We had a fabulous Thanksgiving week. It was wonderful to have Alicia's family visit (sadly, minus Emmy). Agnes was a super star of handy house projects, vastly improving our little house. You name it: kitchen floor, kitchen sink facet, patching wall holes with putty and paint, fixing the drain in the bathroom sink, finding the water main and carport power. In addition Agnes, Charles and Alicia painted of the dining room in awesome yellow.

Cat came on Wed. and really raised the Thanksgiving bar with delicious onions, squash and brussels sprouts with pomegranate balsamic reduction, indian spices, and toasted pecans respectively. Alicia made a tasty blueberry pie while Agnes whipped up her amazing stuffing and turkey. Charles made sure we had plenty of tasty coffee and Top Pot donuts. A good time was had by all.

So much happened. Snoqualmie Falls, japanese gardens, oysters, pho, Loews, apple cup, and poker of course. A highlight was Alicia and Charles birthday dinner at Sitka and Spruce. Each bite was superb, unique, perfectly prepared - the lamb's tongue was the favorite.

This was a great welcome to the holidays, and a special warming of our house. Many photos were taken that I do not have, but I'll get them up when they're shared around. Until then, here's the perfect thing for leftover turkey, and Alicia and Cat at Kubota Gardens. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas!

Last weekend Alicia's parents came to town for Thanksgiving. They planned a trip to Vancouver, B.C. that Alicia and I joined them on. It was great fun. We ate amazing sushi and NW seafood. We saw the Olympic First Nations statue and the Granville market. We visited Stanley Park and the totem poles there - along with a great view across the bay to downtown. We also drove up to Whistler to see the Olympic preparations. It was a beautiful drive, especially the way home when the rain cleared a bit. Here is a picture of Alicia with the Olympic mascots Sumi, Miga Quatchi, and their sidekick Mukmuk. We also stayed in a cool condo in Yaletown with awesome views of the nearby city. Great weekend. I took the Cascade train home Sun. night.

Last week Alicia and I were both feeling under the weather. And the weather has been dark, gray, rainy and cold. So to brighten the soggy early winter in Seattle we lit our fire for the first time. I was super fun and warm. There's nothing like hanging out by the fire and enjoying life. Although in our new house Alicia was not as brave about shoving huge amounts of wood into the fire to make it giant (like in Aspen and other fire locations). It was a great time and the first of many warm fires during the dark winter. ps - sorry my photos are blurry, but it is a great picture of Alicia.

Oct. 11, 2009 - We had an awesome time reclaiming our side yard tree. It is probably a giant bush actually, but once we were finished it looked very tree-like. At first I thought it would be a chore, but it turns out sawing huge branches off a giant tree is quite satisfying. After two weeks we've nearly gotten rid of all the "yard waste" in our weekly city pick up.

By the way, the lettuce garden that Alicia planted is still going strong, no frost in Seattle - just rain. Oh wait, its protected by our warm house Alicia says. But I'm still pretty sure it hasn't been in the 30s here.

In other news, we ran a fun 10k, the 24th annual Dawg Dash. Tons of fun on a beautiful fall day running through the UW campus, ending/beginning on the Husky stadium field.

We also had a fun house warming party this last weekend. All our friends came over and many delicious pizzas were made. We got lots of fun ideas on our brainstorming poster. Alicia put together a beautiful craft project to make a welcome sign for our house. It is a series of tiles and lots of people at the party painted one. Photos to come when it is finished.

The chimney people come on Fri. Then we can have fires!

Well, I survived my wisdom teeth removal. Alicia took very good care of me with tasty foods and driving me home when I was silly and loopy after surgery. I watched a lot of tv and slept.

And yesterday we went to a few yard sales and picked up a push mower and cordless electric weed wacker. Alicia loves the weed wacker and has gone on two dandelion attack missions. Here is a cute photo of her trimming with our new power tool. I also mowed the lawn, though it is hard to tell.

We also went to the final Mariners game of the year, which was beautiful. It was a great game, they won and the weather was amazing - super sunny and warm. Here's to a good fall!

It's Emily. I've hijacked the SuperHenry blog because it hasn't been updated in a really long time. Aunt Susan this post is for you!

Catch up time: since the last posting Alicia + Brian have been on vacation, gotten a Costco membership, enjoyed the PacNorthwest by hiking and camping, inherited 35 pounds of free range beef, Dragonboat festivals, planted a veggie garden, triathlons (yeah Alicia kicked major ass!) and who knows what else. I'm here for the weekend - a much needed break from work. The new house is amazing, super cute and just perfect. A lot of space, open rooms and lots of light. Alicia and I did a bike tour of Seattle on Saturday while Brian brought home the beef. It was so fun and such a cool new way to see the city and discover new places. We hit all the best bakeries, book fairs, Space Needle and of course Anthropologie - you know what a shopaholic Alicia is! I had to tear her away from the stores. We've eaten a dozen cupcakes (I know they are going to be scarce in Brussels), played with Alicia's hair, taken mass transit, drank 16 cups of coffee (we're wired!) and sat on the back porch a whole lot. And yes Brian's beermaking ability continues to improve while his dancing still needs a little help. Here are some pics from our weekend. Fun times. Love you guys!!

