exploring our local parks

this gorgeous spring-like weather (we're almost there!) has prompted a couple of recent visits to nearby parks. according to seattle parks and recreation, there are over 400 parks and over 6200 acres of park land within seattle city limits.

last weekend we visited magnuson park, seattle's second largest park at 300 acres. the land used to be a navy airfield, but is now a huge public park along the shore of lake washington. we only walked through a small part of this park, but had a great time exploring with the dogs. sammy and frankie were particularly interested in the wetland areas, full of old fallen logs and swimming ducks.

today, we took a very short drive over to gas works park on the northern shores of lake union. talk about spectacular views! the site of an old gas manufacturing plant, this 20 acre park is a photographer's dream- sea planes constantly taking off and landing, views of downtown, plenty of boats and nearby marinas, and the old rusted plant itself. i took plenty of pictures with my holga, but only managed to snap of couple of the dogs with my point and shoot. anthony got a couple with his blackberry, but you'll just have to come visit to see it for yourself!

i'm applying to a summer internship at the economic opportunity institute, which happens to be across the street from gas works. so, hopefully i'll be able to spend lots of lunch breaks strolling through the park and taking in the views.

stay tuned for spring in seattle!

p.s. i would like to note that while i typed up this post a man walked past my window with his cat on a harness and leash. that cat seemed pretty darn happy. wow.

february (plus the rest of january)

well, we've established that i'm terrible at keeping up with this. i have already failed to post at least once a month, which was my "roomy" goal. so, now it's march and i'm playing catch-up once again.

the most exciting thing in seattle is that spring has come early! the weather has been incredible and everything is just about in full bloom- daffodils, plum trees, hyacinth, apple blossoms, magnolias, dogwood, forsythia, crocuses, and everything else that screams spring. all of these images were taken around my house. the smell of the plum blossoms and hyacinth is divine. that, plus the smell of paseo's cuban pork sandwiches, makes our neighborhood smell irresistable! from what i can tell, the cherry blossoms are just getting started, but in another few weeks we'll have a spectacular show from the thousands of cherry trees around town.

visiting lilliana: at the end of january we headed down to austin, tx to meet my newest niece. she is absolutely precious and so, so beautiful. my sister is handling motherhood with grace and makes it look oh-so-easy. lilli is, well, perfect. she smiles and sticks her tongue out and wails and sighs and projectile vomits and does all those wonderful things that babies do. i am now receiving a picture for every day, and i'm amazed by how much she changes in such short spans of time. i am hoping to see her again this summer and can't believe she will be eating solid food and 10 lbs heavier by then.

back to denver: after about 6 months, we finally got back to denver for a short weekend visit. i was sorely disappointed by the cold and snowy weather, but i'm not sure why i expected anything else. it is the middle of winter afterall. it was great to see family and friends and we wished we had more time to visit with everyone. we celebrated my brother-in-law's birthday and chinese new year, and i got to spend some time with my sister before her move to japan. it was comforting to fall right back into much missed time with friends. i am looking forward to seeing you (you know who you are!) again in april.

for those of you following her story, kiyomi has arrived in matsusaka. it was a long trip involving a flight to san francisco, a 16-hour flight to tokyo, a bus ride to nagoya, a ferry to matsusaka and some form of transport to their temporary apartment. communication will be limited for the time-being, but i'm hoping she will contact our parents or update facebook occasionally.

at the seattle municipal court, i've gotten to be more involved with community court and evaluating clients for eligibility. it's been a nice change, but it's hard to fit it in with so many recent changes in the court resource center. we are having a lot of volunteer turnover, so it's essential that i am in the crc for most of my hours. this limits my abilitites to get to work in probation, but i'm hoping we'll have our new volunteers trained in the next few weeks.

my work with the the league of women voters of washington has slowed. we were able to release our second video: a balancing act. we are still hoping to put out a third video, but for now we are waiting for members to absorb all the information we've released for far.

evening shifts with reconnecting youth have shaken up my schedule a bit, but it's good to be finally getting paychecks again. small paychecks, but one of these days i'll get my credit card paid down.

