Scott and I met up with friends for Anne's 30th birthday dinner at Kisaku in Tangletown last night. Since Tangletown is just on the other side of Greenlake, we figured we could walk or bus it there. The funny thing is, according to GoogleMaps, the restaurant is only 1.7miles away and the time it would take to walk there (estimated time: 34 minutes) was the same as taking the bus since you'd have to transfer in downtown! So off we went for our walk.

It got me thinking: we hardly ever walked to dinner when we lived in LA! In Sherman Oaks, we walked to the mall or to get sushi only a handful of times. Ventura Blvd was less than a mile to get to, so why did we never take advantage of that? It makes me sort of sad to think about the fact that our old neighborhood was decently walkable, but we very rarely took advantage of that.

Of course, our new neighborhood is a great walking neighborhood! I guess that has put us in the mindset that it's not too bad to walk 15 minutes to get to where you need to go. I'm looking forward to walking to dinner more often when the weather gets warmer and the days get longer.

MusselFest, aka the Best Girls Weekend EVER!

Scott, Kevin and Patrick have been planning a "Mancation" in Seattle for quite some time now. It was spurred on, no doubt, by Scott's many declarations about how great a beer city Seattle is. I can't argue with that, but when Way and Becca decided to join their husbands up here (since airfare was so darn cheap) and since Emi was also visiting from Hawaii last weekend, we decided to create our our own Girls Weekend. I must admit, beer made a small appearance in our weekend too.

We started off with a visit to Spur, a gastropub in Belltown. Decor was sorta hip, but we were very disappointed - hugely boring cheese plate (nothing soft or stinky in the 3 tiny wedges on the plate!), overly smoked bison burger and high prices. Blech.

Saturday turned out to make up for Spur! The day started off on the right foot when we snagged a box of Thin Mints in the 10 minutes we had to wait to take the short ferry ride over to Whidbey Island. Then we headed over to Coupeville for the great MusselFest, where we gorged on Mussels (SO tasty and plump and fresh!), explored the town to try out each restaurant's mussel chowder and then washed it all down with some brew and dancing in the beer garden. We drove back to Seattle via Deception Pass and the quaint little town of La Conner, and then snagged a table at Purple Cafe in downtown. This meal featured a much more impressive cheese plate (stinky and creamy cheeses = yay!), a delectable lobster mac and cheese, wine flights galore and very interesting desserts (goat cheese ice cream!). After our bellies were full, we headed back to my house just as the snow started to come down! We threw several logs on the fire, cracked open a few bottles of wine, and then gabbed the night away.

Sunday featured a short walk to our neighborhood breakfast joint - Pete's - and then sad farewell as the crew headed back home. I was sad to see my girls go, but was content that we had such a fabulous weekend. I am amazed but so thankful and happy that even after all these years of knowing each other, we can still get together and have such a good time just hanging out. I am convinced that even if the MusselFest had turned out to be a dud, we would have had fun just walking around the town, enjoying each other's company. Can't wait to do it again with them soon!

Mussels at the MusselFest!

Seattle, LA, Honolulu and San Francisco represent!

Flexing my mussel muscle

Scott and I had a funtastic weekend entertaining guests from out of town. We'll post more on that later when I get our pictures in order, but for now, here's a picture of the appetizer that I made for dinner tonight. I used the mussels that I purchased yesterday at the MusselFest on Whidbey Island, and while my version wasn't quite as tasty as the ones from yesterday, I thought that they were pretty good. Especially considering it was my first time making these suckers! It was super super easy too!

I'm very happy that the PacNW has such great, fresh seafood and I can experiment with cooking it at home!

Whistler Blackcomb

This past weekend May and I crossed the border and visited our friendly neighbors in the north... Canada that is. I had to work a little late so unfortunately we got a late start and hit bad traffic in downtown Vancouver, but all-in-all a pleasant drive with the assistance of a May's killer iPod mix. Thanks Expedia for the travel agent rate - we got a killer room at the Fairmont hotel in Whistler. Talk about great location, the ski lifts are outside their back door!

May and I woke up early, put on a few layers of thermals and hit the slopes. May and I found out the hard way that many of the "green runs" were indeed a low incline, yet extremely narrow. May did quite well but I think the crowds of people and sharp drops intimidated her a bit. It was chilly, but crystal clear... a Kodak moment day. After a couple falls we were both pretty zonked.

As luck would have it May's high school friend and husband also planned a Whistler trip for the same weekend. We wound-up having dinner at the Brew House in Whistler village which featured tasty pizza, local beer and a good atmosphere. To make things better it started to snow on our walk back to the hotel... in fact it kept snowing all night.

Emi, Eric and I woke up for a dawn-patrol ski run in the fresh powder... and boy was it deep at the top of the mountain. An absolute blast, but exhausting. No one ever mentions that powder takes 3x as much muscle as the hard-packed stuff (it looks so fluffy on TV right?). My cell phone unfortunately suffered a little water damage and never quite recovered. Oh well, Whistler 1, Scott 0. After a quick bite we packed up and headed home.

In our next Whistler trip May and I plan to go snow shoeing and cross country skiing... or maybe a dog sled ride! All in all a very beautiful and fun place that I can't wait to return to soon. Perhaps we'll try the glacier skiing this summer, Ehh?

[p.s. Every muscle is sore today, exercising on a regular basis would probably be a good idea - mental note.]