2013.

The midnight hour is fast approaching and it is time for my annual summary-of-the-past-year blog post. To be completely honest, I've been dreading this all week. I normally really look forward to it, and it's not like I feel that I have to do it or anything (obviously I feel zero obligation, since I've somehow managed to completely ignore my blog for over 2 months now - yikes!!), but I know that later on down the road, I will appreciate having this post as a concise way to look back on this year. Besides, I'm hoping that this little recap will help me to realize that maybe, just maybe, 2013 wasn't the total disappointment that I currently feel it was (I shouldn't say "total" disappointment -- I can definitely think of a couple incredible highlights). Ha! Is this going to be fun, or what?! I know, I'm just a barrel of laughs these days.

The better portion of the first half of 2013 was spent hating my job (again? what?? Nasty pattern I seem to have fallen into...) and counting down the days to summer break. I had many long days at school and did my best to combat the exhaustion and impending depression by taking zumba classes 3 days a week, and sharing the occasional Chipotle burrito with Steven. I did some really cool projects with my kids including painting portraits of the presidents, which were proudly displayed out in the hallway during the month of February. And I planned the best ever 100th Day of School festivities. Events and bulletin boards are the most fun, even if they do wear me out. Steven and I had a truly incredible Valentine's Day - Cirque du Soleil style!! We became friends with our next door neighbors, Canyon & Andrea. It's so fun reading back over my one-line-a-day journal and seeing all of the times that we had dinner or watched football games together. We even went on a double-date to a movie once, but it might not happen again because we saw The Hobbit and Andrea is still complaining about it ;) We had some new neighbors move in across the street last winter and we hope to continue to get to know Jeff & Erin better in this new year. Steven rocked the Stairclimb this year -- came in 56 out of 1500 with a time of 14 minutes 48 seconds!! Since he was also a top fundraiser, we had the pleasure of attending a special ceremony in April -- it made us proud to support the LLS. 2013 was positively full of sunshine, which made me a very happy lady. We took a trip up Mt. Si on one glorious 70+ degree day in March and we made it to the top in just 2 hours. That's probably twice as fast as the last time we did that hike (Thanksgiving week the first year we were dating -- 6 years ago!), which made me feel really good about myself. Thank you, Zumba!! Spring break -- we wanted more sunshine but couldn't quite afford the heat to go with it, so we ended up in Whitefish, Montana at our timeshare for a few days. Montana is beautiful!! We saw a bit of Glacier NP, played loads of boardgames, enjoyed the wood burning fire place, and I surprised Steven with a rock climbing outing as an early birthday gift. I'm so brave! I never want to do it again. I made my first ever quilt as a gift for a coworker, and then my second and third quilts later in the summer -- lots of work but so rewarding! First week of June, I became a licensed Zumba instructor (who would have ever thought?), and quit my job - Praise the Lord!!! Such a relief, though my heart broke when a few of my favorite students started crying when I told them the news. My mom got a puppy and moved back into my childhood home (crazy!). I taught a cooking group this summer and had many kitchen adventures including baklava, gnocchi, and churros! Highlight of the year: our Big Trip!! A full month of travel: London, Oslo, Madrid, Barcelona, Birmingham, and then a transatlantic cruise from England to Boston with stops in France, Ireland (Cobh & Dublin), The Faroe Islands, and Iceland. AND we got to visit so many friends! We came back refreshed and excited to start the next phase of life: baby making. Eeeeee!! I've only been waiting for this phase my entire life. Since I didn't have a job when we got back from our trip, Uncle Barry hired me as his personal assistant/organizer/life-coordinator. It has been such a blessing to have part time employment/a little extra income. I cut my hair really short (love it, but miss my long locks). We finally got to attend a bottling party at the Woodinville Whiskey Company in the fall (fun!). Then had some shocking news in the first week of November when the levy failed and we found out that Steven will be getting laid off. It felt like the end of the world, though we're certain it's a blessing in disguise. Just can't believe we're back to square one again. I started teaching zumba classes - that makes me a dance fitness instructor (still seems so weird to me but I love it). At the beginning of December we received the best possible news - I was pregnant. I have never been happier in my entire life and was so excited to tell Steven that he was going to become a daddy. Our joy came to an abrupt and tearful end when we lost the baby the week before Christmas. So here we are. Reeling from the grief of a miscarriage and facing a layoff at the end of January. Yes, it was a great year, and there are many happy memories to look back on, but the thing I was most excited for in 2013 was becoming pregnant, and here I am at the turn of the new year with an empty uterus and a broken heart. Thank God for my amazing husband, and for the security I find in our loving relationship even when nothing else in my life is certain. Here's to hoping we find our happily-ever-after in 2014.

Cheers.

