Pepperoni

Seattle Aquarium

We had a great time together on Saturday at the Seattle Aquarium which is a short walk from our apartment on the waterfront. Elly loved walking around and seeing all the fish. She didn't especially want to touch them, however (there is a touch pool with sea stars and sea anemones).

 
 
 
 

"Our Seattle"

Elly always refers to our apartment here as "Our Seattle". When I say, we're going home, she says you mean to "Our Seattle"? She is hilarious. Anyway, I wanted to put up some pictures of our apartment to remember it better. Oh, about the tidiness of the apartment, I'm just keepin' it real.

This is our view of the harbor with a little of the aparment in it: (right when we got here, we had to rearrange the furniture so we wouldn't get a glare on our tv from the window, but the best part is that now, our computer desk looks right out over the water.
 

This is our dining table and view of the kitchen:
 

Kitchen:
 

Our bedroom:
 

I'm including these pictures because I think it's so funny. This is our bathroom:


And this is Elly's bathroom:


The second bathroom is so big, that while my mom was staying with us, we actually put Elly's crib in there and she slept there for three nights! We are very lucky to have this apartment, Microsoft has been good to us this summer.

Favorite things from Pike's Market this week

Fresh French Bread that was almost too pretty to eat:
 

Beautiful (and cheap) Peonies that smelled amazing:
 
 

This sweet little flower haning in a basket in front of a boutique on Post Alley:
 

Doc and K-ma come to visit

We loved having my parents come visit us for a little while. Elly cried when they left. I think she's missing all of our family in Utah. We did so many fun things with them here, but mostly it was just fun to have their company!

We wanted to avoid the crowds of Memorial Day weekend, so we took a ferry to Bainbridge Island. It was so fun to be on the boat and Elly loved it! Then we walked around quaint little Bainbridge and got some $1.00 pizza (although the third slice was $1.50, not sure how that worked out). Then, we hit the "mall" which was about 5 stores facing each other in a small courtyard. We topped it all off with a trip to Mora iced creamery.
 
 
 

We tried not to do the typical tourist things. We did go to Etta's for breakfast one day, which was delicious! We has seafood several times during their stay. We even hit the Benihana downtown.
























We went to Pike Place Market for some mini doughnuts, fresh french bread and pastries and of course, flowers.
 

It was such a great visit. Thanks for coming Doc and K-ma! We love you!

Seattle!!!!

Our first priority was to go to the REI flagship store and pick up the BOB stroller we ordered. It was a must for getting around in downtown Seattle! I absolutely adore it. Doesn't walking around R.E.I. make you feel like being totally active and going mountain climbing, biking, hiking, camping, kayaking etc?
 

This is the view from our balcony of Puget Sound. It is beautiful.
 

This is the view from our balcony of the Seattle Art Museum.
 

This is the view from our balcony of the garden that separates two of the buildings in our complex, ours and the southwest tower. I am definitely looking forward to picnics down there. If only they had a swingset. Unfortunately, I haven't seen ANY other children in our building except for the other intern family from BYU, our friends, the Christensens.
 


There is so much more to tell about our first few days in Seattle. We loved going to the Seattle First Ward. It's in a beautiful neighborhood and everyone seems super nice, of course. It is kind of sad when they ask you if you are new and you say you're an intern and their face drops, "so you'll be leaving at the end of the summer, then?". Hopefully we'll be back.

Elly and I went to the Library yesterday just in time for Toddler Story Time. It was great, but we missed our friends from Provo (who we usually go with) and the two hilarious BYU undergrads who run the story time at the Provo Library. Most of the children at the Downtown Seattle Library were there with their nannies or with a day care facility. There were about 20 kids there compared with the 100 that come in Provo!

I made our first meal in our new apartment on Sunday (spaghetti, nothing fancy). It was a success, but I do miss a bunch of things about being in my own kitchen. When you leave for the summer, you forget about spices. I didn't bring any with me, and I now I have to figure out which are the most important to buy for the summer, because I can't buy all new spices...they are expensive! The little "markets" around downtown don't have very good selections of groceries, so I'll have to plan grocery trips better while I'm here. I definitely took for granted being able to jump in the car and pop over to one of the four big grocery stores within half a mile from my house in Provo. There isn't a Walmart for miles and miles! Oh how I miss Walmart...never thought I'd say that.

Today, I headed down to the waterfront to walk/jog a little. It was amazing to jog along this beautiful trail called the Elliot Bay Trail and look out over the water to the mountains in the distance. On the way back to our apartment, Elly and I stopped at Pike's Place Market to look at all the offerings and pick up some yummy doughnuts. The market has all these amazing vendors with all sorts of goodies. My favorites include fresh produce, handmade jewelry, and of course tons of fresh flowers! If I had unlimited money I would have fresh flowers in my house every week. They are beautiful! You can get a whole bunch for about $10 at the Market.

Other than that, we are enjoying playing around in the apartment and exploring the city. We are really enjoying it so far. Brandon is also exploring the best way to get to work and back, and he's enjoying hanging out at Microsoft every day.

Come and see us in Seattle, we'll be here until August and we have an extra bed!

ps, if you want to win a new BOB stroller, click here.

Friends!

We had a fun visit with our mission friends a couple weekends ago in Utah. Elly loved seeing her friends, Lincoln, Ava, Tanner and Shiloh. We really miss them and wish we could see them more. These are children of some of our mission friends.

Lincoln:
 
Ava:
 
One of my favorites from the zoo, what a good dad:
 
Elly and Ava: