Early Birthday Weekend

Here are just a few of many photos from our full and fun weekend. Nathan had class Friday, so Melinda and Todd helped me pick up some super cheap chairs (craig's list) and then we picnicked by the lake. We spent a lot of time watching this seagull.

Here's Melinda with the giant leaf she found. We had really great weather all weekend.

On Saturday Nathan took us to Digipen to look around (none of us had ever been inside). Afterward we went mini golfing at this lovely little course down the road. It's one of Nathan's favorite activities--too bad we didn't look into the course over the summer! 

We had a good Irish pub lunch but made extra room to surprise Nathan by taking him to Benihana! They brought out a candle, dessert, and took his picture....you know, embarrassed him lots. 


Sunday morning was sunny and crisp, and again we ventured into downtown Seattle. We joined a brunch jazz cruise that sailed around Elliot Bay. It was so lovely, and the food and music were really nice. We headed to Pike Market afterward to walk off some of that big meal.

Todd and Melinda in front of the Sound

Nathan and me on the boat

We lounged around home the rest of Sunday and ate a lot of pie before taking Todd and Melinda to the airport for their red-eye. It was sad goodbyes. Nathan waited to open his other cards and Shelene's package until the minute the 28th turned over. Here he is delighted by a bag of Halloween/birthday candy. :D

All the fun of the weekend far surpassed Nathan's actual birthday, which was another long day of classes and homework. We celebrated with Chinese food and chocolate cake. Don't you wish birthdays could be everyday? Just for the cake.

Thanks for all the fun this weekend, Todd and Melinda! We sure enjoyed having you here.

Nathan is 22!

Happy birthday to the sweetest boy in my known universe! He's the bee's knees, the cat's pajamas, all that (and the bag of chips) and so on, etc. :D Wise beyond his years, yet he will always be a little bit of 15 for me. Boywonder, you're the super-greatest. To me and all those who love you, you are always the best...but today you get a blog. ;) xoxoxo

I will continue the birthday tribute and try to post photos later today of our fun weekend with Nathan's parents (the fine people that raised such a stellar kid!) 

Fall Fun

Even though I was sick and Nathan had homework, we had a very nice weekend. One of my favorite fall activities is making caramel apples (and eating them!) so that's what we did. They turned out a little lumpy, but that's ok because they are still coated in caramel. The only trouble is the inevitable caramel apple problem of getting your nose and chin all sticky.

Back in September I made these silhouettes of Nathan and me though I am just now getting around to posting them. The photos aren't the best but you get the gist (our room is quite dim and the glass is very reflective). I got the Japanese wave paper at Paper Source and love it! It adds some color to our very beige apartment. They are a pretty great likeness.

The rest of my projects are on hold until I finish packaging and sending out resumes. Nerves have gotten the best of me lately so I have been spending a lot more time with InDesign doing image layouts and perusing paperies for good looking envelopes. I think I have it about squared away...fingers crossed. 

Nathan's birthday is coming up next Tuesday, and Melinda and Todd will be here to visit tomorrow. We haven't seen them since June! I'll be sure to take some pictures to share later.

About Me

Shelene tagged me on her blog to share some random facts about myself, so here goes:

1. I have so gotten into the habit that I must stretch and crack my joints before going to bed. This includes, for example, two spots in my lower back I can't really describe (maybe where those funny indentations are?) and my second toe, which pops when I bend it sideways to straighten it (after years of dance it curves to the outside a bit).

2. I came in second place in my fifth grade spelling bee on the word "Mediterranean." Since then I've never forgotten the double R, though it still makes me anxious.

3. As a kid I thought I was really tough. I went through a phase where I thought I was training to be a street fighter. My friend Amanda and I would fake wrestle and practice kip-ups in my backyard. It must have been the strong female role models I saw in those video games, like Sonya Blade and that chick Kylie Minogue played in "Street Fighter."

4. If I were to ever have a daughter, I would probably name her Stella. 

(I'm not one of those girls that has her top five boys and girls names chosen at any given time and posts it on her myspace, but I've always liked that name. And, I simply cannot decide on a fitting middle name. The syllable count and the A on the end is tricky.)