The Garden

We have plenty of space for a garden.

Here's our progress so far:

• Megan H gave me pumpkin starts. They're in the back yard, near the garage. I dug up a previous old garden. The soil quality isn't very good. But the pumpkins are growing! Well, no pumpkins yet, but the leaves are healthy.
• I created a little garden in the front. I dug up the mulch and black weed tarp underneath for a small section. Lettuce and kale are starting to sprout.
• Behind the porch, a small retaining wall, built with old cedar logs, was falling apart. I built a new wall with untreated spruce. It'll be my herb garden (on top are my starts).

Any other advice for a PNW garden?

We bought a house! It's in the neighborhood of Maple Leaf- north of Green Lake (505 NE 94th for the google savvy).

We moved this weekend and had a few people over to celebrate

Here are a few photos. More to come as we clear the boxes...

A perfect Sunday. After a relaxing morning at home, off to the beach for a bbq with friends, and a sunset on the Sound.

For dessert, just when I thought icecream had nothing new to offer . . . Molly Moon's comes to Capital Hill. Oh, why did Wallingford seem so far away before. We had two single cones: honey lavender and salted caramel.

Yeah! 1/2 marathon action! This was a really fun event. For me, it was great to get back to distance running. The weather was threatening, but didn't end up too bad (especially compared with St. Patrick's Day race with fist size, super cold snow flakes). It was cold and cloudy, with sprinkles of rain.

Mercer Island was a nice forested run, with many views of lake washington. I was happy at how fast I ran, and Alicia was right behind me the whole time. Plus, we made the Mercer Island newspaper at the start. Next up, the tulips.

Brian

This weekend a bunch of our friends went on a trip to Mt. Baker. We had 10 people, so we rented a house in this funny subdivision at the foot of the mountain. Picture old school suburban, but in the middle of no where with a gate.

We were cozy in the living room with a fireplace. Our bones were warmed by a barely functioning, but still fun hot tub. Friday we relaxed after a long drive from Seattle. Sat. morning we had a great breakfast with homemade cinnamon buns before a taking a nice 6 mile hike at Nooksack Falls. It was a groomed road, but there weren't many people and there were some nice views with a good steady climb. At the end we all threw snowballs into the pools above the falls trying to hit a little island. We were like 10 big kids, and one lab named Bailey.

Dinner was awesome pizza and brownies. We played pool, darts and watched Kid & Play House Party II in the rec room basement. This was followed by Balderdash and a late night dance party and a bit more hot tubbing, which included pans of hot water to keep the temp up.

Sun we relaxed with blueberry coffee cake, and packed up. We took a short river hike and drove home. Tragically we were drawn into a combo A&W/KFC where I drank too much root beer float. We even got home in time for the Super Bowl.

We had an awesome brew day at our apartment Sat. We made ten gallons of beer. Five winter warmer, five oatmeal stout. It was quite a party with 4 of our friends. Three girls knitted while three guys made beer, very gender role oriented. It was great fun. We finished with a nice supper of frozen pizza, salad, and cookies. Here's Christian and I by the brew kettle.

We have had a crazy amount of fog lately. Some days it is foggy the whole day. Others it burns off in the late afternoon. Last weekend there was a sunny patch, but as the sun was setting we watched the fog move in off the ocean fill the city in a slow, creeping glacier of fog. Very cool. Here's a photo.

While Emmy has wildfires threatening her house, we get rain.

Info HERE

And HERE

and cool video HERE

Snowshoe season is open

At long last, we opened up our season. We went up to Talapus Lake on Sunday with Keren and CJ. It's an easy 45 minutes from our house. My favorite part of snowshoeing is bounding down the hills through the forest.

As soon as we got home to Seattle, it started snowing. We got about 2 inches on Capitol Hill. Beautiful. By morning it was slushy and not slick (phew- easy bus ride!). Brian predicts one more layer of snow in the city before Snowpocalypse 2008/9 is done.

Happy New Year!

After a restful New Year's Day filled with food and friends, I'm ready to start blogging again.

We spent the holidays in DC, Maryland, New York (Alicia) and MA (Brian). Thank you to everyone who could come out in DC with us. We had a fabulous time.

In Hagerstown, my grandparents and my cousin Max were able to come from Belgium! Brian has renewed his resolution to learn French.

As promised, here are photos of some knitted Christmas presents.