Autumn leaves

It would come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I love fall. I love everything about fall - the leaves, the pumpkin-flavored everything, the crisp cool days, the sweaters - everything. It is one of the things I missed most when I lived in Florida, and I think most Floridians who have lived elsewhere would tell you the same thing.

So imagine my delight when we dropped out of the clouds as our plane was landing in Seattle and there were beautiful, rolling hills of multi-colored leaves as far as the eye can see. I believe I actually squeeled outloud "Look at the pretty leaves!" (I'm sure to the amusement of those sitting around me). I tried not to be too obsessive about taking pictures of trees and leaves while we were walking around, but honestly, it was hard.

the whole side of this building was covered in leaves!

aren't the reflections in the water of Lake Union beautiful?

ferry-ing into Bainbridge Island

the glass archways of Pioneer Square were covered in fallen leaves

Signs

I have never seen a city more in love with their signs, especially neon signs, than Seattle. All the neon almost gave things an "old fashioned" feel, especially at night when they could practically do away with street lights and just have the reds, greens, blues and oranges of their signs light the streets. You hardly see any neon signs in D.C.... and being in Seattle made me realize that I kind of miss that!

Pike Place Market

While in Seattle, we stayed at a charming hotel, located less than one block from Pike Place Market (definitely more on this great hotel in another post!) I absolutely loved the Market itself, and it's surrounding neighborhood. All the produce, flower and seafood vendors provided tons of colorful photographs and what is there not to love about a place where you can have breakfast sitting on the same stool that Tom Hanks sat on in Sleepless in Seattle?!

Some colorful photos from the Market to share:

Ten for Tuesday

(since I didn't do my five for Friday last Friday, I figured I better make up for it!)

1. I ordered our Christmas cards today. How the heck is it only a month and a half until Christmas?!

2. Last weekend was super fun. My friend Mark was in town. We've been friends since 7th grade, which means there's lots of history to go over when we get together (he lives in Florida, so that's less often that I would like). There's also lots of giggles. And teasing. And laughter. And love. He just left Sunday and I miss him already. Sometimes I wish this country of ours wasn't so darn big!

3. Mark and I have this sort of tradition where we play Trivial Pursuit (the Millennium Edition, purchased in 1999, though... we attempted the Genus Edition once and gave up after about five minutes because neither one of us had a clue about any of the answers). Mark swears that I have never won Trivial Pursuit, that he has beaten me three times in a row. I think this is debatable, but I'll let him continue to make up these lies. Anyway, he beat me three times in a row... until last Saturday night. When I had a come from behind win to beat him and Brad. Victory, the sweet smell of victory my friends!

4. Halloween, while being Bradley's favorite holiday, was pretty low key at our house. We all went to dinner at one of our favorite Italian places here, came home, opened a bottle of wine, and I kicked the boys butt's in Trivial Pursuit. You know, just a normal Saturday night.

5. The weather has finally turned cooler. I think it's permanent this time (although it was 72 degrees on Saturday!). I love crisp fall air.

6. And I love fall foliage. I loved the fall foliage in Seattle so much while we were there and we're finally getting some of our own here. This made Mark especially giddy, since there is zero fall foliage in southern Florida. I think at least 50% of the pictures he took while he was here were of leaves... of course about 50% of the pictures I took in Seattle were of leaves, so who can really blame the guy?

7. Since the weather is so lovely today, Bradley and I decided to walk down to our polling place to vote this morning. If you haven't heard, we have a little election going on in Virginia today for Governor and a bunch of other statewide and statehouse seats. I was pretty undecided until I was literally standing in the polling booth this morning. Anyone who knows me, knows that's pretty unusual. But I cast my ballot, which is the most important thing. And I feel like I made an informed decision, which is almost as important as voting in the first place.

8. Mark and I played some mega tourist while he was here. We did more on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning/early afternoon than most people do in a week here. We did: the National Archives, Smithsonian Natural History Museum, Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian American History Museum, Washington Monument, White House (north and south sides!), Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, World War II Memorial, a tour of the Capitol, walked through Chinatown and Dupont Circle, Iwo Jima Marine Corps Memorial AND still found time to have some awesome pumpkin custard at the Dairy Godmother. Whew, I'm tired just writing it!

9. Last Friday, I was feeling extremely domestic and decided to make chocolate chip pumpkin bread from scratch. After an interesting start (including breaking open an entire cup of sugar packets until I realized we had a box of it in the cupboard), all went smoothly and I think the bread turned out great! We had some for breakfast Sunday morning, and also have been grazing on it. I brought it into work today for a meeting and everyone, including my boss, at least pretended to like it. I'm going to bake up another loaf on Thursday night in anticipation of my Dad's arrival on Friday. Since they don't have too many pumpkin-flavored items in Barbados (or really anything autumn), I'll send half the loaf back with him.

