SEATOWN.

 

besides being a common nickname for our new city, seatown is a restaurant near pike's market. thanks to a heads-up from my friend ben, we recently watched an episode of anthony bordain's the layover, which featured good eats around seattle. b put seatown's crab breakfast sandwich on his bucket list, but i talked him into going for dinner last week to celebrate my good news. 

we grabbed a spot in the window with no wait... and with this little buddy right over our shoulders.

 

our waitress was so wonderful. i mean, service can make or break a restaurant, am i right?! and she made our night. she recommended the blood orange margarita, and it was a good decision. {though, it's rare that the margarita is ever a bad decision.}

so. what to even say about this? b decided he was going to go all out and get "the full crab dinner". i mean, crab is one of my very favorite foods. but, when they brought this out, i almost cried. his little face is just looking at us! sigh. i may or may not have later investigated whether that walrus up on the wall was real or not, then.

but, clearly worth it for the pure joy that it brought him.

it took him about 30 minutes to finish the full thing, and yes, finish it he did! after finding out it was his first full crab, the waitress was so impressed with his eating skills that she brought us free dessert.

now we can check seatown off our seattle restaurant to-do list. only 13,407 to go!

WEDDING WEDNESDAY: I HATE MY DRESS, AND OTHER CONCERNS.

as previously mentioned, i picked out my wedding dress online. have i already talked about how i went dress shopping with my family and it was terrible? i feel bad about how i look right now {hello extra 30 pounds}, and i hated everything i tried on. my fam was like... silent... with every dress i walked out in - no offense to them, i know they were just waiting for my comments and wanted to be supportive and not insanely opinionated like the people on "say yes to the dress" - but it was just not a great experience.

so, when i got back to denver it was crunch time to order a dress. i went to a local boutique, tried on three dresses and bought the one i had been checking out online for months. and then almost instantly had feelings of regret. like i rushed into it, or should have had someone {anyone!} with me.

my dress came in the mail this week and when i tried it on i still had all the feelings i was having about it after i purchased it. plus, it doesn't help that all people who i've sent a photo of it to say "wow, that's traditional!" or "classically beautiful". {no offense to the ten people who have told me that who all read this blog!} they mean it in a positive way, but it doesn't feel good to me.

and now, my manic thoughts about my dress are rolling up to everything wedding. i never was a girl who envisioned this day. i just am ready to be married. and as i sit here in month one million of our engagement cutting out envelope liners {WHY is that even a thing?!}, i wonder how i got so caught up in it all. 

sigh. fellow and former brides: is having cold feet about your dress a common occurrence?

SEAGRAMS.

um, can you all believe we live here?! we walk everywhere, and this is our view on the way to target! i lovelovelove being downtown.

i read "it starts with food" and proceeded to be afraid to eat anything at all for about a week.

ferry in the sound.

our second home, little water cantina. last friday was national margarita day, so it was a necessity. also: clams! delicious.

obviously, i have nothing of substance to share. but, i can't get over our daily views! the space needle, as seen via the sunroof.

BLESSED.

sometimes, my life feels almost too perfect to be true.

i feel so blessed that we were able to pack up and move to seattle for b to take this wonderful opportunity at his work. i feel so blessed that laura and shelly and their families are here. i feel so blessed that it has only rained for one full day in the past three weeks. i feel so blessed that even though our apartment is in a moderately sketchy area of town we feel safe and happy.

i feel so blessed that i've already started a new job. and that i really, really love so far.  

all of this good fortune just for me? i can only hold my breath and cross my fingers and be grateful for it all.

