!

7. After some delicious crepe action in the morning (thanks, Monika - your crepe pan rocks!), we drove out to Redmond, WA (about 30 min east) for some picnic action.

8. Our next destination (less than a mile from the park) was the Mac and Jack's Brewery, which is famous for theirfrican Amber. It's just a brewery and small shop - no food - but the free tour was pretty sweet. And free.

The tour comes with a free pint glass and four taster tickets, so we walked out with two pint glasses to add to our collections and about a pint of beer (in separate tastes). The amber is delicious, the IPA, not so much. And it was all so worth the price of free.

9. Then Billy took off for Portland with the dog, and left me with the devil my sister, who would take me to my conference that night. But first, we made a very important dinner-delivery stop to Monika's friends Jess and Tyler, who just had the most adorable little baby (besides Brennan!) last Tuesday. Here's little Easton James:

Happy 1-Week Birthday, Easton! You are too cute.

(See that UP onesie? Yeah, I totally made that. Earned me baby-holding rights for at least 25 minutes, which was awesome.)

10. Then it was off to a two-day National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) conference for me. Complete with really unnecessary cool swag. Just wait til I show you my poncho-holder.

11. (What?! Eleven?! Yes - this makes up for me only giving you 19 last week...)

The sun-setting on Seattle, as seen from my hotel room on Monday night.

Thanks, Seattle - you were a good trip.

the goose loves the first bbq of the summer

Wednesdays can be tough. You're far enough away from last weekend to remember the freedom you enjoyed, but not close enough to next weekend to get excited about the freedom it will bring. Wednesday is just an awkward weekday, really.

But sometimes you had a memorable weekend and you force yourself to continue bathing in it's glorious sunshine-y goodness, even though it's practically long gone. Here's one such example.

On Sunday afternoon, we had our good friends Dane and Danielle over for some BBQ action. We hadn't seen them for quite awhile so it was great to catch up and even better to throw some good ole meat on the bbq. I even went the extra mile and put a tablecloth on the freshly-wiped table.

We munched on Juanitas (the best tortilla chip known to man) and lime-garlic salsa, a cousin of the tasty mango-peach salsa from Fred Meyer, and drank a few beers.

A few days ago, Billy was showing disdain for a certain brand of microbrew, and I suggested that maybe he's unfairly biased against certain brands, and therefore will disklike whatever he tastes from that brand. I challenged his beer tastebuds to a blind tasting, where I include some of his famous brand biases, to verifiy the quality of his tongue and determine whether or not his bias is rooted in fact or belief.

Since the challenge included 6 different IPAs, I figured it'd be better to do when there's reinforcement for drinking up the beers once tasting was over. Luckily, Dane and Dani were up for joining in, so Dane blind tasted with Billy and Dani helped me officiate.

As it turns out, Billy's #2 favorite beer was from a brand he doesn't enjoy. So ha! But at the same time, tasting six different IPAs all at once is somewhat overwhelming, so maybe his taste buds were having trouble keeping up. In the end, they matched two bottle caps with the right beers, and their clear favorite was an IPA I picked up from a new brand - Uinta from Utah, I think. We'll have to get more of those.

Then we moved onto the good stuff - grillin' meat.

Dane and Dani brought over burgers and skewered shrimp, and it was all SO GOOD.

And the grill is working great - thanks, Mom & Dad & Billy's Dad!

We were so into the food that no photos were taken of our plate-fulls, but let me assure you we ate plenty. Along with the shrimp and burgers, we had grilled veggies that Dani brought and a greek pasta salad that I made. De-lish.

Oh and strawberry shortcake for dessert. Nothing says summer like strawberries and homemade whipped cream. And nothing says fun like whipped cream with creme de menthe liquor.

Thanks, Dane and Dani, for enjoying a super-relaxing and fun bbq with us, and for welcoming summer with us. If only summer wasn't already over. But for now, I'll revel in the memory.

the goose loves pike's

A week ago, Billy had a pipe band competition in Bellingham, WA (about 2 hours north of Seattle). Wanting a buddy for the drive up, he convinced me to come along and stay at my sister's in Seattle while he was competing. They ended up winning the competition (maybe by default, since no other band showed up in his division) so we went out that night to celebrate.

We went to downtown Seattle and ate at Pike's Brewery. Here I am with their gigantic menu.
And peeking over the top of it, once I decided I was going to get the Kiltlifter Mac n Cheese.

And some "fashion" shots...

This one is for my mom... the more modest version ;). (Mom - don't look above).

And my cute husband.

Mmmmm... and our food! Here's my mac n cheese:

And Billy enjoyed some delicious fish n chips.

It was a fun evening, and nice to hang out and chat together.