10. I was reading in a magazine yesterday about "Thanksgiving activities" (as if cooking, entertaining and cleaning weren't enough!) and one of them was to make a list of all the people you're thankful for and write them a letter telling them why you're thankful for them. I think this sounds like a neat idea and something I might try this fall. If you don't receive one, don't be offended... this good idea probably went uncompleted!

Because when you turn 100 years old...

you definitely deserve your own blog post! I wrote about it in my five for Friday last week, but thought I would share some more pictures. My wonderful, beautiful great-grandma Frances turned 100 years old on October 16th. Luckily, Brad and I were able to make it to Minneapolis to join in the party. Which is super fun when you're 100 years old, still live by yourself, have hilarious stories to tell, and loads of family around! In addition to Grandma Frances (who my middle name is after... which I hated when I was in elementary school. How could I hate a name after such a cool lady?!), we hung out with my Dad, grandparents, aunt and uncle and my three cousins, another aunt and another cousin and her baby - and that's not even half the family! A fun time was had by all, I'm sure. It was the perfect way to kick off our Seattle anniversary trip.

PS That's my little cousin Miles whose head is peaking over the top of the cake when she's blowing out the candles. Cutest thing ever!

the cake was MEGA YUM

Pumpkin time

Halloween is kind of a big deal around our house. Like, a HUGE deal. Ranks right up there with Christmas. This is because Brad is a Halloween fanatic. He will deny this, tell you Christmas is his favorite holiday, but if you could see the way his face lights up when he watches "Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin," there's no denying it.

On Sunday, we went a nursery by our house and got pumpkins. The poor things had to sit outside in the rain for two days until they finally got carved last night. I was feeling a bit less creative, so I decided to try out one of the fancy stencil thingys that came with our pumpkin carving kit - you be the judge on how that turned out. I think that Brad's pumpkin really captures his true personality this year... :)

PS Yup, that would be clean clothes drying on a rack in the background in that first shot. Our apartment is bigger, but not that big and someone thought that the dining area would be a great place to put the closet with the washer and dryer. Um, yeah.

pumpkin seeds, which we (ie Brad) may attempt to roast

that is a special brand of crazy folks. I do love him so!

Five for Friday

1. Seattle. The Emerald City. The Coffee Capital of the World. The Queen City. The Gateway to Alaska. The Rain City. The Jet City. The Awesome-est City. Brad and I returned yesterday morning from a great four day trip to Seattle, our first visit to the city and, really, the West Coast. We both fell in love with Seattle. Her people are fantastic, her hill's butt-busting, her coffee and salmon amazing, her history fascinating. We had such a good time, that this place that I have always wanted to visit, is definitely on our must visit again list. Oh, and of course I took 80 million pictures. So stay tuned for those - here are a few teasers from the point-and-shoot. Check out the AMAZING sunset Monday night!

2. Everyone warned us when we booked a fall trip to Seattle that it would be chilly and rainy. Chilly? Yes. Rainy? Not so much! Actually, it rained more in D.C. in the week leading up to our trip than it did the whole time we were there, which is a bit crazy. What was also crazy was the insane fog that set in on Tuesday. It didn't burn off until around 4pm, when the sun finally decided to show its face. But I can't complain about 50 degrees and no rain in the Pacific Northwest!


3. Red-eye flights always seem like a good idea when you book them. You don't waste precious touristing time traveling. It's overnight so your body naturally wants to sleep, thus making the long flight less boring. Yet, like the Redskins, it looks good on paper and is awful in real life. Our red-eye from Seattle to Detroit Wednesday night started off great. The security line was short at the airport. I was able to get us exit row seats, so we had tons of leg room. The flight left on time. The the turbulence started... and didn't stop until three hours and 45 minutes later when we landed. Brad, who is a super plane sleeper, slept through the whole flight. 99% of the other passengers also slept. I am a nervous flier and not a good plane sleeper. I did not sleep. Two lone reading lamps illuminated the cabin - mine and some guy three rows in front of us. The good part is that I had picked up a new book at the cutest travel bookshop in Bainbridge Island and was able to plow through a big chunk of that (note to self: if cancer fighting doesn't work out, I believe it is my destiny to open a travel bookshop!).


4. Prior to heading to Seattle, we joined my family in Minnesota for a few days to celebrate my great grandmother's 100th birthday. It was super fun to see everyone and to celebrate with the yummiest cake ever (you go Queen of Cakes!). Instead of staying with my grandparents, like we normally do, we stayed with my aunt and uncle and my 12, 11, and 5(-ish) year old cousins. Brad and I even survived taking them to breakfast Saturday morning all by ourselves. Maybe we won't be horrible parents after all?

