Vacation

Hey everyone! It’s about time I took a little summer vacation. See you in a couple weeks, hopefully with lots of beautiful new content for you!

In the meantime, here's a photo from last year's summer vacation in coastal Maine.

sitka & spruce

On Tuesday, our third wedding anniversary, we found ourselves on Capitol Hill for the second time in a week. This time it was to dine at Sitka and Spruce. I'd noticed that this is the restaurant that all Seattle food bloggers take their visiting friends and family to when they want to impress and give them a real Seattle experience. Since we had a special occasion, we figured it was time we gave it a try.

An open space with an open kitchen, smaller than most suburban home's kitchens, tiny Sitka and Spruce is located in the corner of Melrose Market, which also houses a butcher, a shellfish shop, a florist, a sandwich shop, a cheese shop, and a bar.

Bar Ferd'nand

Hands down, the best thing about the entire meal was the fresh sourdough bread with soft butter and maldon flake salt. In particular the butter. It outshone pretty much everything else we ate that night: albacore and green beans, heirloom tomatoes and crème fraiche, flatbread with chickpeas. Yes, all nice. But the butter was far and away the star of the show.

Mmmm, Butter.

I forgot both my camera and my phone, so all these photos are taken by Blackberry and then modified in Instagram and I don't have any food photos to share because the light was too low. But there were these two great cut away windows into the pantry, so we could see the food before it made it's way to our plates.

A sight that would have made my former-vegetarian-self faint.

All kinds of vegetable goodness, including some
twiggy berries (top left) that I couldn't identify and featured
heavily in our albacore dish.

Anniversary flowers from my sweet husband. The same
colors and flowers from our wedding.

Lunch with the Ruskies

Did you see that amazing sailing ship moored in downtown Seattle last week? The Pallada is the fastest sailing ship in the world and the Russian Navy has been taking it on a spin around the Pacific Ocean.

When I learned they were offering free tours, a co-worker and I took a gander during lunchtime last Friday.

Sadly no borscht or other Russian delicacies were served, but there was plenty of Russian spoken and crackling Russian folk music playing on the loud speakers. My photos are a bit shabby—I was unprepared for this impromptu outing with just my iPhone.

I can only assume this says "if sinking, break glass."

oddfellows and ice cream

I haven’t spent much time in Capitol Hill in Seattle yet, but after my brief visit there on Sunday I think I’ll definitely be frequenting the area much more often. After stopping by Fleet Feet for a new pair of running shoes for Mr. Husband (expert knowledge and service at this store, btw, highly recommend!), we went to Oddfellows for a Sunday afternoon martini and snack.

 

And what goes better after vodka than a summer ice cream cone from Maggie Moos while sitting in the Cal Anderson Park?

Salted Caramel and Theo Chocolate. Mmmmmmmm.

 

Hiking Mt Si

On Saturday we climbed a mountain.

For years, I’ve driven by Mt. Si on my way to and from Eastern Washington. Under an hour away from Seattle, it’s one of the first big mountains you see as you approach the pass, just north of I-90 in North Bend. I never once considered climbing it or even realized you could. But on Saturday we were hankering for an outdoor adventure but didn't want to spend hours in the car getting there. Mt Si seemed like a great option. An awesome and challenging hike, it was well worth it even when we reached the top and found it cloudy. Will definitely be making a trip back on a guaranteed clear day.

Look at all those switchbacks.

It's four steeeeep miles up to an elevation of 4,176 feet. And then four steep, much faster, miles back down.

When we started the hike, the top was hidden in clouds. Good thing I couldn't see what I was getting myself in to or I would have been really intimidated. 

Even when we got to the top, the views weren’t quite as spectacular as they could have been…or really there weren’t many views at all.

  




But we still lingered at the top and snacked on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pita chips, while the clouds swirled around us.

It wasn't until we staggered to the bottom and stopped the North Bend outlet mall that the top of the mountain emerged and we could see clearly what we had just accomplished. No wonder I’m still having trouble walking, three days later.

3 Years Ago Today

We said "I do."

I loved every detail of our wedding. Here are just a few photos from our special day.

We married at the Orcas Hotel on Orcas Island in Washington State. The staff was great and took care of every last detail. We were able to book the whole hotel for our whole wedding party and family, which made it extra special.

We bought all our flowers for the table settings at Pike Place Market and made our own arrangements. One of the highlights of the weekend was meeting one of my bridesmaids at Pike Place and, along with my mom and fiance, picking out all the flowers for the event. Since it was August, there were lots of dahlias, one of my favorites. We named each table with a location that was important to us: Argentina, Orcas Island, New York City...

We gave wildflower seed packets as favors.

And had custom M&Ms as treats.

I handmade all our invitations and programs.

The pastry chef at Rosario Resort made our cake. The flowers on top are from Pike Place, too.

And though I know a wedding does not equal a marriage, it was a happy celebration of love and a perfect start to our official life as husband and wife.

"Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules…My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.”

          

          Tom Robbins
          Still Life with Woodpecker

Dining Alfresco

Here's one of the best outside dining spots in Seattle. Hold on summer, don't go away--I need more days to bask in the (cool) sun outside on my lunch break!

Weekend Smorgasbord

Last weekend was a dining smorgasbord. Family was visiting and we had a lot of eating and celebrating to do.

We started out at Friday night at a launch party for Dry Fly Bourbon. This is the best stuff I've ever tasted come out of a bottle. Seriously.

After that, we dined at Steelhead Brewery. No photos of the food, but let me assure you that I ate a burger that was larger than my face and received absolutely no teasing about that fact.

Photo: Juliette Cook, from steelheaddiner.com

The next day we took my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and baby niece to eat Homegrown sandwiches at Green Lake.

Then we dined at Salty's on Alki.

Arguably the best view in the city (here is said view across the parking lot), the interior and decor haven't been updated since the late 80s and the menu is woefully overpriced.

But, it was a great place for a celebration and the Dry Fly Whiskey Manhattans were delicious.

And if that wasn't enough, we started Sunday off with brunch at Portage Bay in South Lake Union. Don't let this photo deceive you. Weekend mornings it's swarming with people and requires at least an hour wait for a table.

Photo: urbanspoon.com

 Needless to say, this week it's been all salads all the time.

Global Vintage Modern Eclectic

I like to describe our style as Global Vintage Modern Eclectic. I like sleek modern and vintage pieces, but I also like funky global inspired artifacts (or better yet, things we've acquired ourselves, abroad). So I'm pretty pleased with the way our living room has recently come together.



We'd been living for months with no table, sitting on the floor using magazines as makeshift tables for our beverages. Then, a few weeks ago my mother-in-law brought over this amazing marble-topped coffee table. It had been in their basement for almost 30 years, sometimes used, sometimes in storage. She remembered seeing it at her in-laws, when visiting them for the first time almost 40 years ago in Palo Alto, when she first went to meet them after returning from Vietnam where she had met her true love. A true mid-century modern piece with a meaningful history! Now it's in our living room. If tables could talk, I wonder what history it's witnessed and what stories it could tell about us someday.



She also brought along this fab end table.



And this super cool (pun-intended) vintage Eskimo fan.

Then I got these great pillows from West Elm. I usually like to buy things like that on my travels, but these were just too perfect and it doesn't hurt that they were handmade in Jaipur, a region of India that my husband and I visited last year. The thing I love about them is that they look like they've been here all along, they fit our style so perfectly.

I don't know how long we'll stick around this apartment, but at least, for now it has a few touches that make it feel like home.

Pillows: West Elm
Tables: Vintage
Sofas: Macy's
Lamp: Urban Outfitters
Fan: Vintage