Po Dogs!

This was quite the socially productive weekend spurred on greatly by the pinnacle of the Seattle Seafair. After a week of training in Oak Harbor, I headed down to Seattle for the weekend. Friday night, after grabbing a quick pre-drink at a local hot spot (the black bottle) with one couple, Ryan and I headed out to Eastlake to grab dinner with a middle school friend of mine that I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen since high school! We’ve been trying to meet up since I first moved here 8 months ago, and it finally happened! We tried out a great local place (Sitka and Spruce)that is known for serving very local dishes with a menu that changes daily depending on what produce they get it. It was great food, but even better to be able to catch up with Leigha and meet her boyfriend. Hopefully we won’t have to wait another 8 months to see each other again! We also found out that they live only blocks away from where Ryan’s office just moved to in Wallingford. Even more motivation to hang out again soon!

Saturday we were privileged enough to be invited to the premier tasting party for Capital Hill's newest gourmet hotdog restaurant, Po Dogs! The new place is going to open up in October and is run by the girlfriend of one of the founders of Ryan’s firm. We went over to their house, which is also one of the firm’s projects and a really awesome location for the air show later that day. They made 6 different hotdogs and cut them up so everyone could get a taste of each kind. Apparently they’ve come up with 30 some different kinds of hotdogs! Here’s a little sample of the goodness that we got to participate in:

BLTA Dogs (Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato, Avacado)

Mac & Cheese Dog

Peanut Butter & Banana Dogs (Surprisingly Delish!)

Wasabi Dogs (Hot dog in an Egg Roll!)

Texas Dog (BBQ and Onions)

White Trash Dog (Potato Chips and Cheddar Cheese)

The tasting party was up on the roof deck of the house, which was a perfect location to see the blue angel show that afternoon. The planes flew right above the house and even rattled it a good bit several times! By the end of the afternoon, I was thoroughly drained from the sun and stuffed from the delicious food, and ready for a nap and a relaxing evening.

Sunday was round 2 of Seafair viewing! We were joined by our fellow auburn architecture alumni on another Pb project roof deck. This one was a multi unit project that is nearing completion in Beacon Hill. One of the units had an open house going on that afternoon, so we set up camp on another one. Since the project was so high up on the hill, we even got a pretty good view of Lake Washington which is where the Blue Angels did a lot of their show. Again, the planes flew right over our location and rattled the house. It was neat to be able to see even more of the show that we didn’t see the day before, and not have to deal with the crowds down by the water.
All the festivities this weekend were a blast, and it was good to see everyone!

Seattle Seafair

This weekend was the kickoff of the Seafair in Seattle. I'm not really sure what all goes on with it, but I think there are going to be several aquatic type events and festivals next weekend and I know there's supposed to be a blue angels show as well. Anyway, last weekend we participated in the 8k run that was part of the kickoff for it. It was a really neat little route through the city, but the best part was that it was right before the big Seafair Parade started and the last 2 miles of the run went down the parade route which was already lined up with fans who cheered us on all the way back to the stadium. It's been pretty toasty in Seattle lately, so when the race began at 6:30 it was still hot and sunny out. By the end of it, however, when we were all crazy hot and sweaty, it started to drizzle just enough to be a perfect cool down at the end of the race. The theme of the Seafair is pirates, so there were several people dressed up as pirates in the race. Also to compliment the theme, we got super cute t-shirts with a little pirate logo on them! OK, I realize that I am easily amused, but how cute is that?!? 

Harry Potter = BRILLIANT!

I don't think I stopped grinning through the whole movie...ok, well maybe the end when I nearly shed a tear. I can't wait for the DVD to come out so I can watch it over and over again!

Stephenson Vay-Cay!

It's been a little tough getting back into work after having such a great and much needed vacation! My last day of 'work' work was really June 30th. On July 1st I went to the Naval Undersea Museum in Silverdale to be a part of a retirement and change of command ceremony for the CAPT that is my regional boss. I got to be a part of the 'Old Glory' detail. It's 6 people from and Ensign (me) up to a Captain that ceremonially pass a folded flag up the ranks, each saluting it as they go. We had to do really slow salutes so that the whole thing would last about 2 or 3 minutes. After all that was done, I was officially on Vacation!! We had 2 days off for the 4th of July holidays, so I just hung out in Seattle getting ready for our Georgia trip and taking care of my invalid puppy, who is doing really well now even though she's missing a toe!

Friday night we took off on the red eye flight to Atlanta. We got in at about 6am and made our way to Columbus. After a little nap, since no sleep was achieved on the flight, we were ready for the festivities to begin. Ryan's Dad and brother cooked up a ton of chicken and ribs and we picked up some fireworks in Alabama to shoot off later that night. I even shot off a few of the 'Crackling Candles' which is about the most I can handle since I have a rather large fear of explosions.

The rest of the week we just enjoyed being in Columbus (it was not as hot as I was expecting, thank goodness) and hanging out with the family. We went down to the river walk, went on a tour of an old historic town, visited the new infantry museum at Fort Benning, went golfing a couple of times, swimming, movie-ing, shopping...

