little black journal

Wandering the streets of downtown Portland was wonderful, but getting to spend some time hanging out with my niece was even better.  Elise is motoring all over the place these days, darting from room to room, pausing only occasionally to catch her balance, and then she’s off once again.  She still loves books, and I treasure the moments that she’ll snuggle up on my lap and let me read to her.  She is expanding her vocabulary daily, but still uses the bit of sign language she has learned when she really wants to get her point across (the sign for ‘more’ is very popular when it comes to snack-time).  As with any one and half year-old, she has her mellow moments and her not-so-mellow moments.  I caught her on one of her more mellow mornings yesterday, as I hung out with her on Alberta Street while Kathryn got her hair cut.  We went to a coffee shop together, and she sat on my lap as I drank my latte and she munched on rice cakes, while we flipped through the paper together.  It was lovely, true auntie-niece bonding time.  I love this little girl so much, and although I hate to miss out on so much of her growth, I am already looking forward to seeing what new words she has learned or interests she has developed when I catch up with her again next month.  It’s fun to see her personality shine through more and more with each visit.  And is it really possible that she just keeps getting cuter and cuter?

I returned yesterday afternoon from a three-day trip to Portland – a work-related conference took me down there, but I was fortunately able to squeeze in some time to enjoy the city and hang out with family.  It was nice to have a few hours to myself to wander through downtown with my camera – I was reminded of how much I love the city’s textures and charm.

Portland has this unique industrial richness to it that imparts a sense of age of vibrancy to the street fronts and neighborhoods.  The brick warehouses and historic water towers of the Pearl district, the fire escapes that zig-zag across the fronts of so many buildings, the facades in varied colors of stone and tile…  I’m a sucker for all of it.

And for better and for worse, the ‘grittier’ areas are slowly being infiltrated with trendy cafes, boutiques, and galleries.  I love coffee, fashion, and art, so far be it from me to complain, but I hope that these new establishments are able to respectfully work within the existing architectural and urban character of the city.

Ahhhh, I love this city…

I am constantly looking for new ‘Schnell Family Traditions’ that Shane and I can instate and take part in year after year.  Today I think we may have found a perfect summer ritual – we called a couple of friends, hopped in the car, and were off to do some blueberry picking.  Our destination was Bybee Nims Farm in North Bend, which was beautiful.  We wandered among the aisles between heavily-laden bushes as Mount Si loomed beneath a layer of misty clouds in the background.  Perfect.

The berries were fat and juicy – so good in fact, that for every few Shane dropped in the bucket, I caught him popping one or two in his mouth.

The darling hands of our little helper plucked the berries from the lower boughs…

We walked away with over 5 pounds of berries, at the bargain price of only 10 bucks!  We’ve been gorging ourselves on them all day – sooooo good.

We were up bright and early yesterday to catch a ferry from Mukilteo to Whidbey Island, to do some sightseeing with Shane’s parents and some catching up with friends we hadn’t seen in awhile.  We spent most of the day hanging out at our friend’s beautiful beach home -  Shane and his dad fished off the shore, while Shane’s mom and I enjoyed lounging in the sun.  I believe there are few things better than the feel of a cool ocean breeze blowing across your face as you squish soft, warm sand between your toes.  Heaven.

Shane was not so lucky in fishing endeavors, as he didn’t catch anything other than a sunburn on the back of his neck and the tops of his feet, but he wasn’t complaining.  Just the act of standing by the water, casting his line in and watching the waves crash, was enough to put a smile on his face.

Not a bad place to park yourself for a Sunday afternoon, huh?

Once we’d gotten our sand and sun fix, we headed into Coupeville for some scrumptiously fresh mussels at Toby’s, followed by ice cream cones from the parlor down the street.  Bellies full, it was time to bid farewell to the island, which we did by way of Deception Pass.  The view of the bay was amazing, but I was just as taken with the lacy structure of the steel bridge that crosses the pass.

And so another beautiful summer weekend in the Northwest came to a close (and I silently cursed the arrival of Monday)…

Today was painfully hot in Seattle, as we reached the hottest temperature ever on record here.  Now, I lived in California’s Central Valley, so I know heat, but I also know that in California, you can usually count on coming home to an air-conditioned house.  No such luck here, so once again, we headed right back out the door once we got home from work to seek refuge from the heat.  After calling a couple of restaurants in search of AC, and visiting a couple of others, we finally found ourselves at Pyramid Brewery and promptly ordered a round of cold beers.  Sweet relief…

After dinner, we spent some time hanging out at REI, fiddling around and waiting for the sun to go down, and left the store just in time to swing by Elliott Bay to catch the last remnants of a vibrantly pink sky.

This weather has been a great incentive to get out and enjoy the city, but then again, tonight we’re sleeping on an air mattress in our living room, because it’s just two degrees cooler down here than in our upstairs bedroom.  This is what desperation feels like.  (Yes, I do know that I’m being dramatic…)

Seattle is hot, hot, hot this week, with temps approaching 100 degrees.  I feel like it’s heresy for a Seattle-ite to complain about heat, since we always seem to be complaining about the absence of sun, but we are approaching the point of unbearable-ness.  This, coupled with the fact that Shane’s dad is visiting and we’d like to show him the city, is incentive to do all we can to get out of our AC-free house in the evenings.  And so tonight we headed out to Ballard for Thai food (after calling ahead to make sure that the restaurant was air conditioned), then decided to check out the Ballard Locks.  It was a great night to be out near the water.  We watched the boats travel through the canal, oohed and ahhed over the huge salmon that were running in the fish ladders, and reveled in the feel of the cool breeze coming off the lake.  Lovely.

