Busy Bees

Well we have survived Zak's first week back to school after a two-year absence. So far, so good. This semester he is taking Stats, Chemistry (with a lab), Econ, and Forestry (with a lab as well). His schedule is a little irregular, but I made up calendars and all kinds of useful reminders so we can get into some sort of rhythm. He says classes are going fine, they're not super exciting, but he's happy to be in school and all of that. It looks like his work schedule will be closing Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and either opening or closing on Saturdays. His labs are Thursday and Friday and so far we have been able to get everywhere we need to with one car and/or walking. Once it's not 100 degrees every day for a week, I'm sure he'll be much more up to walking or riding his bike. And once I'm working more, he'll be doing the same as well.

Work for me has been ok. The back-to-school rush was...alright. I had one night (a Monday, I believe) were I was the only hostess, so I was running around for 4 hours seating people, busing tables, etc. It's a lot less crazy when there is another hostess or a busboy, so that made the weekend nights tolerable. I'm hoping to get more hours soon, but there have been a bunch of new hires, so scheduling is up in the air. But everyone is really nice and fun to work with. And I'm getting the hang of almost everything, so I'm feeling pretty confident. We found me a clear, thin nose ring I can use on the days I work, so I don't have to put a band-aid over the piercing or take it out. Since it's been so sensitive to change, I'd rather have something in the hole than not, and no one has said a thing about the new clear one. So that's good.

Yes, it's been about 100 degrees every day for the past week and a half. We finally got a break last night we a major thunderstorm, but it didn't rain as much as we hoped. This has been the only week where I've seriously considered air conditioning, because the two fans have been going almost non-stop and it's been just miserable. It's supposed to cool off in the next few days, but it has been rough the last week or so. We are super ready for fall already!

That's been our life for the past few weeks. We're doing alright with the school adjustment, I'm trying my best to not be a nag about Zak and his homework, but he has a good work ethic and gets what he needs to done. Zak's birthday is in a few weeks, we are getting ready for that. I'm just trying to finalize on a gift idea for him, he is a very practical guy who doesn't want or need a lot of things, so I get to be creative with my presents for him. Unfortunately, his birthday is on a Thursday, and he has a late lab that night (7-9:50), but we'll try to make it a good day for him.

I came home from a really exhausting day at work to these beautiful flowers from Zak!

I'm not really a huge fan of dyed/weird color daises, but this arrangement was really beautiful and cheered me up! Plus, those big orange flowers that I don't know the name of? Gorgeous, they're my new favorites! I love the color gradient

We had our friends, Chad & Bryan over for dinner and I thought it was so cute that the silly dollar store place mats I got matched the flowers!

Seattle

We went to Seattle two weekends ago not only for our anniversary, but for our friends' wedding. So it worked out well, since neither of us have been to Seattle, it was our anniversary, and we got to be there for our friends' wedding. Win win win. The day before I made a bunch of chicken salad croissants and put together some snacks for our trip. We got up early Sunday morning and headed off. The drive wasn't too bad, just a little under 5 hours, and it wasn't very confusing, just...get on the highway and follow signs.

Unfortunately, we couldn't check into our hotel until around 3 or 4, and we got there around 12:30. But it was ok, because we had lunch. So we wandered around Pioneer Square and decided to have lunch overlooking the water. The weather was lovely, just around 75 degrees, with a slight breeze. I had done a bunch of prep work earlier that week, including looking up places for us to visit (free and paid, that's how involved I was), restaurants, and plenty of maps and directions.

where we ate lunch

Zak liked this old building and alleyway

I wanted to see the Waterfall Garden, since it sounded pretty cool, and we eventually found it. It was nice, small and we should've had lunch there, but whatever. We also found this nifty gem shop and spent forever in there. As Zak's been working on his gemology course for work (he's almost certified as a Gemologist, he recently got certified as a Diamontologist), I've spent some time learning and reading up about gems. It's been fun for me to be able to pick out different gems, and I can tell Zak's impressed with me. The only problem with those gem shops are that we want to buy a lot of different things, and settling on a cool gem or two is difficult. But Zak settled on a cool piece of clear quartz and a small piece of citrine. And he bought me some beautiful faceted lapis lazuli earrings. They are super pretty and it's hard to find faceted lapis, so we decided to go for it.