The main reason that we had planned the trip to begin with was actually for a wedding the second weekend that we were there. One of Ryan's good friends from high school was getting married, and he was one of the groomsmen (and a very handsome one at that!) Friday night was the rehearsal dinner, which seemed like almost a bigger deal than the wedding. It was in the saloon of a historic theater (that is supposedly haunted...ooooooooh). I think about half of the people that were at the dinner gave a speech/toast to the couple. It was a lot of fun and pretty amusing as well even though I don't know the couple all that well. Saturday was the wedding. Ryan had to be there about 3 hours early, so i just dropped him off and went to get my nails did :) The wedding itself was pretty small. After pictures and such we headed over to the country club for the reception which was mostly just desserts and drinks with the groom's dad's band playing music. It was a lot of fun, and I got to meet a lot of Columbus folks.

On Sunday, we had a few hours to hang out with the family before heading back to the airport. Ryan's younger brother and his girlfriend had come in from Athens, GA and were taking off that morning too.

A great vacation ended with a less than perfect trip at the airport. Our flight was originally delayed about an hour while we waited at the gate. That was probably a good thing since it gave us time to grab some food and such. Then we got on the plane and headed down the runway only to get behind a line of about 20 planes and then were forced to wait on the plane for about 2 hours before we could take off due to weather issues. This whole time we were sitting in the middle of a thunderstorm with winds shaking the plane back and forth. Apparently the bigger problem was actually out west on our route, so we were rerouted to a northern route that would make the flight a little longer too. Finally we took off and had a relatively painless flight. I don't think I want to take Air Tran anymore though because even in a 5 hour flight, they didn't have any movies or anything like that. I might have to suck it up and pay a few extra bucks next time for a nicer airline. Once we finally got to Seattle (about midnight pacific time) we went to go pick up Ryan's golf clubs from the baggage claim only to find out that they weren't there. We waited for a long time then filled out a report. By that time we had no patience for taking public transportation and just took a taxi home, to get home at about 2am. Obviously I wasn't able to pick up Tara that night like I had planned, so I had to do that Monday morning and just get into work a lot later than I had planned.

It was still an awesome vacation; I wish we didn't have to end it! Lessons have been learned about which airlines to choose for next time.

Sooooo ready for Vacation!!

This weekend was the first 'Rock'n'Roll' Marathon and Half Marathon in Seattle. There are several other 'Rock'n'Roll' Marathons around the country, but this was the first time that Seattle had hosted one. So, I had to give it a try. It was a really early morning, and we had to take a shuttle down to the starting line. The race started about 13 miles south of Seattle in Tukwila, and the race was just running back to Seattle, ending in Qwest Field. There was a shuttle stop just a few blocks from the apartment, so I headed down to it at about 5am. There was already a pretty good line backed up to get on the shuttle. I finally got on one at about 5:45. The shuttles were supposed to stop running at 6, but there were about a thousand people waiting behind me by the time I was on a shuttle that I'm pretty sure they kept running past 6. Even once we got on the shuttle, it took a long time to get to the start line. We ended up getting there at about 6:30, and the race was set to start at 7. So I kept wondering if the rest of those people waiting in line behind me for the shuttle actually made it on time. Anywho...the point of the race is that there is a live band every mile the whole way, and a big music festival afterwards. It was an interesting race. I wish I had been a little more prepared and had gotten a little more sleep, but it might be something to look forward to again next year. That evening, there was a concert by Keb Mo free to all the runners. It was pretty good jazz/blues music. It was in an outdoor park, so we brought blankets and food and hung out there for a while. 

Tara has a new boyfriend! One of the girls I work with, Sarah, just moved into my house with me. She also has a 1.5 year old golden retriever. She's actually leaving to do an internship in Japan for 3 months, but moved her stuff in and is staying here for a few days before she leaves. Then we'll be roomies when she gets back. Today was the first day that Tara and Rufus hung out by themselves all day. It worked out really well. I think they mostly just ignore each other all day. 

Tomorrow Tara is having surgery to amputate her little toe that is apparently infected with cancer. And I thought it was just a broken nail...apparently not! We're leaving for Georgia on Friday, so she's going to have to stay at someone else's house for a little over a week while she's recovering. I hope she gets better fast!!

Women’s Leadership Symposium

I got a free trip to Washington DC last week, and it was pretty sweet!! I was sent to the Women’s Leadership Symposium for women in the Sea Services (Coast Guard, Navy, Marine Corps). I headed out of Seattle pretty early on Wednesday morning. It didn’t start out so well. The travel itinerary that I had printed out was apparently the old version. We have to make our travel arrangements through another company for the government, so I didn’t make the official reservations. I showed up to check into my flight (luckily really early) only to find that the reservations hadn’t actually been paid for. So I started calling around trying to find the people who had made my reservations. By this time it was about 7am so people were just barely getting into their offices. Many phone calls later, I finally found out that I was actually booked for a different flight that left in about 45 minutes and was with a different airline. So I booked it over to the other airline and checked in just in time. Then of course the security line was backed up. So by the time I got to the gate, they were almost done boarding. I barely made it in time to run onto the plane and get settled it. Whew. After one layover in Chicago, I made it to DC Wednesday night. I checked into my fabulous hotel room and decided to walk around the city for a while until my dearest friend, Evelyn, was done at a lecture so we could go play. It really only took about an hour to walk around the area and see pretty much everything that I would want to see. I was really glad it wasn’t raining like the forecast implied it would be all week. I met up with Evelyn a few blocks away from my hotel for dinner, drinks, and a little frozen yogurt. Already a fabulous start to my all expense paid work trip/vacation!