When Shane and I started house-hunting two and a half years ago, we kept our search radius within a 30-minute bus ride to the center of downtown Seattle.  The place we ended up buying in Columbia City met our criteria, but still, the fact that it took 25 minutes (on a good day) to commute to 4.5 miles to downtown was a little tough to stomach, considering I had been able to walk to work from our old apartment in almost half that time.  What made the bus ride a lot easier to bear was the promise that the first leg of the Seattle lightrail system would eventually run just two blocks away from our house, thereby cutting our commute time almost in half.  And finally, after enduring two and a half years of roadwork and construction and train testing, the lightrail officially opened for business on Monday and made our trek to work so much more pleasant.  A few of the pros:

-  The trains come almost three times more frequently than our bus used to come, so if we happen to just miss our train in the morning, we’ve only got a seven-minute wait to catch the next one.

-  The downtown stops for the lightrail are in the underground bus tunnel.  This is a big plus, considering Seattle sidewalk bus stops are cool and wet for eight (or more) months out of the year.  The underground tunnel is dry and well-lit – a much more pleasant place to wait on a cold winter evening.

-  The trains are so clean and modern and shiny and new!  Yes, this will last for only so long, but it’s such a step up from the bus – I hate to rip on Seattle’s bus system, since it did serve us relatively well for the last couple of years, but some of Metro’s buses are looking a little ragged.

-  It’s just so much more cool to say, “I’ve got to catch my train home” than to say you’re taking the bus.  So much more urban!

Major kudos to Seattle for taking such a huge step in improving our city’s mass transit system.  We’re finally getting on the right track (pun intended).

We got back this afternoon from an absolutely fantastic weekend of camping in the San Juan islands, enjoying the beauty of nature and the company of good friends.  We played on the beach (and laid on the beach), laughed around the campfire, caught a couple of beautiful sunsets, and fell in the love with the tiny little paradise that is Shaw Island.  Scenes from the weekend:

Our approach to the island.  The anticipation builds…

We set up camp on Friday evening and decided around 8:30 that we’d try to jet across the island to catch the sunset.  We made it just in the nick of time as we came across this little bay and west-facing view.

Saturday was a day to play and be lazy.  I spent much of the afternoon lounging in the sand with the ladies, while the boys played on the beach, skipping rocks, hitting rocks, and overturning them to see what kinds of little marine life might lie underneath (boys will be boys…).

That night we caught another beautiful sunset, then spent the rest of the evening sitting around the campfire, munching on s’mores, chatting and laughing, and enjoying the sound of the waves crashing on the beach adjacent to our campsite.

It was truly a perfect weekend in the woods – we are already talking about our next trip back, hoping this voyage to the island is something we can instate as an annual tradition.  It will be nice to sleep in my own bed tonight, but man, I will miss the sound of the ocean as I drift off to sleep…

Shane and I spent this weekend down in Central Oregon at my parents’ place, where we met up with my three closest girlfriends from California.  It was a fabulous couple of days – it was great to be reunited with this group of ladies that I’ve known for over a decade now.  We often don’t do as good a job as we’d like of keeping in touch, but the second we’re all together again, it feels as if we’ve never been apart.

Much of the weekend was spent just lounging around the house, playing ping-pong and board games and giggling ourselves silly.  But we did make sure to get a good dose of the outdoors – Central Oregon is home to some of the most beautiful mountains I’ve ever seen.  On Saturday afternoon, we did the grand tour of Newberry National Volcanic Monument.  This was the breathtaking view from the top of Paulina Peak:

And Shane was such a good sport, hanging out with a bunch of girls all weekend.  Bless his heart for enduring, and even enjoying, two full days of listening to our incessant giggling and reminiscing.

One of our last stops on Saturday was at the obsidian flow in Newberry Park.  Mounds and mounds of pumice and obsidian as far as the eye can see.  Sort of desolate-feeling, but also so beautiful.

And on the way home today, as Shane and I kept catching these amazing little glimpses of a snow-covered Mount Hood, we decided to take a short detour to Timberline Lodge to get a better view of the mountain.  Totally worth the trip – Shane and I walked around in our flip flops and took in the view while we watched geared-up skiiers come flying down snowy slopes.  Bizarre.

I was sad to see this weekend come to an end, but so thankful for the chance to enjoy some quality time with friends and family.  Already looking forward to our next reunion, wherever that may be…

Far too often, I take for granted the fact that we live in the midst of the Pacific Northwest and all its natural glory.  And so yesterday we resolved to embrace the outdoors, as we hopped in the car and headed east for a hike up Little Si (Mount Si’s smaller, less intimidating sister mountain).  I am not much of a hiker, but the 2.3-mile trip to the summit sounded manageable.  This hike wasn’t necessarily the leisurely stroll through the forest that I had imagined – within a few minutes I had broken a sweat and fallen short of breath – but as we pressed on, I fell into a groove and we were soon at the summit.  We found a place to sit on a rock and take in the views of the mountains and valleys and endless blankets of lush green trees all around us.  Well worth the sweat.

We are talking about conquering Mount Si later this summer – now if only there were a Margarita stand at the top…