Seattle

I kind of feel like this blog has turned into a travel blog.  I keep waiting for some network to see our blog and see how good we are at traveling and ask us to travel full time on their dime and then write about it.  So far that hasn't happened.

We went to Seattle in November.  Mitch had an interview there and I've never been, so I tagged along. 

We got into Seattle Thursday night and by the time we got to the hotel, we were both starving.  The guy that checked us in recommended a couple of places near our hotel and we ended up going to one of them.  It. was. amazing.  Don't worry, I ate all but one bite of an entire cheeseburger and almost all of the fries.  (I told you, I was starving.)

On Friday, Mitch had his interviews, so I went to My Favorite Place-- Nordstrom.  (I know Mitch was really sad that he didn't get to come with me, even though he did a really good job hiding his disappointment.)  Let's just cut to the chase here.  I've never seen such a beautiful Nordstrom.  It took my breath away.  Practically.  After Nordstrom, I wandered (shopped) around downtown for awhile before getting lunch and going back to the hotel.    

Later that afternoon, I met up with a friend and her family at Pike Place.  Lucy and Dave moved their little family from Provo to northern Washington over the summer and getting to see them again was about half of the reason I was there.

I don't know why, but for some reason, I had to see the gum wall.  Morbid fascination, I guess.  It was just as disgusting as you would imagine it would be.  I gave Lucy's kids gum and we all put it on the wall (after detailed instructions on how to put your gum on the wall without touching anyone else's gum in the process).  I'm pretty sure Lucy was dying.  I'm pretty sure her kids were too, but they did it anyway.

Once Mitch was done with his interviews, he met up with us and we went to Ivar's for dinner.  We ate at the outside one so that the kids (and I) could feed the seagulls.  I loved it.

After that, we stopped in a few shops on our way back to the hotel.  Lucy and Dave still had a long drive home, so we tried not to keep them out toooo late, but it was hard letting them leave.  We would have kept them (and their kids) all night.

The next day, Mitch and I were able to see a few things in the city.  First we went back to Pike Place because we hadn't gotten a picture of us the day before.

Afterward, we went to the Chihuly Garden and Glass.  It's a museum with Dale Chihuly's art.

We had heard that Kerry Park had really nice views of downtown, so we drove up to check it out.

There were definitely beautiful views, but it was suuuper windy, so my hair is kind of crazy in the only picture we got of us.  Sad.

The rest of the day we really just drove around Seattle's suburbs.  I always like seeing what's outside of the main city.

On our last day, we got to see the Seattle Temple before going to the airport.

Gotta catch 'em all.

And then we came home.

October highlights

I think there are only two important things that happened in October.

1.  The main thing in October was that Sarah and Darren got married.

Awww...

And I made her cake.

(Check Instagram hashtag #dareandsare for a few more pictures.)

2.  But the other thing was that we (my mama, brothers, Mitch, and I) went to the pumpkin patch.

(Sorry for the dark pictures.  It got dark while we were there.)

"Mitch" loves the pumpkin patch almost as much as he loves the circus.  We go every year.

Circus 2012!

These next few posts may not be in exactly the right order...  And I may miss a few things...  But I'll try!  Let's get started--

"Mitch" loves the circus, so we go every year.

We even made it to the pre-show this year!  (It turns out, the pre-show is awesome.  We watched an elephant painting and then they gave us Ringling Bros. temporary tattoos on our hands.)  

I thought it'd be cool to look back on Mitch and I's past circuses-- 

2007.  2008.  2009.  2010.  2011.  2012 (large photo).   

More pictures from our California trip!

Remember that time we went to California and I said that we saw my sister, her boyfriend, and their daughter, but that I didn't have any pictures?  (You don't because I blogged about it three months ago, but I did.)  Well, a few months ago Stephanie sent me copies of her pictures and I tried to post them then, but for some reason Blogger wouldn't let me post them.  (???)  But... now it will.  (Whatever.)  So.  More pictures from our trip to California.

