Summer in Seattle 2016

I wasn’t sure how my blogging would change once we moved to Seattle last fall. (Can’t believe it’s almost been a year already!) But I basically went exploring and stopped blogging completely. But once you see what I’ve been up to, hopefully you’ll understand. I thought it’d be easiest if I just did a recap of my summer and go from there. This has been one of the busiest and best summers of my life. So much beautiful scenery and so many visitors.

June

On my Getting Out More Often post I mentioned that I had signed up for a yoga class at the Chihuly Glass Museum and it was so pretty. It was my first time to the museum and I can’t wait to go back.

In early June one of our best friends from Chicago, Ryan came to town and we went on a gorgeous hike called Lake Twenty Two.

I went to California two weekends in a row to visit my family and old roommates. 

Gretchen, one of my good friends from home, who now lives in Seattle too, we went to my first Mariners game. And yes of course I wore my Chicago Cubs shirt! 😉

July

We spent July 4th on a boat in South Lake Union with some of our best friends. We are beyond lucky to have so many good friends here.

Kathleen and Greg drove through Seattle on a road trip and we all went to dinner together. It’s been years since we have all been in the same city.

We went camping on Second Beach on the Western coast of Washington with our friends Kate and Hayes.

We went to the lavender fields in Sequim, which smelled so good.

Took Gretchen and Kristina camping for their first time ever at the beautiful Diablo Lake. Yes the water really is that color!

August

My mom and sister came to visit for a few days and we did some sight seeing.

Dave and I flew home to Chicago to surprise one of my best friends,  Melissa for her birthday. Vi and I spent the day being tourists in our own city and it was so much fun!

We hung out on the Chicago River near the Marina towers and it was a beautiful Chicago summer day. These are my people and I love them. Melissa and Vi are my 2 best friends and I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that we were all together.

One weekend we’re in the Chicago and the next weekend we were camping at Rainier National Park. Isn’t life grand?

Another thing on my bucket list for the summer was to go to a Sounder game. It was my first professional soccer game and it was great! So much energy and so many enthusiastic fans.

One of my favorite weekends of the entire summer was getting a cabin near Mount Baker. We played games, laughed so hard we cried, hiked, saw huge mountains and a beautiful lake with a side of pizza and bacon.

September

This past Labor Day weekend we went to the East Coast in Maryland for our friends’ wedding. We used to live in Washington DC and Los Angeles at the same time as them.

Dave and I drove down to DC for a few hours and visited our old apartment, and walked part of the National Mall. Can you tell how happy I was? 🙂 DC was the first place we moved outside of Chicago and it holds a lot of wonderful memories for us.

Our life is full of friends, family, adventures, and travels and we couldn’t be happier and we wouldn’t have it any other way!

I want to try and start blogging again but my track record the last few months hasn’t really been too promising, so I won’t get ahead of myself. I’ll just do what I can.

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Another Weekend Recap

This past weekend we had more visitors staying with us.

When we lived in LA, our friends Erin and Richard lived on the East Side of LA. We hung out all the time on hikes, camping, dinner parties, etc. We also lived down the block from them when we lived in Washington DC. So it was so much fun to have them staying with us in Seattle. It was Richard’s first time in Seattle, and Erin hasn’t been in a few years. It was so fun to do touristy things together.

Friday

We went to the Pike’s Place market downtown and went on an eating tour. We ate pastries at Pirosky Pirosky, biscuits, bacon donuts (yes you read that right!) and mac and cheese from Beecher’s. It was glorious and mostly delicious. My favorite was the bacon donut.

I love this map showing where people come from to see the infamous Pike’s Place. I work in walking distance from the market and I love walking around and realizing I live in such a cool city.

Richard really enjoyed the gum wall. I love going back periodically to see the progress of the wall. It’s definitely being built back up but it is still bare in other sections.

We stopped by Gas Works Park to catch a view of Seattle.

We visited the Fremont Troll and Dave didn’t give me the “we are doing our jump pic” memo 🙂 Since moving here I haven’t visited the Troll.

That night we had a cheese plate and fruit and played Cranium, trivia, and shuffleboard at a local bar. 

