Category Friends
Christmas morning and Star Wars and Christmas Eve dinner (in that order)
Christmas Eve dawned grey and chilly, and we went downstairs to get a head start on celebrating Christmas itself with a leisurely, hours-long gift exchange (how can you tell none of us has kids?). We started with the stockings, which I (on behalf of Santa) had filled with travel-related goodies. A sleeping mask and earplugs […]
‘Twas the night before Christmas Eve
Christmas is here! And this year I’m taking an approach to celebrating that’s, well, let’s just say, not super conventional. Instead of flying out to spend Christmas with family, I stayed in Seattle to celebrate with Amanda (who came up from Denver) and Justin. The plan was to do Christmas at my house, then go […]
Labor Day!
Labor Day was forecast to be excellent weather, so Justin and I decided to take advantage of it and go for a hike. We picked Little Si, a 4.7 mile hike not too far from downtown Seattle. The trail wasn’t difficult. Most of it passed through lush green forest. The epitome of the Cascades. We […]
PDX with Justin & Eve
September’s here! And with it the lull of summer “vacation” has ended: Everyone’s intensity-level at work is ramping up, and I’ve got every weekend booked with plans from here to Christmas. Well, maybe not Christmas (yet) — but I will be traveling every weekend in September, and at least one or two in October. The […]
The Hike: Backpacking the White Pass – Pilot Ridge Loop
Two weekends ago I took a day off work and went backpacking in the Northern Cascades with two of my best friends from law school. Amy flew in from DC, and Kristin flew up from El Paso. We spent Friday night running last-minute errands to REI and the grocery store, and then left first thing. […]
Gritti in SEA
It has been so much fun having Grit stay with me this week. During the days I’ve gone to work while she explored the city. At night we’d meet up back at the house to make dinner and talk and talk and talk. As Friday approached, and with it the end of Grit’s stay, […]
Gritti in PDX
One of my best friends from my days studying in France is a German girl named Grit. She lives in Berlin, works as a freelance journalist for the Deutsche Welle, and is one of those special souls who, if I didn’t already have a twin sister, I might have suspected of being my twin separated at birth. About […]
Seattle Anniversary (and Housewarming!)
Can you believe it has been a year since I moved to Seattle? Exactly one year ago today, I set out from DC to drive across the country to my new home. I had never lived in Seattle, and I knew no one. I had accepted a job that I had hoped would give me back my evenings and weekends, and I was betting […]
Easter Weekend: Tulips and concerts and General Conference and baskets of goodies
Did you know that the world’s largest producer of tulips, daffodils and irises is right here in the Pacific Northwest? Well, it’s true. Back in the mid-Twentieth Century, some tulip farmers from the Netherlands immigrated to Skagit Valley (just north of Seattle) and started growing their bulbs in the rich, wet earth. Now, sixty years later, thousands […]
Puerto Vallarta (Day 5) – Coming home
Oh, the last day of vacation! You wake up in the morning and even though you know your flight isn’t until 4pm, you know that basically everything is over — which of course means that every little decision takes on cosmic importance. Do I go running, or do I have a leisurely breakfast on the […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 