Thursday, Travel Day

Wednesday morning we headed to the airport at 4:45 in the morning.  The flight to Chicago was on time but we were slightly delayed leaving Chicago.  Nathan and Rebecca were a little late meeting us.  They got stuck in traffic.

Sculpture at the airport 

We were met with cotton candy instead of flowers, what fun 

We drove to the hotel via a stop at a place where Nathan could donate his bike.  Jeanne met us at the hotel.  She had driven from Cleveland.  We headed to the restaurant, The Pit.

Nathan with spiced ginger apple cider 

Dorothy and Ed met us at the restaurant.  Theyare staying at an AirB&B

Jim and Pam arrived in time for the appetizers.  Their flight had been delayed. 

Jeanne and I shared the pulled pork,  sweet potato fries and sautéed vegetables.  We had soooo much food with fried green tomatoes,  deviled eggs , and hush puppies to name a few. 

Just when we were getting ready to leave a huge torrential storm hit. You cannot tell by this photo but it was impressive.  In 15 minutes it was gone  

We hung out in Jim and Pam'so room after dinner 

Graduation Weekend - May 10, 2017

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we head off to Durham, NC for Nathan's graduation from Duke University, with a Master's in Environmental Management.  Rebecca is already there with Nathan.  It will be a quick trip.  

Drive home

We left Debbie's place around 9 am.  Some slow traffic but not too bad.  We got to Madeline's apartment by 10 am.  After having a tour of her place we drove to the Portage Bay Restaurant for a delicious brunch.

Nathan & Madeline

After brunch we went to the Gas Works Park to walk around.  It was a gorgeous day for a walk.  

We passed the Fremont Troll on our way to the Theo Chocolate store

The troll is at the end of this bridge

We took Madeline back home and then we headed home. ETA 5:30 pm

view of the Gas Works Park from the freeway.

The ETA did not factor in rush hour traffic.  We made it home at 615 pm.  Just pulled out left-overs for dinner.  

We had a great time at Debbie & Joe's.  

Monday Dec 19

We had a nice relaxing morning.  I had brought stickie buns to cook for breakfast. We normally wait for Christmas morning but we decided to bring one batch up with us to share.  We taught Debbie how to play Bananagrams. We went on a 3 mile neighborhood walk. I should have taken a picture of their driveway yesterday when we drove in since it was snowed over, but it rained last night so it has cleared off. The walk was hard on me because it is a hilly area.

a dog followed us around

Debbie, Nathan & George

I still am not sure how Belle got on to the mantle. 

Debbie and Phil

We had sandwiches for lunch and then started organizing things for dinner.  Joe had to go to work but Debbie got the day off.  We fit in an xbox game of bowling, skiing and tennis.  We went on another walk down the hill to get the mail.

a little ice is left 

We walked down to the lake. I tried to take pictures of the birds taking off.

We played another game of 10, 9, 8.  Debbie won that round.  I won the round last night.  

A travel comment.  We read an article about traveling without liquids.  So I got some products in solid form to try this weekend.  shampoo bar, face bar, tooth powder ... Here are some of my thoughts.  The shampoo bar was great and the tooth powder was OK. I will probably use my products up that I bought but I think that I will not bother with this in the future.  It is kind of a pain to have a separate little baggies for each of these bar soaps.  I have never had a problem with the quart baggie of liquids. Anyway, it was a fun thing to look into. 

Debbie bake a batch of Brussels sprouts for appetizer.  yummy.  Dinner was a Mediterranean stew. It was very good.  

Visiting Debbie & Joe, Dec 18, 2016

I played handbells at church this morning.  As soon as I finished our second piece I slipped out to head home so that George, Nathan and I could drive to visit Debbie and Joe. We were not sure what the roads were like since we had snow in Beaverton.

neighborhood art

We were on the road by 11 am.  Not bad.  We stopped at a Jeremy's Restaurant in Chehalis, WA for lunch.  

Nathan and I shared a yam eggs Benedict, which I thought was yummy.

We got to Debbie and Joe's about 4 pm.  There was no snow anywhere until we got to Debbie's driveway.  We almost did not make it up to their house.  We relaxed awhile and chatted until dinner time. We had a delicious dinner of Italian leftovers, for them but not for us.  We played a card game after dinner and then watched the India DVD on their extra big screen TV. That was fun.  Then Joe gave us a tour of his "new" old cars. 

  

1968 VW

1965 corvair

I know nothing about cars, but I do know that Joe is proud of these.  They are both in good working condition for car shows.  The corvair is one of those vehicles with the motor in the rear.

food, classes, shopping and more food

We checked out of the hotel around 8:30 am, drove to the Rick Steves Travel Center and found a parking spot right by the front door.  We were glad about that since it was raining.  Then we walked to Chanterelle for breakfast.  Sharon and I split the Eggs Benedict and Kris had the cornmeal waffle.  Yummy breakfast.

We returned to the Rick Steves Travel Center.  We had signed up for 2 classes.  Travelers' Spanish and Barcelona and Madrid. We had time to look though the store.  We each had $100 to spend for signing up for the tour.  The condition was that it all had to be spent at one time.  So we had time to think.  We wanted to wait until after the classes.  Both classes were very enjoyable. Good presenters.  I did learn that you can't say por favor to much.  We heard some good suggestions for things to do when we are not scheduled with the tour.

After the classes we bought our items.  My total was $122 until they calculated all the sale discounts - It was $95.99!! pretty good.  It was 2 pm before we headed out for lunch.

We had a nice Mexican lunch before driving back to Portland. Most of the drive went smoothly except when it decided to rain vigorously.  I am glad it was Sharon driving and not me.  Thank you Sharon. It was a fun, though quick trip.

Edmonds WA Nov 18

Sharon picked up Kris and then picked me up about 10 am on Friday.  We drove to Edmonds, WA.  with a stop at Jeremy's for lunch.  It was very good.  It is one of those farm to table type restaurants so it was pretty healthy.  We each had the half sandwich and soup.

Then we continued on the drive.  The purpose of this trip is to take 2 of the Rick Steves classes tomorrow.  This will help us to prepare us for our Rick Steves trip to Barcelona-Madrid next June.  Also we have money to burn in the Rick Steves store.  We got to the hotel a little before check in time, but they let us check in anyway.  We have 2 rooms.  Sharon & Kris in one and I was in the other.  Then we took a walk around downtown Edmonds and dinked in all the cute shops.  We did not buy anything but looking was fun.  There were a lot of cool murals.  

We headed back to the hotel to have a glass of wine while we tried to figure out which place we wanted to go for dinner.  We picked the Cafe de Paris. 

 It was fabulous.  Very relaxed, with delicious food.  We each had the same thing: avocado salad with bay shrimp, filet mignon, with green beans, carrots, potatoes, creamed spinach and we shared a bottle of wine.

 The people at the table next to us had cherries jubilee for dessert.  It was fun watching them prepare it.  

On the way back to the hotel we saw a distillery which was still open so we went in for some vodka and gin tasting.  We tried berry flavored vodka, orange flavored vodka, gin, one from beer.  I liked the orange vodka the best.  That was fun.

 Then we headed back to the hotel.  It is nice to be so close to downtown.  We hung out in my room since I had more chairs in my room.

What a full day.