London Bound.

Our big trip had been in the works since Spring of 2011. That March, I booked a transatlantic cruise for Steven and I that would leave from England at the end of August 2012 and arrive in Boston 15 days later. But then Steven got hired by the fire department that summer and, knowing that he wouldn't be able to get the time off work, we postponed the trip to 2013. Even as Christmas 2012 turned into New Years 2013, our travel plans were still up in the air. We didn't know what my schedule would be like in regards to work or if Steven would be able to get all of the time off we needed etc. But, we decided to move forward anyway and in January, we took advantage of an awesome deal and purchased one-way flights from Seattle to London leaving August 19th. We were so excited to finally be on our way!

Over the next few months, we slowly connected with all of the people we wanted to see while we were traveling, and we started working out the details for the 11 days we would have between leaving home and boarding the cruise ship in Harwich, England on Saturday, August 31st. Everyone kept asking me who organized the trip and what company we used... um... I organized the trip. All 7 flights with boats, metros, buses, and trains in between. If you know me at all, you know that I thoroughly enjoyed every part of the planning process. Maybe I should be a travel agent.

The trip seemed like a dream in our very distant future and didn't register as reality at all until Tara dropped us off at the airport. It just snuck up on us! I couldn't believe we were on our way, with passports in hand, and wouldn't be returning until a month later.

Flying through the night is never my favorite thing but we entertained ourselves with movies. Lots of movies. Steven kept making fun of me because I wanted to watch the same thing at the same time on our little personal screens. We watched a couple of movies together, including Argo, but then he started watching some awful film with Jim Carrey and Steve Carell and I gave up about 15 minutes into it.

After a quick stop in Iceland, we boarded another plane and less than two hours later, we were in London.

I. Love. London. And I particularly like Victoria Station because it is one of the first areas of London that I ever became familiar with. It definitely has a homey feeling for me and we couldn't have been happier to be there. London is the one place we actually feel comfortable and confident getting around on our own, so, like the expert Londoners that we are, we grabbed our Oysters cards and boarded the Tube to Bayswater where we alighted and walked a few blocks to our Notting Hill Hotel. 

The moment we glimpsed our tiny hotel room (city life!) we dropped our bags and made a B line for the pub. Thank God for British fish and chips! And malt vinegar. And hard cider.

Notting Hill is a really cute area and we were so happy to be outside and enjoying our second favorite city (Seattle is first, of course) that we decided to just take our time walking around the neighborhood.

 Hilarious.

Earlier in the summer I contacted the family that I used to live with in Virginia Water (when I was an au pair 4 years ago) to let them know that I would be in town. The dad and his wife are currently living in Zurich -- Steven and I were so bummed that we couldn't fit Zurich into our travel plans! -- but the girls are living with their mom in Kew, just outside of London. Lauren seemed really glad to hear that we would be visiting and said she would meet us in Notting Hill for coffee. I was so exited!! I can't believe how grown up she is. She came walking up to our hotel gorgeously tan, in this posh little white outfit. Not the same girl I used to make dinner for and watch Friends with a few years back! She's going to University this year!! We had a lovely time talking with her and I sincerely hope that she comes to visit us sometime. I hope we always stay in touch to some extent. She's such a sweetheart.


We did not adjust to the time change very well, which was a bit of a surprise to me since I usually don't have much of a problem with it. It's all my husband's fault for falling asleep at 7pm on our first night there (of course, he would tell you it was my fault for leaving him alone for 5 minutes while I insisted on taking a shower -- I should have dragged him out of bed). My least favorite part (slash, the funniest part) was when I heard him roll over in the middle of the night and say, "What time is it?" "12:15" I responded. "Aw, man. I was really hoping I'd sleep longer than that..." said my dear sweet husband, "Well, hopefully you will," suggested his less sweet wife. "Oh, I don't think so..." Oh dear. We ended up watching late night/early morning British TV (freaking hilarious! Loved the Buzzcocks show) from 1am until 5:30am, and just when I could see the sky brightening and felt like it would be okay if we got up and found a coffee shop, we both fell back to sleep. When we woke up at 11:00am I kind of freaked out because I couldn't believe that we were sleeping away our one full day in London. We were out the door and sitting at the pub within 30 minutes. Good thing we slept until lunch time so we could justify some more fried fish.

Once I got over the unexpected lie-in and calmed down a bit, I melted into a state of pure bliss. I was enjoying a gorgeous sunny day sitting outside of a pub in London with my incredible husband on our third wedding anniversary! Eeeeee! Am I the luckiest ever, or what?!?! It was the best.