Saturday

We went for scrumptious burritos from TNT Taqueria that we love so much. Fuel for our Rattlesnake Ledge hike (yes I did the hike and Snoqualmie Falls two weekends in the row. #Seattleproblems) and followed up our adventures with ice cream at the Bluebird Cafe which was really good! That night we went to dinner and drinks in Capitol Hill.

Sunday

We had brunch and met one of Richard’s friends that used to live in LA. Then we walked about the farmer’s market, and walked through a park because it was so nice out.

After our friends took off we headed to Gig Harbor to watch the Super Bowl with our other friends. They just moved into their place so we had a fun picnic on the floor, because they’re still in the process of moving and unpacking.

I also loved this pic I found on the internet because guacamole 😉

It was another great weekend with friends and it’s so fun to show off our new city.
Linking Up today with:

Four Facts Survey

Thanks Lauren for nominating me for the Four Fact Survey. It’s a fun little way to get to know other bloggers.

Four names that people call me other than my real name:

1. Jules
2. BF (Melissa, one of my best friends and I call each other BF)
3. woman (Vi, my other best friend and I call each other woman for some reason and it stuck)
4. Ju-Ju

Four jobs I’ve had:

1. Nanny
2. Vietnamese Translator
3. Registration Coordinator
4. Retail at Wet Seal and Aeropostale (my first jobs!)

Four movies I’ve watched more than once:

1. Miss Congeniality
2. Home Alone
3. Mean Girls
4. My Best Friend’s Wedding

Four books I’d recommend: 

1. The Lost Girls
2. Wild
3. What Remains
4. Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me?

Four places I’ve lived:

1. Chicago
2. Washington DC
3. Santa Monica
4. Seattle

Four places I’ve visited:

1. Togo, Africa
2. Denali National Park, Alaska
3. Maroon Bells, Colorado
4. Vietnam

Four places I’d rather be right now:

1. At home in Chicago/Atlanta/California with our nearest and dearest
2. in the mountains hiking and camping
3. on the plane traveling to somewhere cool
4. reading in a cozy nook, drinking some tea

Four things I prefer not to eat:

1. sardines
2. anchovies
3. mayonnaise
4. tuna

Four of my favorite foods:

1. mangoes
2. berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries)
3. biscuits
4. Mediterranean food

Four TV shows I watch:

1. The Mindy Project
2. The Bachelor
3. 2 Broke Girls
4. Master of None

Four things I’m looking forward to this year:

1. Spring/Summer in Seattle (hiking, camping, stand up paddle boarding, kayaking, island hopping etc)
2. Family and friends coming to visit us here
3. Wedding Festivities for my bestie Vi
4. Our friend’s wedding in Bend, Oregon

Four things I’m always saying:

1. That’s hilarious!
2. Where are you from?
3. Chicago (I get made fun of for my Chicagoan accent all.day.long)
4. I love you.

Four people I tag to answer these questions:

1. Katie
2. Mattie
3. Molly
4. Alexandra

Happy Tuesday everyone!

What’s Up Wednesday

Linking up today with Shay for What’s Up Wednesday. I answered a few of the questions:

Eating This Week:

This week my friend is staying with me and it’s so nice to have some girl time. We had her work friend over last Friday and we made guac and a salad bar and watched our favorite episodes of Friends. It was perfect 🙂 We have a bunch of leftover salad to eat this week and a Blue Apron meal of salmon.

Reminiscing About:

So before we moved to Seattle, we went on a big trip to Zion National Park in Utah with my brother, his fiance, and my best friend and her husband. We went sightseeing, hiking, and camped. One of these days I will blog about our amazing road trip.

I’m Loving:

Living in Seattle. I’m so happy here. We have good friends (another couple we are friends with who are from Chicago are moving here next month! That makes 8 of our friends here Chicagoans!) and there are a ton of things to do and see. We have a running bucket list of things to do in Seattle and the surrounding areas. That’s another blog for another day. 🙂

What I’m Dreading:

As glad as I am to be getting my health in order with all my upcoming doctor appointments, it still makes me nervous. I get a pit in my stomach while sitting in the waiting rooms. So much could be going on within my body and it always makes me nervous until I get the all clear from the doctors. I don’t do well with medical stuff.

