September Snippets

Sept 5: Beautiful fall sunset!

Sept 15: I couldn’t resist snapping this photo during sacrament meeting of Katie drawing.  Looks exactly like something I would have done at her age.

Sept 19: These throwback photos popped up in my feed this morning.  Oh, how I miss Krispy Kreme's Talk Like a Pirate Day!  Can’t beat dozens of free donuts.

Sept 21: Drew and Katie were invited to our neighbors birthday party today at DEFY – a fun trampoline place. Jacquee sent me this picture of Drew and said, “Your kids are so good!”  They had so much fun!

Sept 25: Time to replenish the pantry

Drew’s cute little art project to help his classmates get to know him better:

Sept 27:  I returned to the gym today after eight weeks of “recovery” – I could have returned earlier but with all my traveling this month I decided to hold off paying for the membership until I could attend regularly.  It was ROUGH and I only went to the second of two back-to-back classes I usually go to.  How soon the body forgets!

I was surprised to see Jason walk into the house from school this afternoon wearing this…

Apparently the annual Hawk-a-thon was today and this was how he chose to dress up for the event and for the entire day and the bus ride home.

Tonight Justin and I went to the T-Mobile employee appreciation night at T-Mobile Park to watch the Mariners play.  In addition to free admission we were also given gift cards for food.  We enjoyed our food and watched about half of the game before Justin was ready to leave.  Of course after we left the Mariners started to score and the game got more interesting.  And we missed the after game firework show.

Sept 30: We still a family that loves Chick-fil-A – especially when they’ve been so generous this year with free food promos through some locations.  Today I finally tried their new macaroni and cheese – it was very good; however, it costs more than fries so I probably won’t pay more for it very often.

Weekend in Austin, Texas {Sept 20-24}

I had five days back home between my girl’s weekend in New York and my girl’s weekend in Austin, Texas.  Austin was reuniting Sommer and I (Snoqualmie) with former Snoqualmie-ites - Camden (Atlanta) and Laura (Dallas).  The four of us communicate regularly (near daily) on Marco Polo (a video chat app).  Sommer introduced all of us to Poldark during our couple’s trip to Sunriver, Oregon in 2016.  Since then we would chat about the goings-on of Cornwall via Marco Polo.  With the last season airing this fall someone came up with the brilliant idea that we should watch the entire season together.  Camden became a PBS subscriber so that we would be able to get early access to the entire season before it airs in the US. Ironically, we planned our trip a week before we were able to get access to the episodes so Sommer’s husband Benjamin had to bootleg the season from a server in the UK.  Quite the process, but it worked!

In addition to watching 8 hours of Poldark we also had a long list of things we wanted to see in Austin and places we wanted to eat.  We rode scooters to our first breakfast in Austin – making a quick stop at a cool mural for a photo opp.  It was HOT in Austin!

We stayed at The Line hotel which is the white one just behind me in the picture above. Perfect location!  I think we spent a little time at the pool this afternoon but it was crowded since it was the weekend.

Dinner that night was a bit of a drive, but so worth it.  Justin and his Dad were very jealous that I got to eat at The Salt Lick BBQ.  It had a very cool outdoor area with tables and live music.  Loved the vibe and the food was fantastic.

We tried to catch the bats nightly flight, but lost our patience after waiting and waiting and waiting.

We attended church at a nearby University singles ward – we’re just a wee bit too old but it was convenient.  Lunch was at Hula-Hut where I had a yummy stuffed avocado.

We cooled off at Barton Springs – which wasn’t nearly as neat as we’d imagined.  What we really needed were lounge floaties for each of us.

Gourdough’s Donuts was AMAZING!  Such unique flavors.

Camden brought each of us a Austin t-shirt she’d found at Old Navy.  We wore it tonight as we enjoyed a few episodes in bed and dinner delivery from Torchy’s Tacos.

This morning we wore the cute Austin tees Laura made for us and checked out some of the fun murals in SoCo District.

Laura headed back to Dallas after breakfast – Sommer, Camden and I relaxed at the hotel pool for a few hours and then went out to dinner at Terry Blacks BBQ and scootered around the capital.  I was surprised how fun the scooters were – I had no problem riding along the busy streets of downtown on them.  They weren’t actually cheaper that it would have been for us to collectively pay for a Uber but so much more fun.

We were lucky tonight and witness the bats take flight.  Hard to take any pictures of videos of it, but very cool.  There are 1.5 million bats under Congress Bridge! 

