Seattle: coffee and the space needle

These were taken from our street...nice view, eh?

Farewell, Seattle

We really enjoyed our month in the Emerald City. Besides the great views, we especially enjoyed the food! Our top picks have to be: Homegrown for breakfast or lunch, and Volunteer Park Cafe for dinner.

Chocolate Tour!

Once we knew the exact dates of when we'd be living in Seattle, the first thing on our to-do list was to book our chocolate tour date. Last spring we stopped by for a taste test, but this time we got the whole shabang. Joel and Mandy met us in Fremont for the Theo's tour, then we walked it off all the way around Green Lake, then we packed in more cals at an Ethiopian place for dinner. Yum!

Joel's souvenir

This is Joel's new favorite book that we bought from our island hopping excursion. Now he has even MORE ideas!! :)

Island hopping

Joel The Tour Guide led the way for a wonderful day trip to the nearby San Juan islands. We drove up to Anacordes and took the ferries to Orcas, Lopez, and Friday Harbor. We bought food for a picnic lunch, had coffee, perused the local shops, and enjoyed a beautiful sunny day. On the way back we drove across Deception Pass to Whidbey Island, ate dinner in the quaint town of Langley, drove the car on the ferry to get back across the Puget Sound to Mukilteo, and then passed the Boeing plant (which is the largest building in the whole world, and is where they are "pumping out the new 787's", as Joel says). What a day! Allie took two naps on Sunday to recover from all the festivities, but it was well worth it. And maybe next time we will see some orcas!

Ferry shots

Allie was really hoping to see some whales, so she decided to make them a banner.  Alas, we were disappointed to discover that whales can't read.

Fellow externs

Jessica and Angela were my co-standers for the month and are both classmates from Scholl. This was the only month we will work together, and they both took the housing offered by the program, which is to live in an out-of-use hospital wing. Needless to say, they felt a bit cooped up. I did manage to get them to leave a few times, and we went out for Angela's birthday and to a Mariners game over the past four weeks. I felt very spoiled to not only have a cute and cozy studio apartment to go home to, but also a thoughtful husband who took me out to see the sights of the city!

Ray's leeks

A day trip to visit a farm: Joel and his friend, Sara Malda, drove up to visit her brother who works at the country's largest leek farm. Basically they sell to all of the nation's Whole Foods. Anyway, they got a tour, hacked down some leeks, and visited with the resident animals. Where will our future lead? Perhaps to sheep and leeks...

Pie prize

Came home to a sweet surprise -- a homemade rhubarb pie!! Joel harvested the rhubarb from a yard he maintains, so it was super fresh! His next goal is to make the crust from scratch. Mmmmm.

Sound the sounders

We spent a sunny Saturday afternoon with Joel's cousin, Jeff, and his wife Jana, and their two kids at a Seattle Sounders game -- they won 1-0. Afterwards we walked back up to Capitol hill, then drove to their house for homemade pizza and many rounds of backyard pingpong.

Counting sheep

We spent Easter weekend with Joel and Mandy in Tacoma and Puyallup and somehow ended up down at a sheep farm. Joel Z's friend from college works at the farm, which specializes in sheep cheese. Again, lovely weather can make even shaggy old sheep look beautiful, plus Joel also felt a flashback to his time working at the sheep farm in TN...which puts a grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye.

Joel's grass grooming

This house is a stone's throw away from where Bill Gates lives. As in, it has a very nice yard, and lots of grass to mow. That's where Joel and Brian Turnbull come in. This place doesn't get pretty on its own!

Feet: ex fix

This case was from my first day at Swedish. We put on an external fixator for a patient with Charcot neuroarthropathy. What that means is due to his loss of sensation from years of uncontrolled diabetes, his bones have undergone repeated injury which brings along with it inflammation. The blood which rushes in to bring healing to the injured bones also washes away the structural integrity of the bones over time, resulting in almost mushy and deformed bones. This frame will be adjusted over a period of six weeks to realign the bones in a more functional place, then another surgery will fuse the joints to allow for a stable foot. After a couple weeks the frame isn't painful and patients can even bear weight with it on. They are also used in other situations like complicated fractures.It took a few hours to put on, and the whole time I was thinking Joel would be much better at working all those wrenches and pins much better than the residents who were fumbling around!

Dutchville, Montana

Joel's friend, Leah DeNooy, was our gracious hostess after 22 hours of driving. She also taught at NCA in Nicaragua and now teaches at Manhattan Christian school, which is located in an area of around 1000 people. Trivia: local crops include potatoes and black angus beef, Kendra's grandma lives here, and the town has two CRC churches.

Roadside Typo

Man, People in Montanna can't spell. Nothing a little ducktape and sharpie can't fix. Cleverness abounds west of the Mighty Missisip...