1.  Us.  (Obviously).  2.  My brother, Jason.  3.  My sister, Stephanie, with her boyfriend, Alan, and their little girl, Allyn.  4.  Sarah and Darren, my sister and brother-in-law.  (Who we now refer to as simply "Sarren.")

Bear Lake

The weekend after Mitch got home from Cupertino, we went up to Bear Lake with his family.  It was one of those nice, relaxing vacations where you don't have to do a lot or see a lot, you just relax and enjoy spending time together.

The thing with going on vacation with Mitch's family is that they all like adventure and, as previously discussed, I do not like adventure.

On Thursday, we rented WaveRunners.  I didn't think I would like the WaveRunners because in my mind they fall squarely in the Adventure category.  Actually though, I ended up trying them anyway (going suuuuper slow) and it turns out, I DO like them (even when we go faster)!  So.  There's one adventurous thing I like.

On Friday, we went boating.  I definitely do NOT like boating.  Once, when I was little, my parents took me on a boat and I CRIED the whole time.  It was super traumatizing and to this day I don't even like being on the boat.  I tried not to complain too much though and went along for the ride anyway.  Mitch is a pretty good little wakeboarder though!  I think he was the only one in his family that could really get up.

And on Saturday, we rented ATVs.  I DO like ATVs.  I've been on them before and I liked them last time, so I was perfectly fine doing those again.  (Which is weird because they fall in the "adventure" category too.  So I guess there are two adventurous things I like.  WaveRunners and ATVs.  But that's the end of that list.)  Too bad we didn't get any pictures of that.  We got pretty dusty. 

The rest of the weekend was really just relaxing.  Mitch and I both read a lot.  I did a puzzle with Mitch's parents.  (They like doing puzzles with me.)  The boys played a lot of card games.  We played Ticket to Ride.  We ate.  Etc.

On Sunday, we went to church in Logan and then stopped to see the Brigham City Temple. 

All in all, it was a relaxing weekend.

Paisley update.

Paisley got jipped in my last post because I didn't have a recent picture of her.  I blame Apple.  See, before I posted about Paisley and Allyn, I text Em (Paisley's mama) and asked her for a new, current picture of Paisley.  We had just been texting about something else, so when I didn't get a response, I assumed that:

a.  Em didn't have a new picture of Paisley.
b.  She couldn't get to it quickly because she didn't have any on her phone; they were all on the camera or computer.
c.  She planned on doing it later and forgot.
d.  Or another option that ultimatley meant she hadn't sent it.

So, I finally let it post without a new picture of Paisley.  Even though I had one of Allyn.  And two days later, Em sent me pictures of Paisley.  Oh well.

Except, Em (and Paisley) were over on Sunday and I found out Em had sent me pictures of Paisley, right when I asked for them.  On her phone it shows that she sent them right after I asked.  On my phone, it shows that I didn't receive them until two days later.  Heyyyy...  Don't even get me started on the new iPhones. 

I did go back and add a new Paisley picture to the original post, but if I were you, I would never see it because I would have no reason to go back and look.  So.  Hey everyone, here's my cute niece, Paisley, now:

She was super smiley at my house.  She likes me.  Also, I'm sad that you can't see all of her hair in this picture because it's LONG.  And I'm also sad that you can't see all of her outfit because she had the most darling little ruffled skirt on and the cutest leg warmers.  You can see her dimples though, if you look close. 

And, to get back to the original point, she's much older now than she was when she was born.  Obviously.   

New nieces and a new hobby!

I've been meaning to blog about Emily's baby shower...

But I'm way too late on that, so instead I'll just blog about the new nieces.

The first niece is Stephanie's daughter, Allyn Renee.  Allyn was born May 20th.

 And the second niece is Emily's daughter, Paisley June.  Paisley was born on June 20th.

Of course, now they're quite a bit older...

Yeah, I'm a little late blogging about them, but at least I'm blogging about them at all.

I also have a new favorite hobby because of these girls.  One day I remembered these...

And decided that every baby needs one.  And they really need to be cross stitched.  Because that's how these things are done.  (At least, I remember Emily had one when she was a baby and it was cross stitched...)  So, I made one for Paisley and one for Allyn.  (I thought I had pictures of Paisley's, but I can't find them.  Hers was more pink, less purple, and different pictures, but otherwise the same idea.)