at the Waterfall Garden

After that we headed on over to where our hotel was. Neither of us expected Seattle to have so many hills! It felt like we were in San Francisco, and driving up and down the hills set me a little bit on edge. I didn't like it and was happy to have parked in the parking garage and not deal with driving for the rest of the weekend. Once we checked into our hotel, we just relaxed for a bit. The hotel was pretty cool, it had a Seattle's Best Coffee below it, so the lobby smelled great. And it was an older, European style hotel, with creative use of rooms, shall we say. Our view wasn't so great, but the bathroom was kind of cool, and it was nice to lie down in an air-conditioned space.

our hotel

the inside door had a full-length mirror on it, kind of neat/weird

Like I said, I had done a lot of prep work involving our trip earlier that week. I had a map of the area of our hotel and there were about a dozen restaurants that we could easily walk to. I had even printed out condensed versions of their menus. So we looked through all that information and decided on a Thai fusion type of place that had a satay bar and some interesting entrees. It was only a few blocks away, and we were seated right away. I ended up having crab cakes and a Thai coconut chicken satay, Zak had a fabulous Thai green coconut chicken curry that was out of this world. All in all, a great dinner and time was had. I got Zak this book about science and physics that I thought he'd like (he does, whoo!), he got me a set of pretty white gold hoops. His main gift we got in June, his chair he loves from Cost Plus World Market. So he has been enjoying it for awhile.

The next morning, we had several hours to kill, since the wedding wasn't until 7 that evening. And we were only about 5 of 6 streets down from Pike Place, so we headed on over there after we checked out. We were able to leave our car in the parking lot and walk over there. It was a pretty cool area to explore. And it was definitely nice to have just the two of us walking around the packed market, I kept thinking to myself how glad I was I didn't have to push around a stroller or look after a toddler! We saw the guys throwing fish and all of the beautiful flowers. We poked around in a bunch of eastern Asian shops, and to Zak's surprise, a few of the shops were playing a CD that his family had gotten in Nepal, a Tibetan Buddhist Chant CD. It made me giggle, he was so excited about it and chanted right along with the monks.

first look at the market

with the golden pig named Rachel!

I loved all the flowers, everything was so pretty!

so goofy

My mom and brother told me that we HAD to find this chowder place that they ate at when they were there a few years ago on a school choir tour. They had both found the same place, independent of each other and raved about it to me. I'm like my mom, a bit skeptic about any clam chowder that isn't hers (hers is pretty good), but she convinced me to try it, because it was amazing. We found it and split a bowl of traditional clam chowder and boy, was it delicious! We also ate at Jack's World Famous Fish place and had fish and chips. Yum!

go find this place and eat the chowder

yum!

oh Zak

a really pretty rooftop garden that we were jealous of

We just wandered around the market area, finding cool shops and food. It was hard not to look at all of the fresh fruit, veggies and fish, because we knew we couldn't take anything with us that needed refrigeration. But it was pretty neat, still. Once we were done with the market, we walked up near the water and pass all the shops and touristy sites. We didn't have the time (or money) to visit the Space Needle, but maybe on our next trip. We had a fun time just walking around and looking at everything, and being in a big city.

I wasn't interested in what ginger beer tastes like, but was thrilled to know I'm apparently very successful at making it?

this picture was his choice, not mine

at a cool poster shop, took this for Kenny!

Zak and his SUPER MANLY snack of jerky and smoked pepper jack cheese

The wedding was across the water, in Bellevue at a place called Robinswood House. But we got over there about an hour early, so we found some parking lot in some shopping center and read/napped for a bit. The grounds at the venue were beautiful, lots of flowers and a nice place for the ceremony. We felt a bit out of place, but we knew one couple; Zak worked with the gal at work, and they had just recently moved out of Moscow. So it was nice to at least kind of know someone. It was a pretty small wedding, about 50 or 60 people. The ceremony was simple, sweet and heartfelt. Erika and Mat both looked great and so happy, and hardly noticed the rest of us!

sitting in the seats, waiting

still waiting

the happy couple

I zoomed in mostly for Erika's dress, which was beautiful

The reception was nice, the decorations were really pretty. The colors were black and teal, and the tent looked really great, it had lots of pretty teal fabric everywhere. And the centerpieces had candles with the same blue and purple orchids Erika had in her bouquet. One of my favorite parts was that the table names were different cuts of diamonds, which is appropriate since Mat is now the manager at Zak's work, and Erika used to work there, too. There were a few toasts, dancing and lots of delicious food. Their cake was great, too. I was slightly jealous of the awesome blue glitter frosting, it looked pretty neat.

pretty centerpieces

it tasted great, too!

with the newlyweds :)

We had to leave around 9:30, right as the main dancing started. We were going to stay in a hotel in Yakima because Zak got a type of corporate coupon, but we decided we'd ask his grandparents if we could stay with them, instead. The drive wasn't too bad, just a bit longer than we would have liked, but we got there around midnight thirty and prompted crashed.

The next morning we visited with his grandparents for a few hours. And we got to take home a bunch of fresh garden goodies! We picked a ton of blackberries and apricots. We also got a few tomatoes, peppers, plums and a cantaloupe. And about a dozen or so cucumbers, because we wanted to try pickling them at home (will post about that soon). The peaches weren't ready, but hopefully we'll be to get some in a few weeks. So we left with a haul, and were super excited about everything. I promptly came home and made delicious apricot freezer jam that I can't decide if we're going to keep all the jars or if I'll give one or two of them away. We have made pickles, that have turned out really well and I'll post about it on my recipe blog in a bit.

we wanted to take home this cute kitty

our garden treasures

So, we had a great trip. It was a bit surreal to already be celebrating our second wedding anniversary, where did the time go?! We had a bit of a crazy year, but survived it for the better. It's been so great to be married and have our own life together. We're pretty happy. :)

Camping Inside & Rachel gets a Job

A few weeks ago, we talked about going camping for the few days Zak had off of work. But then we decided to just camp inside because there was a thunderstorm. It was fun; we moved the furniture and set up the tent and got all the blankets out. But then around 2 AM we woke up and decided that the air mattress wasn't super comfortable and went upstairs to our comfy bed.

I got a job! Two weeks ago, Zak was talking to the manager of the pizza place in the mall (Smoky Mountain Pizzeria Grill), who mentioned they were looking for some new people. The next day Zak & I went in and filled out an application, and when I turned it into the manager, he said he'd call me later about setting up a time to do paperwork, and that I'd be the hostess, starting off at part-time for the moment. It was so sudden and almost difficult to believe, but there it was! So a few days later I went in and filled out all the papers and talked to him about the job. So far I'm working part-time as a hostess, and most likely getting full-time soon (Rush for the colleges starts next week, the week after both universities start back up, so I'll be working a lot more), and eventually will be a server. I'm a bit nervous about being a server, but I'm glad that, so far, my job is pretty easy at the moment. I basically stand around, look pretty, seat customers and help bus tables or roll silverware, tidy up if it needs to be done. My only complaint is that I have to wear a black polo and tan pants, yuck. And I have to cover up my nose ring. I put my diamond stud back in, and just cover it up with a band-aid for the few hours I work.

It's nice to be back in the mall and close to Zak, scheduling will be easier with both of us working there. And everyone I've met so far is really helpful and nice and easy to get along with. And they've been patient with me, not only because I'm new, but I'm also new to the food service industry. So I'm not complaining, because a job is a job. I'm still going to see if maybe I can find another part-time job in the future.

Other than that, our gladiolus bulbs I got from Wal-Mart and planted in May are finally flowering! I planted them on a whim, not expecting too much, but lo and behold, most of them grew up nicely! We've had some pretty pink ones, as well as purple, and right now there is a new yellow one and a beautiful white one. I'm happy! But in other garden news, our vegetables really aren't doing well. This summer was weird, we had cold snaps and then heat waves, so maybe next year we'll stick to all flowers.

Coming up on the next blog entry: our anniversary in Seattle! Keep on the look-out for it!