Down South NE

Just a few more snapshots from last week.  As mentioned, I worked in Seattle last week and so I ended up driving down to Portland to stay with my bro.  I didn't wind up with appointments on Thursday so I took the morning and got up, went to a coffee shop and did a bunch of work and then came back in the afternoon and me and the sibling did a little tour of Portland.

We started with a MANSION tour.... Chuckle chuckle after being at Biltmore last week.  This place was a little peanut stand - very elaborate, but pretty tiny all the same.

Its called the Pittock Mansion.  It was the guy who started the Oregonian newspaper.  They actually didn't build the place until they were in their 70s and then only lived there for 5 years until they died and their kids took the place over.

This is the view from the Music Room - you can see Mt Hood in the distance....

From the main upstairs bedroom, looking the other side of the house - you can see towards Washington and Mt St Helens and Mt Rainier.  When you were standing on the back lawn, you could see the two mountains on one side and the other on the other side.  It was kind of cool.

After dinner, it was kind of late, but I had read about this "Fantasy Trail" that you could walk with lights and all.  It was about 40 minutes from the city, but we decided to take the drive out for a little walk in nature.  Let me throw you a hint if you're ever out in Portland during the holidays -- do not, I repeat, DO NOT go to the Fantasy Trail for a little stroll unless you have a 2 year old with you.  $5 a person later, and you're strolling through the cheesiest display of cheapo lights winding through a wooded path that may or may not be the scene of some creepy "Halloween" murder.  

As you can tell below, though, Karl was the 2 year old in the scenario and was ecstatically delighted with wild amounts of joy!  But I think the place was haunted because that white dot kept on popping up on all my pictures....  Creepy

Memories of the NE

Homeless people standing in their Columbia jackets on 4 corners at an intersection. Fog hanging low and a fine mist eternally falling. Mirror glass water sitting at the base of peaking hills dotted with sky tall evergreens. From bad to good - this is Seattle and this is where I'm working Wednesday through Friday of this week.









I'm sitting in Top Pot right now, the infamous NE coast doughnut chain that has made television numerous times and is always host to a crowd of sweet toothed partakers. After my morning flight, the hassle renting a car at SEATAC airport and then an appointment with an older manger who, I must admit, gives me a little bit of the creeps (ok- a lot of them...), I found my way to the downtown Top Pot and found a very handy parking spot directly across the street. I'm now settled in with my laptop (the work one is up, not the personal:( but I'm iphoning it while I wait the 20 minutes for my HP to decide to actually open up..). Ive got a latte in front of me and I'm just putting my hands up in surrender to the Pink Feather Boa doughnut - who needs lunch, right!  http://www.toppotdoughnuts.com/cafe-info.html

Cookie Swap

If you remember, a little while back, I signed mom and myself up for a cookie swap thats part of a blog that I occasionally follow. I believe there were a total of about 500 or 600 people or something that signed up - can't remember the exact numbers. All I really know are the facts of it: we sign up, we wait until a certain date and then the swap hosts send me (the signee upper :)) three different names and addresses of other people who signed up. In the meantime, the same thing is being done with everyone else so that my name is being given to three different people. We start the swap on a certain date and it has to be concluded by a certain date. Meaning, I have to make 3 dozen cookies (the same recipe for each dozen) and send one dozen to each of the three names that were given to me. In turn, I should be receiving a dozen cookies from 3 different people.... and MOM should be receiving 1 dozen from 3 different people. That means, we will have a total of 6 dozen cookies in our house (plus the leftovers from the ones that we made) that we'll have to work our way through this season. Anyone like cookies? We have some if you want to come over....

Mom sent hers out the other day and I'll send mine out later today (I believe I'm a day late, but its kind of hard when you're out of town...)

When I got home from the week, I had received one of my dozen. They were Monster Cookies and they were from Maggie and Annie Gill - their blog is abitchinkitchen.blogspot.com Maggie and Annie should be posting their recipe on December 12th when we're all supposed to post ours. The cookies were absolutely delicious!!!!! They were kind of peanut buttery but I felt oatmeal but then there were chocolate chips and M&Ms -- its the trifecta of yummy! Thanks Maggie and Annie!

