My Seattle Adventure: Part 2

Seattle.

What can I say of my 10 days in Seattle?

A lot.

That’s why this is a multi-part series.

I also took a few hundred pictures.

No joke.

But in general, Seattle was awesome.

I want to live there.

Though the weather would take some getting used to, seeing as that it’s pretty much the opposite of Hawaii.

Hawaii: Sunny and warm

Seattle: Overcast and cold

So in Seattle I was was visiting the awesome Dunne family that consists of

Photographer, licensed minister, IT guy and dork: Nick



Fun, unique, artsy, best friend with awesome style: Anna



Funny, energetic, strong willed 3 year old: Tyler



Adorable, flirty, bundle of cuddles: Fox



They live in these adorable apartment buildings.





So yeah, 10 days with them was a blast.

One of the first things we did was visit my favorite store, Anthropologie (there sadly is no Anthropologie in Hawaii)

isn't it beautiful?



Can never afford to buy any clothes there but I love it anyway.

Tyler took this opportunity to rock some aviators.



Then I had a life changing sandwich from Essentials Bakery. It was made with yams, caramelized red onion and goat cheese. Amazing.

It was also the place that some ladies told me that Fox (who they thought was my child) looked so much like his mom.

To correct or not to correct?

I felt too weird pretending that he was my child so I corrected them but then that seemed unnecessary too.

Where's my etiquette book when I need it?

We went to this place:



The Theo chocolate factory.

This is what their samples were like:



That’s right, piles of samples for each of their chocolate bars (which there were at least 20).

It was heaven, Tyler thought so too.

After 5 minutes in that place she probably consumed a couple candy bars worth.

Then we went to this awesome park that I took a million pictures at but I am frustrated at them all and have hated every minute of editing them but here are some anyway.

There was cool industrial stuff like this:



This picture seems very symbolic, of what I don't know:





Fox was just interested in trying to eat one of the flowers.

(Did I mention that the second you take your eyes of Fox he puts something chokeable in his mouth? No joke, you have to watch him like a hawk. Right after this picture I was pulling a flower out of his mouth.)



There was also a nice view.



(By the way, this wasn’t all one day, I am combining the days so this doesn’t end up being 10 posts. Your welcome.)

We went to the Burke Museum of Natural History at the University of Washington.

Going to a museaum with a 3 year old is quite an experience.

We were through that place in 10 minutes tops.

She did stop a couple times.

She stopped here long enough for me to take a couple pictures.





Then onto Full Tilt ice cream which had awesome flavors such as Mexican chocolate and smoked chocolate.

This was when I first discover that Tyler is an ice cream eating champ.



I truly believe that if you gave her a ½ gallon of ice cream she would finish it in one 15 minute sitting.

I’m sure there is some sort of contest she could enter.

Or maybe some world record she could beat.

I’ll look into it.

My Seattle Adventure: Part 1

So for my trip I decided to take a military flight to California.

The military has something called Space Available (AKA Space-A) flights.

You see the Air Force is constantly flying planes to and from all their other bases and many times there are empty seats on these flights and these seats are offered to military personal and their families for free.

That’s right, free flights. Score.

Now it may not cost any money to fly Space-A but it does cost patience.

With Space-A, like flying any sort of stand-by, you never know if you will get on the flight or not and you have to be flexible.

Now I will go much more into detail on how Space-A works when I tell you about my trip back to Hawaii.

For the flight to the mainland, it was a breeze though not at all what I expected.

What I expected was to get on one of those huge C5s and be strapped into the side with a tank in front of me.

Instead I walked up the stairs (my first experience walking onto a plane outside, I had to fight the urge to turn around and wave when I got to the top) and into a normal plane cabin.

It looked just like a commercial flight except it only had about 6 rows of seats.

There were stewardess and everything!

During the flight I was seated next to a ’09 Naval Academy grad.

Warning: Rabbit trail ahead

This Navy guy was a redhead too and it reminded me of all the illogical thinking that goes on about redheads.

First: The silly thought that all redheads look alike.

I have been told that I look like: Lindsey Lohan, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Cate Blanchett and any other famous person that was ever a “redhead” for any significant amount of time.

Also I have been told that I look like like any friend, relative, aquatence or sister’s dog walker’s aunt’s neighbor's cousin who's a redhead.