What I’m Listening to:

I’m currently obsessed with a few country songs this week:

Run Away With You – Big & Rich

Heartbeat – Carrie Underwood

Thunder – Adam Sanders

Break Up in a Small Town- Sam Hunt

What I’m Watching:

I can’t remember if I’ve written about Aziz Ansari’s new show: Master of None. It’s on Netflix. It is hilarious and so well written! It’s set in New York in actual locations and not on a sound stage like a lot of other sitcom shows. It’s also super relate-able with my age group with our friends having babies, being in relationships, divorce, and appreciating our parents.

I’ve told multiple friends about it and they all binged watched it like we did. We watched all 10 episodes in 2 days. It’s gotten rave reviews and everyone is talking about it. It’s one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long, long time. Dave and I can’t wait for season 2. You can thank me later. 😉

What I’m Looking Forward to Next Month:

So much is going on next month and I’m so excited! I love having things to look forward to.

• The first weekend in February our friends Erin and Richard, who live in LA, are coming to visit us! We used to hang out with them all time when we lived in LA and we really miss them. It will be great to catch up and show them around our new state.
• The Super Bowl is always fun to watch. Two years ago we watched the Super Bowl in Venice Beach, and last year we watched it in Orange County with our roomies. And both years I wore my Bears jersey. 🙂 I will always root for the Bears no matter how bad they are. (The last time they won the Super Bowl was before I was born in 1985!)
• My friend Mich is coming to town and I’m really looking forward to catching up with him and meeting his wife and kids. I haven’t seen Mich since our big trip to Togo in May 2014.
• My brother, his fiance, Dave and I are going to visit our dad and stepmom in Georgia! It’s been a long time since we’ve all 6 been together (I think the last time was when we moved to California in October 2013) so I’m really excited to get the band back together. Haha.
• I’m also really excited for Fuller House at the end of the month, and the Oscars. I love seeing what everyone is wearing.

 

 

Weekend Recap

I had the best weekend filled with friends, a Seattle Tour, games, cookies, and a snow adventure.

Friday I worked from home (such a nice perk of work!) and Dave and I went to see our mortgage broker. And since our realtor is Jason Mesnick he referred us to his friend Chris Siegfried.

Never did I think moving to Seattle that I’d be in contact with Bachelor alum, but it’s been awesome! (I’m a huge bachelor nerd so I try really hard to keep my cool and not be a fangirl even though I totally am!) Chris is super friendly and knows what he’s talking about when it comes to financing our future house. I’d highly recommend him as well.

After our meeting, Dave and I laid low, ordered pasta and watched our shows. We wanted to go out but were feeling lazy. We had plans the rest of the weekend so we decided to stay home that night.

Saturday We’ve been on the market for a new place on and off since September. We have a 6  month rental currently that is coming up in March. so we are looking more and more now. (Still can’t believe sometimes that it’s January 2016!)

A few days earlier in the week, our friends invited us to go snowshoeing, but we haven’t bought our own pairs yet, so we had to go rent them at Sports Authority. REI has 200 pairs but they were all out! So I looked up where else we could rent from, and Sports Authority came up. We had to go to two different locations since it’s first come first serve. After we secured our 3 pairs, we headed back to our neck of the woods to go to 4 different open houses.

We found place we liked, but didn’t love. The house hunting process is pretty exhausting. It’s so hard to picture yourself in certain places and have a pro and con list for each. Does this busy street bother us? Can we live with one bathroom? Do we want a yard? Do we want a fixer upper or a turn key house? So many questions and decisions! #firstworldproblems #adultproblems

After our open houses we had plans with Katie and her husband Justin to hang out. So they met at our house and because it was a beautiful sunny Seattle day, we decided to head to Lincoln Park and walk around. I love, love, love this park. It’s so pretty, peaceful, and a great view of the mountains and the Sound.

Katie has become such a great friend to me ever since we moved up here. She single handedly got me a job and in spending 8 hours a day together, 5 days a week, we’ve gotten to know each other really well. 🙂 And we’re really lucky. I know spending that much time together can go one of two ways. So I’m super grateful and glad we like each other so much. 

After going for a walk and skipping rocks, we headed into the city. For Christmas Katie got Dave and I a Groupon for a Underground Seattle tour. I didn’t take any pictures because it was pretty dark underground, but it was really cool and informative. I had no idea there were so many old first levels of buildings, where the sidewalks used to be.

After our tour, we went to cow chip cookies which were delicious. I have never heard of them, but Katie said she used to get them all the time as a kid.