interning with the voluntary committee of lawyers has been interesting thus far. a lot of computer research. i'm following bills through the legislative process, looking at state drug issues (in washington and beyond), researching state statutes, and examining international harm reduction research.

overall, this move finally feel real. it feels different. it feels good. the change in climate has completely changed my outlook on life. i simply hate winter. i hate the cold. i hate the snow, or even the threat of snow. i'm surprised that i don't mind the cloudiness in seattle a bit. cloudiness does not equal dreariness for me. because although it may be cloudy or drizzly, it's still green and above 35 degrees. i can handle cloudy. i cannot handle cold and snow and brown. the el nino winter in seattle has been so enjoyable, in fact, i have realized that life continues even through those 6 months of cold in colorado. one can, indeed, make plans for the future and enjoy her time throughout the months of october to april. and so, i have. we have made lots of plans for travel, including san francisco, denver, and the san juan islands. we still have plans pending for canada this summer and mexico this fall and of course our asian adventure next year.

and for now, i wait. i am waiting to hear back from uw about whether i can finish my msw here in seattle. i feel as though my entire fate rests in the hands of the admissions committee. dramatic yes, but consider this: our next steps in life hinge on "accepted" or "denied." even if i get waitlisted i will have significant, life-altering choices to make. if i get accepted we (or at least i) will most certainly stay in seattle through june 2011. if not, i have to decide whether to return to denver or stay and try a third time. i can hardly bear the the thought of leaving seattle so soon. du seems hardly worth it now that i've settled in here. but, i am anxious to finally get this degree! and so, we wait. part of me cannot see any reason why i wouldn't be accepted. but another part of me can't shake this feeling that it's not yet my time (or perhaps i will never have a time) at uw. that part scares me. that part makes me hope that i don't have intuition. because i know it's common sense that says i am an excellent applicant. but for now, i wait.

stay tuned for official spring updates!

new year, new niece!

Lilliana Elise Go was born 1.05.09 at 9:21pm to my beautiful sister in texas. she is 7lbs 6oz. isn't she a stunner?

at some point i'll get around to uploading my holiday pictures! i promise!

holidays in seattle

i feel like 2010 completely ambushed me! i had intended to write a christmas post before the whole new year thing, but alas, it just did not happen as i had hoped. and now it's almost february! at the moment i am waiting for the dishwasher repair person, so i figured i had better bang this thing out!

anthony's mom and brother came out for a few days over christmas. it was our first holiday season away from home, so it was particularly nice to have family visiting. we decided to test a new tradition and got chinese for dinner on christmas eve. we headed over to the eastside to szechuan chef in bellevue. it was busy! apparently it's a common tradition up here! we tried some new things, and overall the food was delicious.

i've learned the ballard locks are always open, so we took a stroll through the gardens and watched for boats on chirstmas day.

we also went the the crab pot again and got to visit the woodland park zoo. it was my first trip to the zoo, and i was pretty impressed with some of their exhibits. the wolves and bears were particularly awesome. unfortunately, my camera is not able to capture that level of awesomeness, so you'll just have to imagine or visit for yourself.



we spent nye 2010 at the seattle aquarium. i've been to the aquarium a number of times now, and it's always a good time. this party was o.k., but it was good to get out of the house and celebrate.





with the new year i decided to make some "soft" resolutions. the past few years i haven't made any at all, because i never remember what they were to begin with. this year i decided to "record myself" more often. i want to keep track of my life and remember the little things. so, i've decided to video record myself and blog once a month. i think once a month is reasonable, don't you? unrelated, i have also decided to try to read a book once a month (considering that i used to read 5 in a month, i feel i've got some wiggle room here) and go to a yoga class at least 3 times a month. with my recent vacation and other weekend plans, i don't think i'll make the yoga goal this month, but i've got 11 more chances to get on track. so, there they are. i've got them in writing. we'll check in on those in a few months. :)

the weather is finally starting to get to me. i thought i would manage to survive my first seattle winter unscathed, but the first couple of weeks of january were brutal! almost a week of rain (real pouring rain) and strong wind gusts that made use of an umbrella impossible. i've busted 3 umbrellas now. the amusing thing is that this has been one of the mildest winters they've had in seattle- ever. with record-breaking high temps, the weather patterns match those of late march/early april. that's depressing. however, the rain fall has been much higher than average, so at least i know it's not supposed to be quite this wet!

