From One Washington to the Other / One Short Weekend in the Emerald City

Preface: Before I begin, let me explain the title(s). As we all know, there is a lot of pressure to get the perfect title post when you blog. The cover of the book, if you will. On the airplane on the way to Seattle, my mind drifted to "what will I name put as the title for when I inevitably blog about this trip?" In the end, I couldn't choose between these excellent (if I do say so myself) choices, so I put both up. Anyway...

Begin Post here: Basically, I <3 Seattle. It actually reminds me a lot of Alexandria because there are tons of trees, and everyone loves doing things outdoors (although, I must admit the kayaking is more popular in one than the other). After a jam packed week of working (26 hours of overtime!), we had an equally jam packed -- but much more fun-- weekend exploring the beautiful city.

After a yummy lunch in the restaurant on top of the Space Needle we headed to a duck tour. I decided to test our driver's sense of humor by answering "the better Washington!" when he asked where I was from. He did not pass my test. He just went on the next person. No friendly East Coast/West Coast banter!! Lame-o!

To get back at me, he decided to tell me that in order to get the boat to the water from the road, we would have to start going really fast and go over a ramp at like 40mph and "bump a few times in the water." At which point, Kristen leaned over to me and whispered "Oh, I hate this part!! It's really scary!" BOO. It's not true. You go at like .01mph.



Next, we got pedicures - I got my classic french tips, natch. The lady who was doing Kristen's feet kept on tickling her (not hard to do), and then all the ladies would all start laughing and then talking super fast in Korean/Japanese/Chinese. Ah, good times. Also, we learned that Nicole Richie is Lionel Richie's daughter! But she's got to be adopted, right? Anyone know the 411 on that?




Next on the list: Mariner's game. They lost. I got my souvenir of an ice-cream helmet.


Next day: Church, the troll, the temple...





Then Kristen and her roommates made me and some other guys friends some excellent dinner. Seriously. It was great. I wish I could cook. (I did attempt to make the syrup for pancakes, but bad things happened.) There are no pictures of the syrup. It's probably for the best.

On Monday, we celebrated Memorial Day by going hiking. Mark, a guy from Kristen's ward, headed it up and told us "oh, there might be a little snow on the ground." Um... you can't really tell from the below pic, but there was a TON of snow. We were walking on it most of the time. But it was still really fun!! PS- the super tall guy is our long-lost cuz. He is cool.




Then, we took a ferry ride of Seattle...



Went to Pike's Peak:



And went to sleep. Tuesday, we went kyacking which was kind of scary :( Only because I'm a wimp and kept on imagining boats coming at me at speeds of 100 mph+ to run me over. Maybe I have an overactive imagination. One of thing of note: they told us to stay to the right because the boats would stay on the left. Not true!! The craaazzzyy Seattle police drive their boats on the right! Someone needs to inform them of this. Maybe Kristen should organize a protest.

Anyway, it was a great weekend with great company!! Thanks Kristen! Now I have to make sure I plan an equally fun trip for when she comes out to DC in a month!

Well this was a super long post. Thanks for hanging in there. To reward you, I will share this lovely pic of Richard (until he tells me to take it down):

One Flew Over Emily's Nest

Because of my newly-found (forced?) love of learning new words for the GRE, I was especially intrigued when I came across this quote from Albert Einstein:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

After pondering this definition, I came to the conclusion that I am, quite literally, insane. Don't believe me? Ask the dishes! (Sorry, I'm listening to my Broadway mix right now.) Really, though. I have several examples to back up this claim. And in honor of Richard's last final today, I will show it to you courtroom style:

Exhibit 1: The Sun


Don't let this guy's innocuous facade fool you; his evil death rays belie his smiling face. (And, by the way, isn't it ironic and silly that we draw sunglasses on the sun? Yes, I just realized that.) Each year, around this time, I take a look at my skin and am reminded of my extremely fair (unfair?) Scandanavian coloring and think, "oh, well, I'll just go outside and go running/the pool/the beach and get tan."

Well, you know what happens next: I inevitably turn incarnadine, and have to load on the aloe vera/moisturizer for the next couple of weeks. Let me stress again that I go through this EVERY. YEAR. And every April, I think that my skin genes have somehow morphed into those of a Amazon warrior. Maybe in 2010...

Exhibit 2: The Shoes

I have a pair of very cute brown shoes that I got my junior year of college (read: 2 years ago). After doing the mandatory "test run" of awkwardly walking 30 feet around the store, I decided that it was okay -- nay, a good thing -- that the shoes felt a tad too small for my feet because, you know, they'll probably stretch out enough and this means that they won't fall off my feet! Right?

Yeah. Right. The next day, simply walking from one class to another almost killed me. It felt like I was walking on hot coals. But, you don't understand, they were SO CUTE. So then, a week later, I only remembered the cute part and decided to wear them again to church. Again, the blisters and the agony ensued. To THIS DAY (seriously, I wore them last week), I think, "well maybe they have finally stretched out (sitting in my closet floor) or my feet shrunk or something and it won't be so bad this time." Sigh.

So, there you have it folks. You are reading the blog of an insane person. I rest my case.