WHAT WE'VE BEEN UP TO.

when i went to write the opening of this blog post, i had to stop and ask b to help me calculate how long we have been here in seattle. was it a week? a month? i would have believed either, but turns out we arrived in the emerald city exactly two weeks ago. meaning we left denver almost three weeks ago. 

time has flown by. we have had almost exclusively sunny days, besides tuesday, when it did the "typical seattle" gloom and mist all day. but, my hunters finally felt perfectly appropriate.

luckily, our living room no longer looks like this. but, it was touch and go there for a while on if we would ever get all the boxes out. hopefully i'll get it spotless this week for some apartment tour photos. i am really loving our new little home so far.

one of my life loves is for magazines, so to have a city that has more than one dedicated publication is very exciting.

and, of course: the food. this is the lunch special from the edgewater hotel, which is only a hop and skip away from our apartment {and across the street from b's office, meaning he has indulged quite a few more times in this wonderfulness than i have!}.

so, no grand declarations that i feel at home, but honestly, i feel no pressure to feel any way at all. whereas in denver, where we were really out on a limb, i feel relaxed and happy and right where i'm meant to be at this moment.

WEDDING WEDNESDAY: OUR VIDEOGRAPHER.

nothing {nothing!} makes me cry faster than a wedding video. it doesn't matter if i know the couple,if their dancing moves are terrible or if it's to a cheesy love song. wedding videos make me fall apart.

so, i knew i wanted one. i haven't really mentioned budget much around these parts, but as you can guess from us moving cross country twice in the last two years, and me being unemployed, our budget is not grand. b's parents are treating us on most everything we'll enjoy in just five short months.

luckily, my parents were able to swoop in and save the day. my mom booked a contract with with this ring wedding films and i am so excited! i mean, the video above, hello. starts out emotional and then it's super fun! the bride is in the air!

hopefully our reception is just as fun as that one. hint, hint wedding guests: bring your dancing shoes.

BECAUSE I KNEW YOU WANTED TO SEE MORE SCENES FROM THE CAR.

does this not look like i bob ross'd this for you?! but, snapped just outside of yellowstone.

side note: this may have been one of the numerous times i belted out "america, the beautiful". people, we SAW the purple mountain majesty. our country is truly breathtaking.

idaho. i saw no potatoes. and no mormon temples. sorry to have stereotyped you, idaho.

quick! continental divide sign! they should really spring for something more fancy, right?

white out. the road really was scary for quite a few hours and there was no one else out there.

but then it cleared out, and there were {moderately} sunny skies going into washington. {let's talk about someone else who should spend the money on a better sign.}

 

and then we drove over this mountain and THIS was the view. hello columbia river!

windmill farms just as the sun started to go down.

after this? it started to rain and we had to drive in these steep mountains and it was dark and moderately stressful. but then we made it to shelly's house and all was right with the world again. {we played hangman with betty and rhodes and betty, age SIX, was able to guess the world elephant with ONLY THE Es on the board. genius, i tell you.}

this blog post marks the end of our never ending journey to seattle photo montage. hooray!

THAT TIME I RODE 100 MILES ON THE BACK OF A SNOWMOBILE.

we divirted off our path to seattle specifically for the opportunity to tour yellowstone. now, when i called to ask if the park was open, they said that the way to see it when it is winter is by snowmobile. as in, i thought it was the only way.

so, we put on our warmest clothes and woke up early to get a quick 10-minute course in how to operate a snowmobile and we were off. i was sorely unprepared for just how cold 15 degrees would feel, especially when zipping along at 30 miles per hour.

but! within five minutes, an awesome sighting: a giant elk! photo by b, he is very proud.

my view the entire time.

being inside the park with nary another soul in sight {beyond the other couple with us and our tour guide} was pretty incredible.

and, the bison were hanging out in the street. is this big guy not totally giving us the side eye?!

by noon, we had made it to old faithful. i should mention that by this point, i had seen the "snow coaches", aka buses on monster truck wheels. i have never been given a look so sympathetic than from these folks all warm in their bus as we whizzed by, tears streaming down my face and freezing onto my cheeks.

but, we got an hour at old faithful to go inside and chug two steaming cups of the best hot chocolate i have ever have while waiting for old faithful to do his thing.

and do it he did! it was very cool to see in person. and mind blowing to think that they can time it down to a few-minute window when he will blow.

from there we stopped at paint pots and more geysers. and our tour guide remarked that in the summer you would be jam packed on the trails with other visitors and have to wait your turn to even catch a glimpse at all the things we got to stop and stare at for as long as we wanted.

so, i guess what i'm saying is even though the sub-freezing temps had me the coldest i'd ever been, and subsequently gave me the plague for two weeks, it was all worth it to see the beauty of yellowstone.