I made a reservation for us to have afternoon tea at the W Hotel as an anniversary treat. The last time we were in London we had tea at two different hotels and it was one of our favorite things to do together. And, oh my gosh is the W Hotel ever gorgeous! I hope that one day, maybe for a big anniversary down the road, we can stay in a nice hotel like that right in the middle of London for a few days.

This tea menu had a rock'n'roll theme, I'm guessing because that's the theme of the hotel. Most of the food was tasty, but there was certainly a lot of it, as always. We made sure to at least have a bite of everything. Steven's tea was amazing! Grapefruit vanilla by Harney & Sons. I need to get on Amazon and order some.

Before going into the hotel we noticed this little gem down the street...

M & Ms World, London style. Four floors of M & Ms candy and merchandise and general silliness.

I think we enjoyed the portraits the most but there were some really fun t-shirts too. We didn't buy any though. 

And look who we found in London. I believe Erica is on her way back to the States this week as she just finished up her masters program at the end of last month. We got to see Erica a few different times on this trip and she was kind enough to let us drop off our gigantic luggage at her flat so that we didn't have to lug it all over Europe. Erica was living near to Regents Park so we spent the afternoon walking through the park and catching up with one another.

My husband climbing in the public art.

So cute. 

Some cool spiral stairs in the cafe building in the middle of the park.

Panoramic photo from the top of Primrose Hill. The weather was gorgeous!

Erica is such a city girl! She fits right in and it was fun to see where she lives and hear all about what she's been up to this past year.

To finish off the best anniversary we've had yet, we saw We Will Rock You at the Dominion. It was awesome! We LOVE Queen and this is the show that initially got me into Queen when I saw it by myself one evening in London back in 2009. It has the most ridiculous plot line but, of course, the music is phenomenal and we laughed a lot. What a great way to end the evening! We snagged some fish & chips on the way back to the hotel :)

Day 2 in London: we found the fire station. Well, one of them anyway. Steven brought a few Enumclaw FD t-shirts with him so that he could do shirt trades with firefighters in the countries we visited. He is now the proud own of a London Fire Brigade t-shirt. He got to visit with one of the firefighters for quite a while. He showed Steven the truck and all of the tools. It was interesting to listen to/watch.

We walked back to our hotel from Kensington High Street. It was beginning to rain but it was still warm and it was a lovely walk back through Kensington Gardens to Notting Hill.

We had lunch with Erica that afternoon and then spent the rest of the day seeing as much of London as we could before catching our 8 o'clock plane to Oslo. The only thing that was really important to us was that we got to walk along the river and see the Parliament buildings. We just love the view. And the clouds made for some really nice photos too.

Pigeon photo bomb. Turned out pretty awesome, actually.

Puddle reflection.

Best. View. Ever. Handsome husband with the Parliament Buildings.

I want this on my wall.

We knew the instant we arrived in London that we weren't going to have enough time there and as we were leaving, I just kept thinking how I couldn't believe that we hadn't planned more time to stay there. But, this wasn't a London trip, it was a see-as-many-people-and-places-as-we-can trip and if we had stayed longer in London, we would have missed out on something else.

Did I say that I was breaking this up into one post per place to keep the posts short? That obviously wasn't true. Not true at all. I guess I broke them up so that I wouldn't have to keep them short and so that I could include as many photos from each place as I wanted to. Iceland is going to be the worst... I think we took a good 600 photos there in just two short days. Oh well. We'll deal with that when we get there. 

Norway, here we come!

Our Big Trip.

Okay, so obviously the task of blogging about our amazing vacation is far too daunting. I've managed to procrastinate for over a month now. But I think about it almost daily and I really do want to share our adventures with you. Over the course of 32 days we traveled through 7 different countries including 13 cities, not including the beautiful states of Massachusetts and Maine, which we visited upon returning to the States. We saw so many wonderful people and took hundreds of fabulous photos and I know you're just dying to read all about it, right??? Well, whether you are or not, I need to document it for myself. I've decided to just take it in little pieces. I will do separate blog posts for each place we visited. That way I can just focus on bits of our trip at a time. It will be easier for me to choose photos and will keep me from writing a horrendously long blog post about our month long vacation that would take you five and a half hours to read. I can't wait to relive it all and I hope you enjoy taking the journey with me.

To see a larger version of this map click here.

Summer Stuff.

Well, we all know how I like for everything to have it's place and to be in it, so though I am dying to blog about our trip, I just can't bring myself to post things unchronologically (not actually a word, but I just made it one), and there are summer photos that simply must be posted first. So here they are, real quick like. I'll keep the descriptions to a minimum.

At the beginning of the summer, Scott and Kristen came up for a weekend to help us with a couple of home improvement projects.

We really wanted a granite bar out on our balcony. I was sure this was going to be a ridiculously expensive project but with Scott's expertise and trunk full of tools, it really wasn't bad at all. They found this 7 foot slap of granite for only $100 and the color matches our house perfectly!