The symposium was also in the hotel, which made waking up bright and early a little more bearable. The first day we got all checked in, and got some sweet little goodie bags. One of the lecturers that day was Dee Dee Myers, the author of Why Women Should Rule the World, so one of the gifts in our bags was that book which we later had an opportunity to get it signed by the author. There were about 600 women there and about 5 guys sprinkled in the mix. Being in the military and especially a field that is dominated by men, it was really refreshing to be with so many women who were in the same situation. When I was doing my training in California last fall, there were two other girls in my class, and they were both at the symposium as well, so it was really fun to catch up. When we got out in the evening, I walked around the monuments again with one of the girls that I went to training with, and another girl that I had just met earlier that day who works at Camp David. We kind of walked around the same places that I had gone the day before, just a little more in depth. After a little while, I left them to head out to meet up with Evelyn and a friend of hers for dinner and drinks in Georgetown. It was nice knowing a local who could show me around to more than just the touristy things, and in more of the residential area. Friday was another day of the symposium, but this time we met with just the attendees in the Navy. In the afternoon, we broke down even further to meet with just the Civil Engineer Corps members of the Navy. There were about 80 women from the CEC there. Again it was really neat to network with other women who had been in my shoes, and even several much higher ranked officers who had been in my shoes but in a time were it was still not terribly encouraged to be a Civil Engineer Corps Officer in the Navy for a female.

We finished with our final session a little early, so I took a little time to catch up on my sleepy time before heading out again to meet up with Evelyn and friends. We went out to the sculpture garden to watch/listen to their jazz in the park, which I guess they have every Friday night. It was really packed, so we had snagged a little area of grass to lay out our blankets and snacks and drinks. I’m pretty sure I barely actually heard any music over the people, but it was a beautiful evening and it was fun meeting some new people and just hanging out. After that about half of us headed out to the new hip tapas bar/restaurant. It just opened recently, and was interestingly decorated with all kinds of graffiti inside, and was very poshly furnished. We just passed around a few dishes which were very delicious. As our dinner came to an end, the place started transitioning into a bit of a dance club. After enjoying the tunes for a few, we headed home.

Saturday was sleep in day!! That was my last night at the hotel, so I checked out and headed over to Evelyn’s for breakfast. The rest of the day was quite an adventure. We were planning on going to a BBQ, Bourbon, and Beer festival on the shore. It took so long to get there, however, that we got there when it was kind of winding down and decided to just head to another restaurant to enjoy some margaritas. After that, we had another long commute back into town. Apparently the new hip beverage in town is Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka mixed with lemonade. We picked some up and spent the rest of the night on Evelyn’s roof deck. After all the talk about it raining all week, it ended up being perfect…at least at the times that I was wanting to be outside! Oddly enough, that night ended up being all Auburn people as Evelyn’s boyfriend from Auburn had shown up the night before, two of her other friends from auburn were there, and at the end of the night, another auburn architecture grad just got into town for a visit as well. I was really good to see everyone! Unfortunately the evening ended on a bit of a bad note. As one of the guys was headed to the metro on his way home, he was robbed at gunpoint. They took everything he had which included his phone and keys and wallet so he couldn’t really go anywhere except back to Evelyn’s place. Luckily he wasn’t hurt, but it definitely shook us all up a good bit. The police were called and took him around trying to find any of his stuff or the robbers, but were unsuccessful. Hopefully he can replace most of the things that were stolen, but I am sure it’s going to be a huge hassle.

Sunday afternoon I headed back home to Seattle. It was a busy and eventful week/weekend, and it was great to come home!

Limpy Butt

Not only is my puppy old, but she's also an invalid now. Tara broke a nail. I know it's sounds terribly tragic, but it actually ended up being quite an ordeal. At first she just started out limping and I tried to figure out if there was something stuck in her foot. After a week or so, the crack in her nail, which was right at the base, started getting much bigger. About a week ago the nail looked like it was about to fall off and started bleeding a little bit too. I took her to the vet and they ripped what was left of the nail off. She was soooo good at the vet and didn't flinch and all or cry. They vet wrapped up her little foot in bandages so she looked like she had a little sock on. It's been almost a week now, and the bandage has since been removed and she's been on antibiotics all week, but the toe is still looking a little nasty. So I think I'll try to take her back to the vet for a check up to make sure it's not infected and going to make her whole foot fall off. Poor baby is so pitiful, and I wish I could make it all better!