After cookies and dessert before dinner, we went to eat at Elliot Bay in West Seattle which was my first time there and it was good. Then we went to a bar that allows you to bring games to. They also have shuffleboard, which is always fun. The 4 of us played Cranium and Heads Up. Game night are always fun! 🙂 What are your favorite board games?

Sunday our friends met at our house and we headed toward Snoqualmie to go snowshoeing. We are starting our new year active, since we went snowshoeing over New Year’s Eve weekend too. ( I will blog about that another day.) We drove to the Alpental skiing area and headed towards Source Lake.  I love this little bridge that leads to the skiing area.

Our friends Denny and Sarah have done this hike before so they lead the way. It was so pretty to see the trees and the ground covered in snow. It felt like being in a real life snow globe. 

A pic of the girls. If you guys remember a little while back I mentioned my friend Gretchen (on the left of me) moved up to Seattle two weeks before me and we’ve had so many fun adventures since. She and I went to junior high and high school together. It’s so fun to be here with her and appreciate all the amazing things there are to do and see here.

Sarah, on my right, is our friend who is also from Chicago. She is married to Dave’s childhood friend Denny. This is our first outdoor adventure with them since we’ve moved here.

I can’t say it enough how wonderful having friends has made the move seamless. It’s been so awesome to have Chicago friends who we have a shared history with, but are also getting to make new memories with.

If you look closely you can see behind us is a little waterfall with water that was still streaming and not freezing! 

Most of the hike was level and not scary. There was just this one section that was a little dicey. It was super steep and you really had to kick in the toe of the snowshoe to get good traction. Here Gretchen and I are climbing uphill.

But we at the top of that hill we were rewarded with an amazing view. We took this adorable group pic. 🙂

We hike a little further and sat down and had lunch. Cheese, cracker, salami, strawberries and raspberries, and pretzels. It was delightful.

The fun thing about snowshoeing is that you can forge your own path and go off the beaten path to really beautiful, remote places. It was so cool to be surrounded by the snow and be in a ‘white out.’ The snow was so pure and untouched in some areas. I absolutely love being able to go on little weekend adventures in the wilderness, then I don’t feel so sad when I’m at work all week in an office. It’s a delicate balance but one I’m happy to toe the line with. 

One week hiatus

I thought I’d be able to stay on top of blogging during the move and was doing pretty good for a few days there. Then we made the long drive over the weekend from LA to Seattle and now we are here in our new city finally! And we’ve been unpacking ever since. #movingisexhausting

Our incredibly thoughtful friends Kate and Hayes lent us their air mattress for our first night because we were exhausted from the drive and there was no way we could have unpacked the entire truck to get to our bed the first night we rolled in.

Yesterday was our first full day in Seattle and it was drizzling on and off. It was a perfect welcome to the city’s weather. We unloaded the entire truck in 2 1/2 hours and returned it a day early.

That night Hayes and Kate came over to see our place as well as our friend Gretchen. Gretchen and I have been friends since 7th grade and I couldn’t be happier that she and I now live in Seattle together. You will be hearing those 3 names a lot from here on out! 🙂 she was so sweet and brought us a housewarming gift of succulents! Those are the only things I can keep alive at the moment and I love the way they look.

In the picture above, that succulent was a going away present from our good friend Mason. I call him mason jar (mj for short) and bought him a mason jar a while back with his name on it. And on our last night in Cali he bought us that plant.

I of course already miss everyone in Cali, but I’m excited to start a new chapter in a new city! Please stay tuned and be patient while I take the next week to unpack and I’ll plan on continuing to blog next Monday November 2nd, which is Mattie and I’s link up date for your favorite thanksgiving traditions! See you soon friends!

Also if anyone would like to guest post this week, please let me know! Email me at Sayyestohappy@outlook.com. In the past I’ve had time to seek out bloggers to guest post for me but this move has rocked me and I’ve literally had no time.

Buried Under Boxes

So currently this is what our place looks like. 🙂 So you’ll excuse my absence from the blogging world lately. Thanks for still reading the blog, commenting, and your patience!

We’ve been packing nonstop since we got home late on Monday night. We get our Budget truck tomorrow morning and then hitting the road on Saturday morning. (eek!) 

