Plants Plants Plants!

Totally unrelated to plants, but wanted to show an update of our neurotic wheelie pug:  

He has developed an OCD condition of licking his front legs until he has made sores.  So now we have to bandage and wrap his legs every day.  I went with the red bandages, to match his superhero diapers of course! ha!  But he is getting around better in his wheels and has figured out how to back himself up and turn around quite well.  Now only if we could teach him to take those door frames a little wider....

But, back to the title of this blog:  Plants!

We have lived in Oregon almost two years and have used our tent once that entire time.  Due to rain and wind, we would prefer to yurt or cabin tent here on the coast.  So we decided to free up some space in the garage and sell our tent and screen house.  A guy contacted me to see if I would consider a trade.  Turns out he owns a native plants nursery!  Perfect!  I made my "wish list" and we met them in Newport.

Here's the back of the car on our way down:

 and here it is after the trade:

So excited! Oh, did I mention he forgot tags for them?  Put my plant ID skills to test for sure!

I want to rip out all the "grass" in the front lawn and have it full of plants, strawberries, herbs, etc.
Here we are, starting to plan

I have to do a post once it's all done.  It's definitely slow-going between work, exercise, and doing things with Aundray.

Happy Anniversary!

For our 14 year anniversary this year we decided to go here:

We love markets!  The energy, the people watching, the wandering, the new foods....  And Pikes Market in Seattle has always held a special place in our hearts.  We don't see the "touristy" side of it like others do, instead, it holds a lot of memories of days spent mingling in and among the crowds, hearing the various street musicians, and being inspired.

Our first day we were a little tired and the drive up there reminded us how much we hate big city traffic.  But once we got to our hotel, we parked the car and walked EVERYWHERE the rest of the trip.  It was quite invigorating, not to mention a way to make a (small) dent in the amount of calories we were consuming.  The hardest thing for me was the amount of homeless people and to watch out for "teams" as we were walking to and from our hotel (we were about 1.3 miles away).
Every day we walked by this bush:

I loved the color!
We enjoyed Middle Eastern food our first afternoon (can't remember the name of our dish but the saffron rice was to die for):

and a cup of espresso in an amazing French bakery

For dinner we hit up Pikes Brewery:

Where we saw these antique beer crates (notice the locations): 

The next few days we spent exploring various parts of downtown Seattle.  I loved coming around a corner and seeing art like this:

that was found in this courtyard next to an antique printing shop

Or wandering down these stairs toward the waterfront

and seeing this

and these all along the water

We stumbled upon the most AMAZING shop for breakfast with the friendliest staff and it became our breakfast stop

Loved sitting outside, eating crumpets and tea, and watching the city come awake.

We walked south along the waterfront one afternoon.  We found a small market in this square

and I treated myself to a pint of blueberries and a pint of raspberries, both of which I ate that day:)

We stopped and had coffee at a waterfall park:

 
                                               

We had a late lunch at the most amazing brewery, located near Safeco Field.  Calamari, Salmon Po'Boy, and the biggest hummus plate I have ever seen in my life!  I had a delicious dragonfruit cocktail, and Skott had a drink called "The Fix" (coffee and beer)

A big shout out to "Elysian" brewing company- great food, great beers, and excellent service (despite it being a game day).

We had dinner one night (by this point, the days are melting together, but judging by my outfit, it must have been the same day) at a place called "Zig Zag".  We sat outside and in one of the buildings near us, an orchestra/band was rehearsing.  So we were treated to live music for about an hour.  We sat and talked and laughed and had a great time.  We had their wood-fired pizzas:  one was a four cheese, and the other was a sweet potato with spiced pumpkin seeds.  Both were amazing!

The morning of our final day we walked to a sculpture park (after having crumpets, of course).  The park is 9 acres and it was raining, so we didn't take time to explore all the trails.