Community Yard Sales

This last weekend was Tukwila's annual community yard sale. We were up early to help Casey and Mindy get their yard sale all set up, then we picked up Mom, Dad, and Linda and headed out with our expectations high on what we might find. When else can you by someone else's cast-offs, take them home, and turn them in to your cast-offs in a year? :-)

As it turned out, we didn't find too many bargains to haggle about. Linda's dog Magoo was the big winner with 9 new doggie toys. But it seems like Tukwila has a plethora of children with outgrown clothes, shoes, and assorted other baby necessities. That's mostly what Casey and Mindy had, too. Surprisingly, it seemed that there was an overabundance of people needing said baby stuff, though.

Maybe next year we'll have better luck....

Year of the Mini-Vacation

This year, instead of taking all our vacation at one time, we decided to spread it out throughout the year, taking 1-2 days off and making 3-4 day weekends, along with a few 1-day trips. Here’s what we’ve done so far:

January: Overleaf Lodge; Yachats, Oregon. We spent a long weekend walking along the beach, watching storms, and enjoying the spa.

February: Draeger's Cooking School; Mountain View, California. We traveled south to see Corey for his birthday and to participate in a wonderful private cooking class.

March: Edgewater Hotel; Seattle, Washington. We thought it would be fun to be tourists in our own backyard. This is the hotel the Beatles stayed in (where they fished from their room) when they visited Seattle.

April: Coast Victoria Harbourside Hotel & Marina; Victoria, British Columbia. A quick Victoria Clipper ride took us from Seattle to one of the prettiest (and one of our favorite) cities in Canada.

April: Rhododendron Species Foundation and Botanical Garden; Federal Way, Washington. What a delightful day we spent wandering around the gardens, located on the Weyerhaeuser Headquarters property. It was so quiet and peaceful, you would never know we were so close to I-5.

May: Cannery Pier Hotel; Astoria, Oregon. Casey and family were out of town for the weekend, so we thought we would celebrate Craig’s birthday in Astoria. Riley (Casey’s Toy Fox Terrier) went with us since we were puppy-sitting while they were gone.

June: Alaska Cruise; ms Westerdam, Holland America Cruise Lines. This was our one long vacation, which we took with 6 friends and family members. We saw Glacier Bay, Ketchikan, Sitka, Juneau, and Victoria.

July: Leavenworth/Cashmere/Wenatchee, Washington. We decided to take another long weekend and go antiquing in north-central Washington. We stayed in Leavenworth (a charming Bavarian-styled town) and did our antiquing in Cashmere (home of Aplets & Cotlets) and Wenetchee. We visited Apple Annie’s Antiques, the Antique Mall of Cashmere, and the Antique Mall of Wenatchee.

July: Snoqualmie Train Tunnel; Snoqualmie Pass, Washington. The weather was a bit gray and drizzly at home, so we thought we would take a drive up to and hike through the tunnel – you’re inside for 2.3 miles each way, so what does the weather matter?

August: Bonneville Hot Springs Resort & Spa; North Bonneville, Washington. Less than an hour’s drive east of Portland, Oregon, on the Washington side of the Columbia River, this resort is nestled along a hillside where quiet prevails. Amenities at the site include a lovely restaurant, spa, pools, miniature golf, and even rooms with their own private hot tubs.

August: Port Townsend, Washington. The forecast for the day was temps in the mid-90s, too warm for our likes, especially since we don’t have air conditioning in our house. So, we decided to go for a drive to Port Townsend and do some antiquing. Didn’t find much, but still had fun, particularly at the Port Townsend Antique Mall.

12 pounds of chocolate

Last week, I celebrated my 12th anniversary at Microsoft. The tradition (I heard about this tradition when I was a contractor) is to bring 1 pound of M&Ms for each year as a full-time-employee. 12 pounds of M&Ms wasn’t a thrilling prospect (have you priced bulk M&Ms recently?), but what could I bring, especially if I found myself wanting to help reduce the cache? So, off shopping I went. While perusing the candy rows at a local drugstore, I saw some bags of saltwater taffy, and the red and black licorice flavor sounded like a good choice. With 2 pounds of saltwater taffy purchased, I was now down to needing 10 more pounds of chocolate. Next stop was at Costco, where I found a great nearly 6-pound bag of various individually wrapped bite-sized chocolates (which included the obligatory M&Ms, both plain and peanut varieties). Now, almost 8 pounds of candy was ready for work. But what about the last 4 pounds? What to do, what to do….. Then I remembered that one of my favorite goodies to share at work is my apple cake. Now, this recipe originally called for walnuts or pecans, but with a grandson who is allergic to tree nuts, I’ve had to modify many of me recipes, including this one. My favorite substitution (and, apparently, others feel the same way) is chocolate chips. So that is what I made for my last 4+ pounds of anniversary. I was a bit worried about the cake, though, when I realized I had forgotten to put the baking soda in when mixing it. And how long did close to 6 pounds of assorted chocolate, 2 pounds of licorice-flavored saltwater taffy, and more than 4 pounds of chocolate chip apple cake (even missing the baking soda) last? All of those goodies lasted a grand total of 4 days, with the apple cake gone before I left the office the first day. Wow!

I hear the rolling thunder

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

About 4:00 this morning, we woke up to hear thunder. We got up and sat on the couch in the living room and watched. The lightning was so bright that it illuminated everything on the ground, even if only for a brief moment. But the thunder... That was what was really neat. It kept rolling and rolling and rolling.....

Hot Stone Massages

I like hot stone massages, and I had a very nice one this last week at Bonneville Hot Springs Resort and Spa, which is located on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge. I've had them at Salon Nyla in Portland, at InSpa in Tukwila, and on several cruise ships. The one thing I can say about all these massages is hot stones were used -- every one was quite different, especially in how much pressure was applied and how the stones were used. A couple of the places used tiny stones between the toes, which I especially like. I guess that is what makes hot stone massages so neat is that they are different -- kinda like opening a mystery bag that you buy at the fair. :-)