5. On Tuesday, we celebrated our second wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe that we have been married for two years already; it feels like we've been married forever (in a good way!) It's hard to remember my life before we got married. The second year was definitely easier than the first, so I'm hoping that the third year will just be plain ol' fun!

Two years ago today

we said "I do!"

I can't believe it has been that long - time certainly flies when you're having fun! Brad, I love you so much and love every day of being your wife. To borrow a line from Mr. Darryl Worley: "I love this crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful life" :)

October 20, 2008 - celebration in Chicago: October 20, 2009 - celebration in Seattle: Picture TBT (to be taken!)

Five for... Monday!

I figured I could cheat this week, since we'll be traveling this Friday, so I won't get to do a post. Plus I was in a lousy mood last Friday, and who really wants to read a blog from a crabby person? Good news is that the mood is great today, so here we go...

1. Last Friday I made a healthy dinner for Brad and my friend Laura who came over. I was super impressed with my Hungry Girl Stuffed Chick Cordon Bleu. If you're not familiar with the Hungry Girl, I highly recommend you sign up for her emails ASAP. She has great healthy recipes, teaches you how to make unhealthy recipes healthy and tells you what not to eat when you eat out and what not to buy (and what to buy!) at the grocery store.
Just look at these chicken stats:
normal, unhealthy chicken cordon bleu:
serving size: ONE chicken breast
calories: 426
total fat: 23g
sodium: 852mg (in ONE prepared chicken breast!!!)
carbs: 16g

super duper, healthy chicken cordon bleu I made:
serving size: one chicken breast
calories: 222
fat: 4.5g
sodium: 692mg (still highish, but it's hard to find low sodium ham!)
carbs: 2g

2. Yesterday, we joined the 21st century and bought a new TV. A 42" Panasonic plasma TV is now awaiting my friends at Comcast to come install the HDTV DVR (we upgraded to DVR too... really a banner day for us). Brad was over the moon to purchase a new TV, while I really didn't care one way or another. I think it will be nice to have a big TV to watch football on though :)




3. On Friday, Brad and I leave DC to begin our great six day trip across the U.S. One highlight of this trip will be celebrating our second wedding anniversary in Seattle. The other highlight will be traveling to Minneapolis to celebrate my great-grandmother's 100th birthday! She is a pretty awesome lady, who still lives on her own, and is probably in better health than I am. My middle name is named after her (Frances), so while I have always taken a lot of crap from people for having a "weird" middle name, I don't mind a bit! While we're in Minnesota, we'll get to see my Dad, who is flying in from Barbados, and my aunt, cousin and second cousin (I guess that's what she is? my cousin's daughter... no idea what that branch of the family tree is called) and my wonderful grandparents. A picture of my beautiful Great-Grandma Frances last year at Thanksgiving:

4. Did you know that if you want to put someones 100th+ birthday on the Today Show for Willard Scott to announce, you have to do it six months in advance? Totally bummed me out when I discovered that yesterday. You'd think that when someone is pushing 100, they would allow a little flexibility!

5. As I have many times previously mentioned, we're headed out to Seattle next week. We fly back Wednesday night on a red eye, leaving Seattle at 11pm, arriving in Detroit for our connection at 6:10am, and arriving back in DC at 8:30am. After that, I am going to attempt to go to work. I'm not sure how this is going to work. I'm a nervous flier on a good day and my inability to sleep on airplanes is quite well documented. Heck, this is the girl who stayed up the entire overnight flight back from Europe because I was paranoid there was something wrong with the flap on the wing! I tried to upgrade our seats for this leg of the trip to first class, thinking any amount of my 37,000 frequent flier miles plus a few hundred dollars would be worth it, only to find out that our tickets are a "non-upgradeable fare class." Um, yeah. So any plane sleeping tips would be very much welcome!

Christ Church Cathedral; Nassau, Bahamas

So, instead of continuing to post pictures of the beach when the weather is 60 degrees out, I thought I'd switch gears for our cruise stop in Nassau and post pictures from the gorgeous Anglican cathedral there.

When we got off the boat, we were handed a tourist map, with a few attractions mentioned on it, including several churches. Given my love of photographing churches, we decided to poke around the area and see if we could hunt them all down (not too easy, due to a major lack of street signs). We found them all and found this one last. It looked very plain on the outside, but as you can see, is gorgeous on the inside. It was a welcome break from the heat and we had the place all to ourselves.

Gorgeous, eh?