We capped off the evening getting some ice-cream at a nearby convenience store.  We sat down on a bench to eat it and heard music coming from a nearby saloon.  It was so enjoyable we couldn’t resist going inside.  First time in a saloon.  I could have sat there for hours listening to the little two-man band playing.  This was one of my favorite memories of the weekend.    

We watched a movie back at the hotel and then we all had EARLY morning flights back home. Seriously, such a fun weekend. I consider one of my greatest blessings to be the women in my life that I’m lucky enough to call friends. These three ladies are some of my most favorite and I loved catching up with them in person.  Hopefully it isn’t another three years before we find ourselves in the same place together.

Abigail's Senior Photos

Abigail was very excited to have her senior photos taken.  Scheduling the session took some finagling – Abigail had only 40 minutes to get ready after attending something at the high school, then she needed to drive down to Auburn, take pictures and then get back to Snoqualmie in time to volunteer for the middle school volleyball team.  I was stressing as she was taking much longer than expected to get ready and out the door. That’s probably one reason why she decided to go alone.  Ha.  They turned out fantastic!

Weekend in the Big Apple {Sept 12-14}

At the end of May my friend Addy reached out to me to see if I would be interested in going to NYC in September to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child with her and Jen Gibbs. A girl’s weekend?  In NYC?  Of course!

I had a pretty full month already planned with Labor Day weekend, Ashley visiting, and a girls trip to Austin – but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.  I looked into getting tickets to Harry Potter last summer when we were in London, but they weren’t impossible to get a hold of. I hadn’t read the book, but my friends advised me to not read it and just go into the show with fresh, unbiased eyes.  

Our fourth fell through so Addy invited her sister to join us from Utah and she was the perfect travel companion.  We took a red eye on Wednesday, September 11th and only had two nights in NYC. I was really bummed we weren’t staying longer, but in the end it worked out just fine and we were able to fit in lots of fun.  Addy was diagnosed with breast cancer in July so this trip ended up being a much needed get away between her mastectomy and starting chemotherapy.  I had a list of must-eats in hand and we were ready to fit in as much fun as we could.

Welcome to New York!

and NYC traffic

After dropping off our bags at the hotel we had breakfast at Sarabeth’s where I made the mistake to order an omelet!  An omelet at a NYC bakery!  I deserved to be disappointed.  

We walked along the High Line…

Ordered cookies at a couple different cookie shops…

We had dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant – Bond 45 – the atmosphere was really beautiful. And then it was time for the theatre.  The Cursed Child is a two part show – one show each of the evenings we were there.

For dessert we treated ourselves to cheesecake at Juniors – a NYC must!

For breakfast on Day 2 we went to Max Brenner’s Chocolate Bar – the name says everything you need to know.  The hot chocolate was amazing!  And I loved their hug mugs – really a delightful, warming hot cocoa experience.  

The food was fantastic as well.  Jen and I shared a burrito and crepe – savory & sweet.  Win-win.

The last time I was in New York was in 2008 so I haven’t been since the World Trade Center towers have been rebuilt and the memorial established.  The Oculus was pretty impressive.

We didn’t’ have time to go through the 9/11 museum – it’s on my must-see list for sure though next time.  Walking around the memorial was very somber.  The design of the memorial is beautifully done and a inspired way to demonstrated the footprint of the buildings destroyed.  

After a little shopping for the other ladies we ventured along the Brooklyn Bridge – a first for me.

Addy was ready to head back to the hotel to rest; however, I couldn’t let any time go to waste and was ready to head to Soho for some sightseeing and delicious eats on my own. Jen decided to join me.

We had dinner tonight at Joe’s Pizza – yum and the coolest theatre turned restaurant!

And then Part 2 of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child…

So what did I think of the show?  Not my favorite. Not even close.  The other ladies LOVED it.  I was entertained but wouldn’t need to see it again. I didn’t really connect to the main characters (Harry & Draco’s sons).  Glad to have seen it but really could rave about it like the rest of my travel companions.

Tonight’s after theatre treat was Carlo’s Bakery.

Breakfast this morning was amazing – Jacob’s Pickles had come highly recommended and didn’t disappoint!  We got lucky the entire weekend with arriving at restaurants right before the “rush” we never had to wait long to be seated but when we were leaving it was always packed.

We decided to bike around Central Park – it was so fun and a great way to see Central Park somewhat quickly.  There was a huge chess tournament at the Bethesda Fountain.

After biking treat – gelato!

Before we knew it it was time to head to the airport for our flight home.  Such a fun weekend!