Mom had also received one of her dozen. They were gingerbread cookies from Elena and I can't seem to find her blog site so, we'll have to come back to that one :) Since they were mom's I haven't tried them yet, but I will later today. They were definitely cute! I liked the one guy that you could see with the little sad face - I think he was upset that he had to wait so long to be eaten! :)

Stay tuned for the rest of the cookies we get..... I'm excited to see what they'll be!

I'm making a recipe from my Grandma Behn and I'll post my recipe and mom's recipe on my site on December 12th so - if you want to check it out, come back and visit me again :)

Week Wrap Up

One of these posts I'm going to actually have to review some of the restaurants in Asheville because I must admit - we never found a bad one!  And then southern cooking on top of that - well roll me up and call me fat and happy -- I think we've discovered that I'm not very talented at making up southern euphemisms...

So, the picture below here is of Jodi me and Michelle at Bistro 1896.  Michelle drove over from Atlanta later on Saturday and then we made an 8pm reservation and found ourselves delightfully stuffed on fried chicken and shrimp and grits.  We threw in a few fried green tomatos just to make sure we hit the southern trifecta, but we decided to mosy over to this place around the corner for dessert.  Could you ever keep three women from a place called French Broad Chocolate Lounge late on a Saturday night?!  They had a great little jazz group called Jazzville Band playing and the atmosphere was so cool and the desserts were so yummy!

And if that wasn't enough - we got back to the room later and Michelle (who is a stylist) had brought color and her scissors with her so she gave Jodi a good grooming with a color and cut.

The next morning, we got up rather late and met up for brunch with Yens and Bethany who live in Asheville.  They are just the cutest couple ever!  Yens is from Germany and he works with an organization that hosts exchange students for a 3 week period in the Asheville area.  They're both such interesting people.  We had a great brunch with them and just talked and laughed and got to know each other (one of Jodi's Hungarian friends had Bethany as an English teacher in Hungary when she was in elementary school and they've just stayed in touch so Nori was insistent that we meet up with them - she didn't steer us wrong!).  

We talked and laughed at the restaurant for an hour or two and then decided to stroll around town.  They had some art shows going on and there are just a lot of artsy shops in the downtown area.  We hit most of them, I think :)  Saw some pretty interesting art but I can't say I bought any....

:)!

 This was such a cool building but there's no business in it at this point.

This is in the Arcade which is a cute little indoor shopping area.

This is a Catholic church built by someone famous (wasn't paying attention) - but I did get that it has no supporting beams or arches or something inside - the domes are all supported just by brick.

I got back home at about 2:30 a.m.  We were just having such fun together that we stayed in Asheville until about 3 pm and then took off.  I got Jodi back to Indianapolis by about 11:20 and then took off from there and drove straight through.  I got home, set my alarm and then fell into bed.  Up at 7 and then off to work around 8.  Its always a busy day when I'm in the office because I not only have to catch up on all my paperwork and reports, but I have to catch up on my social life there as well :)  The one thing that I had to finish today was that dog gone expense report.  It was quite full this past month - I can't believe how much I was gone -- if in doubt, just measure the thickness of the receipt pile, its definitely a paperclip pile and not a staple one (thats how I can tell I've been really busy)....

And here's one more "gift" :)  I may have forgotten about my story last week, but it was in the beginning stage so, I now give to you, Monday's StoriesFromASnapshot!

http://storiesfromasnapshot.wordpress.com/

Quick Trip Down South

A quick weekend trip down south - I picked my friend, Jodi, up from Indianapolis.  Got in later in the evening and we were prepping for the trip and discovered, upon popping my hood, that I had a nice little mouse nest in my brand new car.  My mechanic would kill me as it had happened before in my last car and he was quite upset to find some rodent running around his shop because it had jumped out of my car :)  We didn't find any mouse in the nest, but we got it all out.  Eeek! :)

We got down to North Carolina later in the day and then over the weekend we were able to do two hikes up the Smokies and also go to Biltmore House in Asheville.  We had BEAUTIFUL weather!  We ended up hiking about 14 miles and we did the strenuous hikes - it was awesome!

At Biltmore House....

 At the Grove Park Inn  - the Gingerbread House competition - it was amazing.  About 100 different houses created by children to adults.

Grove Park also had about 100 Christmas trees - all with different decorations.