5. My current favorite chair is Eero Saarinen's Executive chair with the wooden legs and without the armrests. I dream that someday I will be able to collect some of my favorite modern chairs. I would absolutely get an Eames LCW chair, a Bertoia side chair, and a Barcelona chair, but the list goes on. 

6. Lately I've been thinking that I might love being a location scout and/or set dresser for film. It seems that most location scouts are also photographers/cinematographers, and many set dressers first did stage work and have theatre degrees. But if it just turns out in the future that I get an opportunity to try it, I would be so excited.

7. Nathan is taking me out for dinner and a movie tonight! We are going to the Crest Cinema in Shoreline, which shows independent and second run movies for $3! (And if you buy a large popcorn, you get free refills) We're going to see Pineapple Express. :P So now I must go. 

Thanks for reading...hopefully you enjoyed learning something new and odd about me. I will start my tagging with Vinnie, Tyler, Taylor and my dad. Good luck you all.

Under the Weather

I have a cold. Nothing big, just not feeling quite right today. Maybe a bit like this?

All I want to do is curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and watch this.

Honkers!

Mom and I saw thought these geese at Juanita Beach were hilarious! The water there is pretty shallow, so they kick their feet rapidly in one place to stir up the sand and then flip upside down to find the munchies at the bottom! Oh, to be a waterfowl, what a life.

Mama's Visit

My apologies for the stasis of my blog lately....I guess I've been feeling a little word shy and otherwise preoccupied. I have been meaning to share these photos from my mom's visit, so getting to it:

One bright but grayish morning we drove into Seattle to visit the Seattle Art Museum and Olympic Sculpture Park. I get a little overwhelmed in museums (I think I prefer featured exhibitions and smaller galleries to museums with large collections on display) though I really enjoyed some of the Australian Aboriginal and Indigenous Northwest art. I thought these masks were really fun and might translate well into drawn characters.

Luckily the rain held off so we could walk down to the Olympic Sculpture Park. I think we were both impressed with how well the park is laid out in the landscape. I told Mom I wanted to call this series of photos "Everything's a seat" because that just seems so often to be the fate of modern public sculpture. And even when I can't sit there, it still visually registers that way. 

One of Dennis Oppenheim's Safety Cones

Perre's Ventaglio III by Beverly Pepper

Bunyon's Chess by Mark di Suvero

Mom looking at Eagle by Alexander Calder

Not art, just some nicely designed seats. Isn't the red cute?

Untitled by Roy McMakin 

(he's clearly joking about the seat thing too...pst...McMakin, really?)

Typewriter Eraser, Scale X by Claes Oldenburg

Wandering Rocks by Tony Smith

Stinger by Tony Smith

Louise Bourgeois' Eye Benches

 Seattle Cloud Cover by Teresita Fernandez

(Extra close-up detail of a panel of her glass bridge over the train tracks)

Love & Loss by Roy McMakin

Mom and I found a real seat at the bottom of the park--and Space Needle! (We're both kind of grimacing for fear my camera would fall off the railing into the water)

There are a few more sculptures at park, including a huge Richard Serra piece which was so cool to see up close! It is a very lovely space. A couple days before Mom had to leave, we headed back into Seattle to visit the Frye, a fantastic small museum that was showing three special exhibitions. One was a large collection of engravings and artifacts from Napoleon's conquest of Egypt in the 18th century, a period known as "Egyptomania"! I should also note that the Fryes were from Iowa, and the renovation was beautifully completed by my favorite Seattle architects Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen.

With Mom's company I finally got to see the infamous Chapel of St. Ignatius at Seattle University by Steven Holl Architects. If I repeatedly hear about how wonderful a place is, I'm all the more nervous to see it in person. But it was truly a warm, intimate, and inviting building.

Besides the art and architecture forays, Mom and I did a little shopping about, walked along the lake, ate lots of delicious meals, visited the farmer's market and Seattle neighborhoods.....it was a real pleasure. Not just a vacation for her but for me as well in my new setting. It is comforting to have someone so familiar help you get more familiar with a new place. And that was September.