Moving is, of course, bittersweet. My mom moved to Cali this past July and my brother and his fiancé live here, and our friends are here. We will of course miss them, but plan on coming back to visit. It’s a quick flight and the prices are pretty good too.  So yes we are saying goodbye to California but not forever.

We are super excited about our new home in Seattle and the outdoor lifestyle it offers. There are so many adventures we already have planned! And luckily we already have some friends up there already. Moving is exhausting but so worth it.

Our cat, Tiger, found a new spot to hang out in our now empty closet.

Seattle’s Space Needle

Yesterday I posted pictures of Seattle’s Pike Place Market and today I’m revisiting our tour of the Space Needle. It was the same day that we did both of these Seattle landmarks.

The view from up top was really pretty and the skyline actually reminded me a little bit of Chicago (minus the huge mountain in the back!)

 

Seattle is a gorgeous city and I think we’re making the right move 😉

Seattle’s Pike Place Market

So back in August of 2011 Dave and I were on one of road trips from Chicago to Seattle. It was my first time ever being in Seattle and it was bright and sunny. We went to Pike’s Place and Dave took awesome photos.

It’s fun to look back on these pictures now knowing that we are moving to Seattle this month. I never thought we would move here but we couldn’t be more excited to, life is funny and unpredictable that way. You never know where you are going to end up and you can’t imagine certain things happening until they do!

I’m a pretty practical person and I was never a huge fan on flowers because they don’t last very long, but the endless supply and display of flowers in this market is pretty! You can’t deny that.

Because it’s such a popular tourist spot it can get pretty crowded here.

After we walked around the market, we went across the street to none other than Starbucks. Seattleites love their coffee!

 

I love Pike’s Place and know we are going to take most of our visitors here. It’s such a pretty market and I love it.

Seattle House Hunting Trip Part 1

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a week now, but I’ve been buried in boxes, tape, newspapers and bubblewrap for the last few days. Better late than never, right?

So Saturday September 19th-22nd we were in Seattle with the main intention of finding and possibly buying or renting a house. Dave and I had been using Redfin (thanks to our friend Kate who told me about it) for the past month or so browsing and favoriting places. The market in Seattle moves so fast and we kept getting emails that houses were pending every couple of days, which was pretty discouraging.

We’d been talking to our realtor for a while so we had a list of places we wanted to see. So as soon as we rented our car from the airport we drove to our friend’s house in West Seattle and carpooled to go to the open houses.

I know a lot of you girls are bachelor fans so you may know who this guy is! Jason Mesnick was the Bachelor a few years ago. One day I was watching Celebrity Wife Swap when Jason and Molly Mesnick switched homes with Sean and Catherine Lowe.

Jason mentioned that he was a real estate agent in Seattle so I looked up his website and decided to email him. He emailed me back the next day and we scheduled a phone call and chatted real estate with a side of Bachelor talk too. 🙂 He’s very friendly and personable and is very open about his time on the show. If anyone is looking for real estate in Seattle, I’d highly recommend him!

I won’t bore you all with pictures of the places we looked at because we didn’t end up loving any of the places enough to buy them. It was also a lot of pressure to find a home in such a short time. So we ended up finding a 6 month house rental to give us time to find a place and not be rushed.

After our full day of house hunting, we met up with our friend Kate had dinner in Alaska Junction and stopped for a cupcake after at Cupcake Royale. It was really good and I’m pretty picky about frosting that is usually too thick and super sweet. But this place was great! I can’t get to get back here and try other ones.

Our good friends Jared and Marlee, have the cutest little Seahawks fan I’ve ever seen. She melts my heart. One of the things I’m most looking forward to is being closer to this little nugget.

On Sunday we went to the West Seattle farmer’s market which was so great. There were a lot of vegetables and it definitely felt like fall. I’m really looking forward to shopping here on the weekends!

The flowers they have there are beautiful!

Kate suggested we eat at Fiddlehead which was down the street from the farmer’s market. We waited for quite a while but it was really good.

I’ve recently become infatuated with biscuits and jam and theirs were great! 

I will be back tomorrow to share part 2 of our Seattle trip. I’d love your recommendations for the Seattle area. I seriously have such a long list already of places I want to see and things I want to do, I am so excited! It felt great to be our new city and to walk around the neighborhoods and get a feel.

Linking up today with all of these bloggers: