The Emerald City (Day 2)

Well - Before I tell you about Day 2 of Seattle I have to tell you that

my real happiness today
comes in the form of an early birthday present!

This Friday I get to have lunch with two of my favorite ladies!!! ELJ and her friend...

Bonnie Parkin!

I'm so excited!!! I love love love Sister Parkin!

I'm thrilled and grateful and, again, fairly sure that I'm the favorite of all of God's Children!!

So I'll have happiness to share on Friday! I can't wait!

And to transition...

Sister Parkin used to live in Seattle Too!!! Yeah for Seattle!

(Colleen memories again! We bought each other a lovely little umbrella pin just like Sister Parkin when she came to visit and told us to "Just pop up!" and said she had bought it at Pike Place Market.
Love it!)

So - My second wonderful day in Seattle.
Mostly my day consisted of A. - People I love:

First - My former co-workers:

Those are some wonderful ladies. I miss working with them!

Second - My "German Lutheran Family":

The Mobley's
These are two of the best people you could ever be lucky enough to meet.
Nowhere are people more genuine and loving and good!
Richard can build anything in the world and Tina --
well what can't Tina do!
Being in Seattle always reminds me how lucky I am to know the best people in the world!


And Harriet:

(How come I don't have a picture of me and Harriet together? Where are those pics from my 30th b'day party?
Mo - do you have any? Very Strange!!!
Harriet is not Hilda in front or Stella behind her. She's the lovely behind both other lovely ladies.)
Oh I wish you could all know Harriet!!! She is so fantastic. Kind and fun and so kind and generous and loving and wonderful. I absolutely love being with her!

Third - Stella:

I must say, I'm so disappointed we didn't get a new picture together.
She is stunningly beautiful.
This September she will celebrate 100 years of life! She is amazing.

Fourth - My wonderful Temple Friends.
Obviously I don't have pictures of seeing my Temple Friends - but it was so wonderful to see them!!! Oh Wait!!!

This is my very favorite Sister Brown - she came to my graduation party and ironically I didn't see her when I went to the Temple this time but she definitely means the Temple to me!

I didn't even change out of my street clothes -- I just ran around and talked to everyone and
OF COURSE at yummy chocolate pudding!
There's nowhere like the Seattle Temple.

B. - Places I love:

1. The Temple!



(This is actually a picture of the Chapel behind the Temple - but it's so beautiful!)



#2 - Green Lake. It was nighttime by the time I got there to walk around - so here are some pictures from when I used to live in Seattle.


I swear Green Lake is a little heaven on earth.

And C - Food I love:

1. Lunch and tea at the Mobley's with Harriet joining us for tea and dessert! Such wonderful Seattle memories - It was always my favorite thing to have "tea with jam and bread" with Harriet!

Harriet and I stopped at Tully's and I had a Yerba Mate Latte! YUM (no it's not coffee...) Seattle AND Argentina!
Why is Tully's also not in SLC??

2. I should've taken a picture of the Dick's Deluxe Burger that I ate after my walk around Green Lake. I was sitting there alone in the car, eating a burger, fries and a coke when the song "I'm Too Sexy" came on the radio. I had to laugh. Perfect soundtrack for me stuffing my face at 11:00 at night - alone in the driveup at Dick's. I'm definitely too sexy.


Found an old pic...
So many things make me so happy today. So much Happiness!!!
Really. So Happy.

Sunny Skies in Seattle (Day 1)

Last month I took a wonderful quick trip to Seattle for

Maria's wedding.

My friend Megan picked me up from the airport and the fun began immediately!

Our first stop... Pike Place Market!

I learned from ELJ to always drive up to the front of the parking lot closest to wherever you're going because there will probably be a parking spot waiting just for you! It almost always works!! It certainly did this day and we were so glad because it's hard (and expensive) to park in Seattle!

We made a quick pit stop and I thought this was just so Seattle -- boots and a dog in a woman's bathroom stall. Awesome. Also - how short is that door? A little privacy please!
Maybe that's why the dog was guarding. :)

Then... We were off to explore the Market!


Taste Test #1! Chocolate Linguine! Interesting!


Taste Test #2! Vinegar and Oil!

I brought home some yummy fig vinegar and
basil garlic parmesan olive oil.
Megan loved testing - so did I - but she loaded up each toothpick with like 5 (as she called them) "Sacrament Breads."


Ah, the flowers.

I always said if I got married in Seattle, I'd just send someone down to the Market on the day of the wedding. The flowers are amazingly gorgeous and giant bouquets like these cost $10-15.

Who can ever get enough of peonies???

All I can say about this guy... ewwww.

A live "razor clam." Sick.

It was dangling out of the shell all rubbery and nasty.

We did not buy these... just took a pic.

They were huge!

Sick.

Not really so happy - in fact the first not really so happy thing on the blog! Wow!

By now, (despite the nastiness) I was getting hungry so it was off to Jack's Fish Spot, where my friend Crystal used to work! They were really almost closed - but I convinced the nice, Spanish speaking employee to let me have some scallops and a crab cocktail. YUM!!!!!

Besides being a great picture of my nostrils and something black in my teeth (don't zoom in too close, please) this is also a pic of the nice man at the bar who let me eat one of his oysters. Wow! Noah would not believe it - but I ate a great big oyster! We said cheers and clinked our shells and down the hatch! Not Bad! Very sea-watery and a little chewy but not bad.

Meggy and I wanted a pic at the fish spot so the nice employee took it for us - but only if his friend could join us. Ok. Hi friend.

He was so cool, we hardly knew what to do with ourselves. Obviously. :)

Isn't this a gorgeous picture? Seattle is amazing.

CSI: Seattle.

I'm not sure what a taxi dog is either - but I thought it was a funny picture.

Some classic Seattle signs.

We almost stopped and drew a cane or walker on the senior crossing sign - but thought we'd better not. Why don't they have one on there though? It'd be so perfect!

What the heck is an Arterial? You can follow them all over Seattle. Makes me miss Colleen so much.

We headed to Dick's to have a milkshake and we were not disappointed!
Nothing like a Dick's milkshake!

And I love Target! (Pronounced Tar-jet)
It's the one in Northgate with the escalators.
Megan's so cute with her little basket on the escalator!

Target (pronounced Tar-zhay) is in Bellevue because it must be fancier over there.
Again -- So miss Colleen.







Megan and Ben are so great.
They are seriously the model of what I hope to have someday in a marriage.
(And they're kind-of twinners in this pic!)
And they are just the best friends EVER!
I won't ever forget -- "Stopping, stopping." "Dontcha wanna dance! HUH!" And so many more!
Thanks for letting me use your car! Love you guys!!!

More to come...

Megan and Ben and Seattle, obviously, make me SO HAPPY!!!!!

Dontcha wanna dance, Say ya wanna dance, Dontcha wanna dance! (HUH!)

This video (found by me on mimi on the move) just made me So Happy!

It's a little long - but don't you wish you could go to all those places?

And don't you wish you would've thought to just dance your heart out with everyone there?

Check out the guy on the right side of the video in blue, in Brisbane, Australia. So funny!

And how 'bout all those crabs on Christmas Island! Amazing (and YUM!)

Isn't India cool?

The non-dancing guy in the demilitarized zone in Korea cracked me up!!!

Here you can check out this New York Times article about the dancing man, Matt.

The very last place in the video is Seattle! (about which I need to do some serious blogging!) I've been there -- Gasworks Park -- Love it!!! In fact, I've been to 12 of the places! (Teotihuacan, Buenos Aires, Miami, Munich, Chicago, Mexico City, San Francisco, Vancouver, DC, Paris, Los Angeles, and Seattle!) (Plus one state - California (but not to Alhambra, I don't think) and one country - Poland (but to Krakow not Warsaw).)

How many places have you gone to?

What's on your travel-bug list?

Mine goes: Illinois, Dollywood!, Mexico, Argentina, London, Prince Edward Island, Holland, Italy, Norway, Greece, Africa - all over!, and Disneyland (just the music almost makes me tear up!) over and over all throughout that list! There are lots more I am sure - but that pretty much covers it...

Thinking about traveling and loving all the people in the world (well, it's easy to do when they're all so happy and dancing on a little video!) makes me, SO Happy!

As you wish!!!

Tonight -- what makes me happy right now -- finding a wonderful movie on Channel 7 very unexpectedly!!!

The Princess Bride.

Almost over really -- but no problem. I know what's happened -- I know what will happen.

And I stumbled on in time for the old lady to say, "Boo! Boo! So bow to her if you want. Bow to her, bow down. Bow to the Queen of Putrescence!" (How is that a word?? But it is -- no little red line underneath to tell me to change it!)

Of course, my favorite line is, wait -- I can't just have one.

"I'm not a witch, I'm your wife!"
"No more rhyming and I mean it!" "Anybody want a peanut?"
"Mawage is what bwings us togevva today."
"Inconceivable!" "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
"Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up."
"To the death!" "No! To the pain!" (Yikes!)
"Why won't my arms work?" "You've been almost dead all day!"
"Move? You're alive - if you want I can fly."
"Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while. "

Oh, so many many more. And so many memories.

The best time I had watching this was in Seattle with Maria and co. outside in the Seattle Center. Every time (is that not one word?) they said "The Dread Pirate Roberts" a whole group of people would stand up and wave a pirate flag. Loved it.

And don't you love that Kevin from -- what was that show with Winnie and the tall, skinny kid that should have been called Allen or something... Life goes on? No - I think that was with Corky... Google. Fred Savage - The Wonder Years. Awesome. -- is the little sick kid. So 80's.

And Columbo. So great.

And the floating down out of the window in her wedding dress to the horse moment -- awesome.

What are your favorite lines/memories of The Princess Bride?

Ever had anyone actually say, "As you wish?"

Late-night-great-movie-instead-of-lame-tv-options-when-I-really
-should-be-asleep-anyway make me So Happy!

Well, Hello Dolly! (aka OH MY HECK TIMES THREE PART TWO!)

So some of you may not know a secret about me...

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Dolly Parton.

I mean it.

Love her.

I'm pretty sure we were best friends in the pre-existence.


My first tape - Dolly. It was a Greatest Hits... 9 to 5, But you know that I love you, Love is like a butterfly, Me and Little Andy, Islands in the stream, I will always love you, Here you come again, Heartbreak express, Tennessee Mountain Home, Jolene, Applejack, Coat of Many Colors, Appalachian Memories, Travelin' man (which I recited for a ward talent show once complete with Southern accent) ... the list goes on.

I used to listen to it on my enormous walkman while I rode my bike and my neighbor and I would pretend that we were chauffering Dolly and Olivia Newton John around on our Schwinn's. Mine had a banana seat so there was plenty of room.

I have so much Dolly music -- and I'm pretty sure I know all the words. (When she was on American Idol recently, my brother happened to be watching... he all of a sudden realized he was singing along to all the songs and then realized it was Dolly... He was not happy about how much we ALL listened to Dolly when we lived at home!)

This is her newest album - "Backwoods Barbie." She's so cute.


And I've definitely seen all of her movies - (yep, even that one.) (Oh man, I miss Colleen!!! "Sneakin' around with you...") Love 'em, love 'em, love 'em.

I think she's a genius -- Dollywood -- creating all those jobs for people from her neck of the "woods",


Dolly's Imagination Library -- giving every child in Sevier County, Tennessee, a book EVERY MONTH from birth until they're 5 years old,

The more than 3000 songs that she's written...

A genius.

And guess what...

In August, Dollywood will have 3 of it's most excited visitors EVER because I'M GOING THERE! My parents are taking me to Dollywood!! They're the best parents EVER!

See how excited she is that I'm coming!!! I am so totally excited!!! This is a life-long dream come true!!!! AND - SHE WILL BE THERE IN CONCERT WHEN WE'RE THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I know, Dolly! I'm so excited too!

Come on. She totally knew I would be coming and planned it all just for me. I love it!!!


Thanks, Dolly. That's my wish too. :)

Seriously so so so, So Happy.