The Weepies!

Well friends, it has been a hella long time. In the last six months, I have gotten a new (awesome!) job, and had a really busy summer, so I’ve not had a lot of time to sit down in front of the computer. You can check out my blossoming food blog and my husband’s blog here.

But this post is about The Weepies! Husband and I flew down to NYC for a whirlwind 30 hours of tourism, excellent food, and most important, a concert by our beloved Weepies. We arrived about an hour and a half before doors opened, so we were about fourth in line to get into the standing-room-only venue.

After making some friends in line and sending Husband on a Starbucks run for reinforcements, we got in and beelined for the front of the venue. We ended up right at the front of the stage! It was a great spot to be able to watch them play.

They mentioned that their goal of this tour was to play like they do at home, sitting in their bedroom or living room, hanging out and playing together, their kids dancing in the background. And it was just that. It was comfortable. It was homey. They sat on vintage-looking white kitchen chairs and played the most heartfelt show I’ve ever seen. They glanced at each other during the songs and made jokes between numbers. They were charming.

Some may consider some of their songs “hokey,” as their songs can come off as being overly cute. But seeing them perform, it was clear that they believed every poetic phrase, and it made us all believe.

I would highly recommend going to see them if you get the chance, though I suppose I am biased. I sang along all evening. It felt like singing with old friends, and as we sang, and I could hear Husband singing along too, I realized how intertwined their music is with our love story, and it made my heart just swell.

Enjoy some photos of the evening below (all taken and edited with Camera+ on iPhone 4). Thank you, Deb and Steve, for making music that lets us know it is ok to believe in love.

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A few more

I realized there were a few more shots from our trip that I would really like to post. Because I like them. So deal.

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Who knew I could make pictures into a pretty slideshow! Technology is so cool.

In other news, my roommate and maid of honor Sarah is leaving for a summer-long camp tomorrow, and I will miss her. Have fun, Sarah!

Still not home

Turns out one sick crew member can really eff up your plans for the day.

Our original flight-plan: 8:30 flight from SeaTac to JFK (landing 3:30ish Eastern time), 6:15 flight from JFK to ROC, arriving home around 8:30. A long day, but doable, right? Only 9 hours with the time change.

Actual travel-day: 7:30 arrival at SeaTac, flight delayed to 9, flight delayed to 11:45. Quality time with Elliot (you know, I read Bon Appetit while he caught up on the Apple keynote from yesterday). 11:45 flight to JFK, landed around 7:30 local time. Now we are sitting in the terminal. Waiting. We got some dinner, and are waiting for a 10:45 flight to finally bring us home, more than 15 hours after our day began.

I think it’s safe to say I am officially longing for my bed. My eyelids are heavy, and the tv at the terminal is not showing anything particularly interesting. We are wiped.

Seattle!

Hello! We are still in Seattle. What a great trip this has been (so I’m posting a photo-filled blog!). Seriously, Eric and Alanna are great. Elliot picks good friends.

Yesterday, we went to see a waterfall, which was very misty. And of course, the waterfall had a gift shop.

We got to walk around a bit and check it out from all different angles. We would have taken the trail down to the bottom of the falls, but that trail is apparently closed until 2013.

After the waterfall, we helped Eric and Alanna get all set up for their youth group dinner thing, and then Elliot and I went to Paolo’s on Eric and Alanna’s strong recommendation, and it was fantastic! Great local wine selection, fresh local pasta, handmade desserts…it was wonderful. Then we got to hang out the rest of the night with our hosts. Elliot and I pretty much mopped the floor with them in a couple rounds of Rook.

Today we had a huge breakfast of eggs and french toast and turkey bacon, and then took off for the city. We went on the Underground Tour. It was really fun, and we learned a lot about Seattle. Apparently once upon a time, the city burned down, and instead of waiting for the city to be rebuilt at a higher level as promised, the merchants rebuilt their stores at the same level beginning the very next day after the fire. Then the city got to work on raising the street level, which left a 20-block network of underground tunnels where the old sidewalks used to be. Crazy! Here are some (pretty bad) pictures from the tour:

The brick framework under the streets.

A view of the skylights from underneath the street.

An old bank teller's cage.

Clearly, the tour was very informative. From there, we headed to Kerry Park, which is more of an overlook, and took a few more pictures.

After Kerry Park, we drove back down to Pike Place Market, and spent hours walking around. We had sandwiches at Beecher’s while we watched them make the cheese, we saw the original Starbucks, checked out the myriad of shops, bought some vanilla beans!, and then headed over to Elliott’s on the water for some really wonderful dinner. I had mushroom ravioli with asparagus, tomatoes, crab meat, and a really light cream sauce. Delightful! Also, I am very excited about the vanilla beans, because I really want to make this.

I really need to stop writing this post now. It is currently 11:42 local time, and we need to get up in about 6 hours to get to the airport on time. And then not let ourselves sleep on the planes so we can get to bed at a regular Eastern time tomorrow night. Ugh. I’m tired already.

Live from Seattle!

I’m writing now from across our fair country, and it’s strange to think our friends are in the middle of the evening church service we normally attend and it’s not even 3pm yet here. We left yesterday from Rochester around 8:30 and arrived in Seattle 3:30pm Pacific time, having eaten lunch at noon our time, which was 9am Pacific. 27 hours is a long day.

Our friends Eric and Alanna met us at the airport, and we squeezed in a wine tasting (yum!) before heading out to the Red Hook brewery for the best $1 tour I have ever taken. The tour lasted about an hour, and we got to try 5 beers, one of them twice, for a total of 24oz. of beer, plus a taste of their Imperial IPA, Big Ballard, downstairs at the pub, purely for comparison’s sake. Not bad for a buck, right?

We got home, got the tour of their lovely abode, and Alanna and I started in on dinner. I made a cherry vanilla crisp with some fresh cherries we had bought on the side of the road, and Alanna made a spicy parmesan kale dish, some rice with beans and veggies, and they treated us to some fresh-caught, never-frozen salmon from Pike’s market.

Eric preached this morning, and it was absolutely beautiful, but more on that later. We’re off to see a waterfall!