i now am interning with the voluntary committee of lawyers doing drug policy research, in addition to the league of women voters of washington. i'm still volunteering with the seattle municipal court and the planned parenthood action league. and, i finally got a job doing research with reconnecting youth through the university of washington. oh, and i submitted my application to the uw msw program. i'll let you know in a few months how that turns out.

stay tuned for my febraury round-up of life in seattle.

"celebrated chefs" of seattle

i hear there are amazing food tours of the city. (these are just a few: savor seattle, walking tours, seattle bites) i plan to try at least one, and perhaps many, depending on how long we stay in this fair city. i'm the foodie of my friends, so i'm not sure that we'll have any visitors requesting a food tour during their stay. that means anthony and i just may be on our own. oh darn! except, not really, because where there is good food there are happy people. and perhaps among those happy people we will find new friends, foodie friends.

case in point: when we went to cafe nordo we met a seattle native that had lived in many places beyond washington state, including japan. we told him we were looking for excellent asian food, and much to our delight he fervently spouted off a list of his recommendations. he also had recommendations for sandwich shops. and i'm sure he could give us a recommendation for just about anything food related. he has become our good food beacon.

anyways, back to food tours. several months ago, while my sister was visitng, we got brunch in west seattle. towards (what's the difference between toward and towards?) the end of the meal the server came over with a cookbook and an offer. offer: give them our credit card #, keep the cookbook (free), every time we dine at a restaurant in the book and use the card, 5% of our bill goes to charity. seriously? yep, no catch. seriously. so, we opted in, and then quickly forgot about it. until we dined at ray's cafe. we noticed the donation on our account register and decided we had better take a list at the list again. the program is called "celebrated chefs," and if you're visiting seattle, it's worth checking out. if you're visiting us, definitely let us know if there are any you want to try!

the restaurants are all over the city, the eastside and elsewhere, including whidbey island. these are the restaurants on the list that we've hit so far:

seastar in south lake union: see my "review" here.

ray's cafe in ballard: we went here expecting amazing seafood and were sorely disappointed. to be clear, ray's cafe is the cheaper version of ray's boathouse. ray's boathouse is supposedly obscenely expensive, but i'd say the cafe is way overpriced for the (lack of ) quality of food they serve. i'm still hoping to try ray's boathouse one of these days!

poppy in capitol hill: poppy is an example of the latest seattle restaurant to be over-hyped. i was psyched to try this restaurant and found a great opportunity while my parents were visiting from denver (my dad loves going to new and different restaurants too). the concept is 10 small plates on one larger plate- all per person. they do have some smaller options with only 6 or 7 small plates. the presentation was fantastic. such a clever concept, and i cannot imagine how much work goes into each and every plate. the taste was a mixed bag. a couple of the dishes were absolutely incredible, but many of them were over-worked (concepts taken too far). please note: i am not expert, have no professional food experience, nor am i food critic. as such, take my "reviews" with a grain of salt.

tidbit bistro in capitol hill: another mixed-bag with this one. our meal began with a bang, but devolved with each course. this is a restaurant will won't hit again.

ponti seafood grill in fremont/queen anne: this restaurant was incredible! we went here with our friends nick and manda while they were visiting. it was pretty expensive, but all of us thoroughly enjoyed our meals. although it's a seafood restaurant, i ordered a steak. it was the best steak i can remember having ever eaten. note: do not order the spanish coffee. waaaay too much bacardi 151.

nell's in greenlake: nell's is another place we visited with my parents. small, quiet and typical seattle fare. fresh vegetables paired with twists on classic recipes. good food, but a touch stuffy. perhaps a good one to try again in the summer.