But if you were to take any of those supposed lookalikes and dye their hair blond or brown we would look nothing alike.

But somehow the red hair and fair skin makes people completely look over facial features.

Second: And this is actually related to my story, the thought that two redheads in close proximity must be connected in someway. As if it were impossible to fathom that two redheads could be in the same place and not know each other.

So the guy I was sitting next to on the plane was a redhead and people kept assuming, even when we were just standing near each other at the terminal, that we must be married.

Now this makes no sense! I could get assuming that we must be brother and sister but married?! As if its more likely that two redheads would be married than just happen to be on the same flight.

It was a bit awkward because people kept addressing us as a pair such as “So where are you guys headed?”

And I would say “Well, I am going to visit family in California.”

End rabbit trail.

I had a good time talking to my fellow redhead about the Academy and asking him what its like winning the Army vs Navy games and hinting that maybe they should just let us win for a change of pace.

He told me he was on his way to San Diego to surprise his wife (did I just hear an “awww”?) who is also in the Navy and has been stationed there while he has been stationed in Hawaii.

So all in all it was a good flight and we landed at Travis Air Force Base with no problems and my dad picked me up and took me home.

I spent two days in Napa (not counting the day I flew in and the day I flew out).

On Friday my parents and I went to Healdsburg and on the way made the mandatory stop at this place:



If you’re ever in the Napa Valley, you must go to Bouchon Bakery and get some of these:



Macaroons.

They are heavenly.

So then we headed up to Healdsburg and wandered around that adorable town where I was talked into getting these:



If you cant tell, they're feathers.

Here’s how it happened, we were having lunch and our waitress was this cute, trendy girl probably around my age who had a feather in her hair.

My parents and I got to talking about how cute her hair was and the feather so my dad ended up asking her about it and she said she got it at a salon nearby.

So lunch over, we wondered around the town and found that we had a good amount of time to spare before our dinner reservations.

So naturally, my parents decided that I should get a feather.

And so the search was on (something you should know about my dad, if he’s anything, he’s persistant).

My dad went back to the restaurant to ask the waitress what salon she got the feathers from but she had left already.

Then he was on his smart phone looking up salons in the area.

Then he started calling around.

Then he got the name of one that does them and we walked over.

The girl who does them wasn’t in that day but we were told of another salon in town that does them.

So then we went over to that salon (told you he was persistent) and viola feathers!

I felt well prepared for the trendiness of Seattle.

Spent Saturday visiting with the in-laws and the grandparents and then Sunday it was up to Seattle!

I'm Back!

Hey everyone! I'm back!!

And you have no idea how happy I am to say that!

There is a long and tragic tale that I must tell of my journey home...

but not till later!

Because guess who else is back?



Stephen!

Now don't boggle your brains thinking, "Wow, that was a fast 3 months?!"

He was only gone for 3 weeks!

Something he and I are both happy about.

He got back yesterday, just one day after me.

He spent the 3 weeks in Okinawa.

For those of you who are geographically challenged like myself, here's a map.



So as you can see, he was far away from the radiation.

About 3-4 days after he left I finally got an email from him telling me what he was doing.

This is what he said:

"I'm in a joint task force working with Navy, Marines, and Air Force officers to plan how we would get about 90,000 Americans out of Japan if the power plant goes boom. Our part is to provide information and guidance on how to do radiological decontamination on the people showing up to the evacuation sites who have been contaminated with radiation."

He also said he was working 14 hour days.

In a later email he also said this:

"When I am working, I'm giving advice on things way above my pay grade. I do not want to be compared to the LT (lieutenant) who mistook the Japanese bombers heading to Oahu for a flock of birds (if you don't know what I'm talking about, then look it up dumb dumb)"

Side note: We call each other "dumb dumb" sometimes. It came from the movie "Night at the Museum".

He seemed to get quite goofy in his emails and facebook statements while over there.

Such as this one from his sister's facebook page:

"I know I"m a day late (two days late here). But Happy Birthday! I have an excuse for being late; I've been punching radiation in the face all week."

I rest my case.

So the task force finished their task and now Stephen is home.

He has already started torturing Willow.



But mostly he is doing this:



A lot of well deserved sleeping.

More posts of my trip to come soon!