OOPS, I GOT IT AGAIN. {STREP THROAT THAT IS.}

ohmygosh you guys, i am so sick. i was getting the strep throat quarterly in nashville there for a while, but i was illness free the entire time we lived in denver. i was like "oooh, i've got an awesome immune system!" but really it was just the dry air, i guess.

so, i'm being treated for strep throat, but not getting better and my lady at the uninsured people clinic guesses that i may have mono. which, i've already had once, so it's unlikely. i could actually feel myself getting sick while on our snowmobile tour, so when it comes back that i have the plague, no one be surprised.

in any case, i have spent the last week in bed, but finally emerged from my cave to go up to our apartment's rooftop deck to enjoy some of the {rare} sunshine. it was well worth it.

that view, i will never get sick of.

YELLOWSTONE.

after a quick day one and an easy day two, we pulled into yellowstone national park! the only place you can stay in the park is the mammoth hot springs hotel. what to say about this place?! ... i'll just let the next photo illustrate the experience:

straight from "the shining", right?! it actually wasn't that bad, although we weren't aware they didn't offer wifi OR any cell phone service, sooo.

the actual hot spring! funny story: we had super researched going to the hot springs in colorado {because it was on my summer in denver bucket list}, so i just assumed that all hot springs are the same and you can, you know, get in them. i had my bathing suit all ready and then we learned these are like sulfur lava pools. so, you don't even get close to them.

obvi these ladies did not get the memo.

i was colder than i appear.

then, we paid $12 for an hour of wifi so we could let our family and friends know that we were alive. and we had a wonderful dinner in the fancy dining house.

but, wait, there's more! here's just a preview of the ridiculousness that is to come tomorrow. i'm calling my fashion sense here "homeless chic". it's about to be all the rage, i am sure.

ON THE ROAD.

as you know, we made it to seattle. here's a recap of what a 1,496-mile journey in the car looks like, courtesy of my 1,496 photos.

so, wyoming is like a hot second outside of denver. and the beginning of wyoming is booooring. we had originally planned to leave on sunday, but we heard about incoming storms and decided to move our trip up a day. after cleaning up the apartment, we hit the road to casper, wyoming. i can't remember who recommended casper - so don't be offended if it was you - but it was moderately awful. the restaurant we went to, which shall not be named, served me brown, wilted iceberg lettuce touted as a salad, and then i was so scared at the hotel that i woke up every hour to make sure our car hadn't been broken into. #dramatweets

needless to say i woke b up super early to get on the road. it was worth it to see the still of the morning.

the driver.

the passenger.

have you ever seen the movie "the mist"? me neither, but i know the plot involves this crazy killer mist. i was 100 percent sure we were driving into a murderous fog and were about to never be heard from again.

and then we were in said deadly smog/fog for an hour and we indeed did not see the light of day or have cell service the entire time. is that not the weirdest?

dundundunnn: big sky! wyoming turned out to be much more beautiful than i gave it credit for.

can you guess what this is? our first sign we were nearing yellowstone!

scenes from that trip on the blog tomorrow. 

END OF DENVER: TAG BURGER BAR.

ohmygosh, these are the blurriest photos i have ever posted on the blog. not this one, or even the next one, but around photo four you are going to feel like i took these at warp speed.

too bad for your viewing pleasure. but, i still wanted to share, because this was a great meal with even better friends.

i had been to tag burger once during lunch with my favorite coworkers. it was quiet and the service and food were amazing. i thought i had found a little undercover gem. suffice to say i was a bit surprised when we walked in last week and it was bumping. advice to denver people that want to eat there for dinner: make a reservation.

our waitress was awesome! i got the cocktail she recommended - the black rose, a blueberry/prosecco mixture - and the burger she said was her favorite - the colorado proud. i loved both very much.

duck fat fries. addictive.

and because, when in rome, deep fried oreos with nutella topping! they were as bad/good as they sound.

aand, apparently it only took one drink for me to get the blurs! but, look who it is: andy and anna!

tag burger bar: a great choice for our last night in the mile-high city.