Life on the Palouse: weekend in seattle (and a little bit sleepless)

We took off for Seattle on Friday around 2pm, after grabbing some nutritious Jack in the Box lunch. We had directions to Chris' place (Jokes' sister) that helped us avoid Seattle rush hour traffic, which was a good thing as we got to the Seattle area around 6pm. We didn't get to Chris' until around 6:45, but still, less than a 5 hour drive which is pretty great. Chris, her husband Steve, and their absurdly cute 2 year old daughter Lucy live in a north-eastern suburb of Seattle called Woodinville. Their house is in a great secluded area--it sort of feels like you're in Pointe Mills or something. We hung out for a bit, and then went with Jokes to dinner at a place called Lark in Capitol Hill (a neighborhood of Seattle). Great little place that Jeff found (of course) where we ate tapas style French type food. Very very yummy, but we had to wait to get seated for about an hour so we didn't get done eating until around 10:45pm, but still well worth it. It took about 35 minutes to get back to Chris where we slept poorly for whatever reason.

Saturday we got up and went to IKEA with Chris, Lucy, and Jokes. The store was way bigger than the one we had been to in Alexandria, VA. Jeff and I got all domestic and had a hard time not buying more than we had alloted. We ended up getting what we had planned: a TV stand, a nicer bookshelf, a utilitarian bookshelf, and then we also got a small TV stand for our bedroom TV and a few closet organizer things...oh, and a stuffed elephant for Lucy. It all fit in our car easily which was good. After IKEA we met Erica Lord at a Dim Sum restaurant (she works at Evergreen College now in Olympia, about an hour south of Seattle). Great lunch, good times. Erica had to get back to do work, so Jokes, Jeff and I headed into the city. We explored a big Asian grocery store next to the football stadium, then we went to the Capitol Hill neighborhood again and went record shopping, looked at some clothes, and watched people. We ended up in Ballard for dinner, another neighborhood. Very cool area. Great Mexican dinner, and amazing margaritas. Mmm. We headed back to Woodinville and partook of Chris and Steve's big ol' hottub. It was really relaxing. Then to sleep, where I didn't sleep well again for whatever reason. Lucy was coming down with a cold and was up a lot during the night being sad, so that might've been part it of. Can't complain about a free place to stay though!

Sunday we got up, headed to Bellvue for Indian lunch with Jokes, and then dropped her off at her brother's house. Got to see her nephews who are HUGE now (they're in 1st grade). One is super silly and very Jokinen, the other is super quiet. We then headed back to Pullman. It only took about 4.5 hours to get back. I was super duper tired and went to sleep at 9:30, got up at 8am. whew!

I had a TON of work to do today, going out of town is fun but getting behind is annoying. I was at school for about 10 hours, yuck. Oh well, I'll get caught up and Seattle was fun. Here's some silly pics:

the excellent hot tub and good beer (rogue dead guy ale, yum)