And it turns out, I secretly really like cross stitching.  Most of my decorations are wood with paint.  And sometimes wood with paint and ribbon or glitter.  Cross stitching is something different.  And I could easily take it with me when I was flying back and forth from here to Cupertino.

Disneyland

On his way home from Japan, Mitch flew into Los Angeles instead of San Francisco.  I flew into LAX as well and met him there so that we could go to DISNEYLAND with my sister, Sarah, and her boyfriend, Darren.  (They were in California for a friend's wedding.)

I probably would have been fine riding Space Mountain all day, but everybody else wanted to ride other things too.  Weird.

And then, during the firework show (with everyone around us watching), Darren proposed to Sarah.

She said yes.  Awwww...

They're getting married October 20th.

We also got to see my sister and her boyfriend (Stephanie and Alan), their daughter (Allyn), my brother (Jason), and my dad that weekend.  I didn't get pictures of any of them though.  To be fair, I didn't get very many pictures at Disneyland either.  Oh, well.

After visiting with my dad on Sunday, Sarah and Darren drove back to Utah and Mitch and I drove up to Cupertino.  The drive was fine until we got to signs telling us there was an accident ahead and if we wanted to avoid it, we should go such and such way instead.  So we took the detour and eventually got back on the freeway after we should have passed the accident.  Except, we'd passed the accident and there was still bumper to bumper traffic.  It took us probably 30 hours to get to the next exit.  (Okay, so it just felt like 30 hours.)  Once we got off there, we were not getting back on, so Mitch looked up a different route for us.  It was a good idea in theory, but essentially we spent two hours-ish driving through the windy roads in the middle of nowhere.  

At least there wasn't any traffic...

Europe and Asia.

We really should count up the number of flights we took this summer.  Between the two of us, I'd guess it's around forty-ish flights.  You figure seven(?) each for our trip to Europe... that's 14.  Plus twelve-ish flights back and forth to California.  Plus Mitch's flights to Seattle and Kentucky and Tennessee.  Plus Mitch's flights to and within Europe and Asia.  Yeah, forty-ish is probably a pretty good guess. 

Anyway, Mitch loved Europe so much when we were there that he decided to go back...

(Pardon his phone pictures...)

First he went to Luxembourg.  (Who goes to Luxembourg??)

Mitch actually went to church in Luxembourg.  It was a French speaking ward, so he had to listen to it translated on a set of headphones.  But he really liked the ward.  

Everything in Luxembourg is suuuuper expensive though, so I guess we won't be moving there anytime soon. 

And then he went to Scotland.  

(I have no idea what order these are in because I wasn't there.)

(Gotta love the bagpipe guy.  What else would you expect from Scotland?)

(This one came out really dark, but it's the one where Mitch saw the Queen.)

He wasn't there on vacation though.  He went for "work."

A couple of weeks later he went to Asia.  

Mitch said Asia was ridiculously hot and sticky.  He said it was the worst heat and humidity combination he has ever been in.  And he said the people there drive like fish.  If there was room, they drove in it. A three lane highway was five lanes in China.  Plus there were scooters weaving in and out of everyone else.  And if you were doing something semi-questionable, you would just honk your horn while you did it.  I probably would have died.

These are from Beijing:

 And this one is Tokyo...

Mitch actually really liked Tokyo.  He said the people were super friendly and there was tons of stuff going on.  And the food in Tokyo was better than the food in China.  We've decided that Mitch likes American Chinese food, not authentic Chinese food.

 Oh, and another Beijing.

Mitch also went to Hong Kong and Shenzhen, but I guess he didn't get pictures of those.

I covet Mitch's new visas in his passport.  They're beautiful.  He also got one for Brazil, but they didn't end up going there.  At least they made it to Asia though.  Mitch has been wanting to go to China since before we got married.  Now, after one work trip to Asia, it's out of his system.  (Oh, Mitch says it's not quite out of his system because he didn't get to see anything.  But I think going back is further down on his list than it used to be.  I'll take it.)