The Adventures of Smanda and Adampie

The last couple of weekends, we've been doing a lot of socializing (the sun brings everyone out from under their rocks). Last week, we went to an artist Street Fair. This weekend, we had a couple of dinners out. Last night, we celebrated 10 years since we first met! We went to the same neighborhood for dinner and ended up at the same dessert place.

We also bought a refrigerator this week. It has a bottom freezer, so I'm looking forward to having more fridge space.

Lots of excitement here at Casa Smandenberg. This week, construction began on our kitchen remodel. We'll be out a kitchen for at least one more week, possibly another half week beyond that. Everything has gone smoothly so far. I'll post some before and during pictures. You'll have to wait for the "after"...

So we subsisted mostly off of sandwiches eaten in our office for the first part of the week. Thursday, I went to see E.O. Wilson speak in Seattle with some of my coworkers. Friday, Adan and I met downtown for dinner and went to a really great concert: Pink Martini performing with the Seattle Symphony. Saturday, we went to fancy pants dinner to celebrate 4 of our friends' birthdays. This weekend's weather has been very cooperative, so we've been able to eat outside instead of our dusty house.

Despite us not wanting to do much cooking on Easter, we still managed to have hard boiled eggs, donuts, kielbasa, and hot cross buns for brunch. I suppose the chocolate bunny can wait until dinner.

Adam and I just returned from a weekend in Canada. I have the week off because of Spring Break. Adam took Friday off and we took our time driving up to Vancouver. On the way, we stopped for lunch and browsing in Bellingham/Fairhaven. The border crossing took 1 hour, so by the time we arrived in Vancouver, it was nearly dinner time. We had dinner at the Raincity Grill, overlooking the sunset (yes, it was actually sunny this weekend!). We stayed at a B&B only a few blocks from downtown Vancouver, so once we parked the car, we didn't use it again until we left.

Saturday, we took a small tugboat/ferry across the river to Granville Island. This was a large public market with lots of vendors selling food, crafts, etc. In the afternoon, we walked around downtown Vancouver, up to Canada Place and then back to our hotel. We had dinner at a trendy Japanese restaurant.

This morning, we came back across the border but got stopped by immigration because we (gasp!) had a piece of CANADIAN fruit with us. They made us park the car at customs and we had to go inside the customs office while they inspected it. Fortunately, the stickers were still on the apples we brought with us from Washington, or they would've taken those too.
On the way back, we took a scenic route and stopped at a State park with views of the San Juan islands.

The fruit, by the way, was a Dragon Fruit. I'm sure I could find one at an Asian market if I looked.

Happy birthday to my big siblings Anne and George!

In Valentine's news, we went out for dinner a few weeks back, way before the restaurants had their special (expensive) V-day menus. Adam, who is well versed in Valentine's Day expectations, brought home a box of chocolates on V-day. I made him a delicious chocolate cake.

Just a few weeks after the big snow storm, it turned beautiful and sunny. We went for a hike today to Twin Falls. Tomorrow, we're headed to a Super Bowl Ad-watching party.

What a week! It started snowing on Sunday night, just a dusting. We had a visitor over for dinner who, driving a rental car, couldn't make it up the hill into our complex. Monday and Tuesday it snowed a little, but not enough to close work or school. Wednesday came the big snowstorm. All of the schools were closed and Adam worked from home. We built a snowman and watched the kids slide down the hill until the plow came. We fully expected to be back to work the next day.

But Thursday there was a big freeze. All of the melting snow turned into ice: the trees froze and the roads were impassable. The worst thing of all: we lost power early that morning due to all of the falling trees and branches (one of 400,000 houses without power).

Since Adam couldn't work at home, he took a very slow bus into work. He worked half a day and ended up walking home from the bus stop since the ice got worse as the day progressed. I stayed home and read books under the bed covers, fully expecting the power to come back on that day. By that evening, things were looking grim. The house had cooled down to the upper 40s and the roads were so bad that we couldn't get anywhere that had electricity. That night, we just pretended we were camping and huddled into our sleeping bags with extra comforters.

We were plenty warm in bed, but it was rough getting out of the bed on Friday morning. The ice had melted enough for us to drive to Gayle's house in Kirkland. We spent all of Friday and Friday night there, mostly reading to their two kids and playing with Legos. This morning, we came back to our fully heated house. The electricity had finally come back early Saturday morning.

We're taking this as a sign that we need to get the fireplace into working condition!

I had the whole week off so I got a lot of errands done, went to a yoga class and went out to lunch with some coworkers. Wednesday, I met Adam for lunch and got to see his new workplace. Friday night, we went to his department's Christmas party at a nice restaurant. Yesterday, we went to Mercer Island for brunch and a walk outside (on a rare, sunny day).

Thursday, we leave for Omaha for Christmas!

Not much new of late. The quarter has ended for me so I'm off until January. Adam's working until we leave for Omaha next week.

In the latest house news, we've upgraded to a king sized bed. We picked out a sleigh bed frame at Crate and Barrel and bought a new latex mattress at a local store. They were both delivered this weekend. It's like sleeping on a big cloud.