The boys also installed a sink and cabinet in our laundry room, which looks great.

It looks AWESOME!! Now if only we could afford the barstools to sit at it...

I learned how to make baklava this summer thanks to my sister Amanda.

She requested it for a fundraising event before her trip to the Middle East this summer. She's been working on a documentary for a while now. See more here: http://withinbrokenborders.com/theyshallbecalled

I didn't even know that I liked baklava until I made it. It was incredible!! Steven asks for it on a weekly basis though I haven't made it since then.

Steven and I started doing a little picnicking this summer. We found that Lake Wilderness is a lovely, quiet spot to spend the sunny afternoons and enjoyed driving over there with snacks, our cribbage board, and a huge jar of homemade iced tea.

I hosted/taught a cooking class this summer. It was a growth group for our church and also kind of an experiment for me since I do want to actually start teaching cooking classes. It was a great experience. I learned a lot and, fortunately, so did my students! It was a very rewarding growth group. The only problem was that we had such a fabulous summer here in Seattle. I had to host my group in 90+ degree weather on more than one occasion, which is what sparked dishes like this one -- Sesame peanut noodles: no oven necessary, can be prepped ahead and served cold. Yum. We make these noodles frequently.

 We went swing dancing with Tim and Annika one night and had such an amazing time!

My goodness are we out of shape though. We were sweaty and exhausted less than halfway through the evening.

My mom got a puppy for her birthday. His name is Jameson and he is stinking adorable. And crazy. I don't ever want a puppy! Way too much work. He's awesome though.

Steven loves him. It's the cutest thing.

We also hosted a movies-in-the-park group with church this summer. We ended up skipping most of the movies and just having potlucks instead.

Paige stopped by for a quick visit over her cousin's wedding weekend at the end of July -- always a treat to see her!

And I learned how to make sweet potato gnocchi. With a sage butter sauce. I could eat this every day.

We celebrated Heather's 30th birthday with a Woodinville tasting tour that included Project V (Chai Vodka), Mac & Jack's, Woodinville Whiskey Company (the best bourbon, and vanilla vodka), Redhook, Sky River (mead -- we love honey!), and Silver Lake Winery. It was such a fun day!!

I learned how to char peppers -- not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. Just remember to wear gloves when you actually skin the peppers.

Lena and Aaron moved to Iowa for med school and it was the saddest but we're super excited for them. Lena and I did take advantage of the nice weather just before she left and walked around Greenlake together. We even stopped at Chocolati for a treat.

I discovered a recipe for browned butter sugar cookies. Speechless. I can't even describe to you how life changing this was. They're the best.

I also made crab cakes for the first time -- awesome! A little chipotle lime aioli, cheddar biscuits and some steamed green beans. Yum.

I also spent many MANY hours helping my mom move out of her condo and back into my childhood home.

This would have been much easier without the puppy, but he did make everything more entertaining.

Here's Jameson with his daddy, Guinness. They both love to ride in the car. In fact, Guinness was so freaked out about the move that we often could not get him out of the car.

I spent my 26th birthday being pampered by my amazing husband. Out to breakfast, new backpack at REI, a walk downtown, lunch at Red Robin, See's chocolates on the way home and P.F. Chang's for dinner. Um, we like food. A lot.

Steven worked at the Creation Festival one day this summer and got to hangout backstage while Audio Adrenaline performed -- pretty awesome!

Hilde came to visit! We just love having her around!! She and I picked blackberries and made ice cream with them.

Packing, oiy. This took DAYS and I was actually really stressed about it. I wanted to be able to pack everything I needed without overpacking. It was very tricky and I'm not entirely sure that I succeeded but it all worked out okay.

And then the quilt. I decided months ago that I was going to make a quilt as a wedding gift for our friends Laura and Alex. We couldn't attend their wedding this summer because it was about a month before our big trip and we simply couldn't justify the extra trip to England. Anyhow, in my usual procrastination fashion, I waited to start this quilt until about two weeks before we needed to leave. It was a mad dash to the end but it all got done. This quilt was much larger and more complicated than I had originally anticipated but turned out beautifully.

Pink with just a bit of green -- Laura and Alex's wedding colors.

Three different pink fabrics. This chevron quilt is made out of triangles, which are beyond obnoxious to work with. It has a green border and green binding and green flannel on the back.

And the day before our big trip, we celebrated our third anniversary a few days early with Mom and Tara at Purple.

Phew! I can't believe what an incredible summer we had and that I still have a month-long vacation to blog about!! It is going to be so ridiculously hard for me to choose which photos to post so this may take a few days but I'm excited to start working on it!