There is no denying it, summer up and left us here in Seattle. Of the two of us, Ken finds the weather change gloomy and I think he secretly wishes we lived in a sunnier climate. But having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, it doesn't really effect me. While it's not pleasant to have several overcast, rainy days strung together, when you finally get that break--it's just glorious. Sunny days here are like finding a 20 dollar bill in the pocket of your newly washed jeans.
If I can't have the sun, a good substition for sunshine is spending time with friends. And in that way the weekend was full of sun. Sean and Shannon introduced us to dim sum lunch at
New Kowloon on Saturday. It's a huge place and when we first arrived it was mostly empty. But by time we left, both large dining rooms were almost full. I guess this town loves it's Dim Sum. Being that dim sum is a buffet on wheels, it's really easy to take too many things from the roving carts full of goodies. Because of the sheer volume and variety of foods, we all left completely stuffed. Afterwards I got to take a tour of the Testa's newly purchased home on Queen Anne. I believe if all goes well they are moving in this weekend--fingers crossed. And the house is roomy and has such neat period-correct touches. So exciting!
In the evening, Brett & Denise hosted an accurately named 'end of summer' BBQ at their Maple Leaf home. This was the first time we got to see their house and the finished basement they did all by themselves--and passed city inspection! This included
tiling, plumbing, fixture installation, painting and wiring a bathroom, office and family room. I guess the dry wall was done by someone else but otherwise they learned how to do all that other stuff. I neglected to take any pictures but was very impressed.
We also got to meet many of their friends and there were children everywhere. One mom showed us a "revolutionary" way to carry around a baby with a "
piece of cloth." Looks freaking awesome. You should have seen this gal put it on--it was like wrapping a sari. A bit complicated but once it was in place, the kid calmed down and couldn't get enough of it. I guess this is also better for your back than a Baby Bjorn. Fun times. The Coug game was on during the event and though the Cougs probably got their only win of the season, they suffered many injuries to their quarterback rotation. Hopefully they can recover. But most of us have written this off to a "building year."
Sunday I incorrectly assumed that because it was sort of drizzly that the Farmer's Market would be less crowded. WRONG. I think everyone else assumed that too. Well one lovely surprise was running into Wilson and Briahna and their cute dog Havana. I was picking out potatoes and Wilson pointed me to a better potato stand up the row. It's good to have friends who know things. After picking up a few more produce items, I trekked out to Lake Forest Park and spent the afternoon with Amy. I brought some Thai food because Amy loves to put soy sauce on Phad Thai and I love to marvel at how bizarre that is. Like us, Tim and Amy have the video game Rock Band so I asked Amy if she was any good at it and she's all "yeah, I'm pretty good." And I was like, "yeah, so am I." Luckily she's good on guitar and (I think) I'm good at drums. We played awhile and Amy IS good by the way but we were only having access to the first 14 songs. So I wondered if the unlock code on the Wii version would work on the Xbox 360 version and you know what---it did! So Amy suddenly got access to 30 songs she didn't know existed in the game. And it was like Christmas all over again! After playing through some of the new songs, it was time to go home.
