Pirates Plunder

This post is for Ethan, my favorite little pirate, and for my other bigger pirates too!

Down on the waterfront in Seattle is the coolest shop ever! It's called Pirates Plunder and it's a store devoted to pirates, magicians, and the circus! There are so many need toys, costumes, accessories, books, games, paper dolls, magic kits, and other paraphernalia associated it! There are also some vintage items that are cute and fun! I highly recommend it for birthdays or Christmas shopping. If you are very there, stop by. It's on the pier by the Ferris Well. You can miss it!

Happy 36th Anniversary

Usually Dick and I have a quiet anniversary on August 6. We normally are hosting out of town guests or in Utah or whtever, but this year we decided to do something we've never done before and we went to Seattle for five days!

It was so much fun!

So here is a quicky recap of our trip.

The sights: 

We walked all over the place, usually clocking anywhere from 5-7+ miles per day and it was great! The weather was beautiful every day! Monday was sightseeing, the market, and shopping. Tuesday's big event was a Mariners game.. Too bad they played like crap that day and Toronto wiped up the field with them. But the next day was better!

The food:

Dick started out each day with his usual workout at the hotel gym followed by the walk downtown to get his customary half dozen oysters! There were so many wonderful places to eat it was sinful. My highlight was lunch at Le Pichet, a quaint little hole in the wall French cafe. It was so sweet. 

The market, where you can find anything you want!

 The Pike Place Market is a world of it's own. My only purchases were a handmade bead bracelet, some mini doughnuts, loose herb tea, some spices, and this wonderful herbal medicinal ointment that is nothing short of miraculous for little aches and pains. Next time I will take a suitcase but this was the exploratory trip. 

The Dale Chihuly Glass Museum deserves a blog all it's own but with seminary starting next week this is all I can muster. It was beautiful. I wish I could've stayed longer but it was baseball day! Google it! There is also a beautiful gift shop there and an amazingly great little cafe where Dick and I had a little afternoon snack twice! The menu was very exciting. It's located right by the Space Needle at Seattle Center.
Other highlights were:
the waterfront
Pioneer Square, the oldest part of the city
lunch at Etta's
cookies from Dahlia bakery
dinner at Daily Grill
curry at the English Pub
meeting with friends from Texas
shopping, shopping, shopping!
wonderful weather and
spending five sweet days with my sweetheart!

Silver Salmon Derby in Seward, Alaska

Well, we didn't win the $50,000 tagged fish but we caught some huge silvers and had a great day on the water with friends!  We got a bit of a late start, but Dick and I caught seven beautiful fish and after it was all said and done and in the freezer we had over 30 pounds of nice fillets. So along with the halibut from earlier this summer and the reds we were able to net from the Kenai, we have fish for the winter!
While we were in Seattle we had a bowl of seafood gumbo at Emmet Watson's Oyster bar and it was more like a seafood stew than a gumbo - so we tried to replicate that for lunch yesterday and it turned out pretty tasty. But I think I need to go back to Emmet's and try another bowl!
It was basically:
a large can of fire-roasted tomatoes, pureed til slightly chunky  (we like Muir organic)
with enough broth to make a nice soup
small amount of cooked rice
onions, scallions, garlic, and maybe a little fennel
sweated in some olive oil until tender
two cans clams with juice
whatever seafood you have on hand! ( we used some shrimp, cubed raw fresh salmon, and some frozen mussels we had in the freezer)
crab and clams in the shell would be very good as well.
Simmer the soup will a nice consistency and add fish and simmer will done, about 5-8 minutes.
Season with fresh chopped tarragon, it's the secret ingredient, or dried if you don't have fresh, black pepper and we added a little cajun seasoning. Good Stuff!
Enjoy with some good bread!

PS - NO! we don't have a boat - that was just me taking my turn trying to maneuver around all the boats and not hit anyone while other people fished.

Mike and Aubrey in Alaska

My Goodness! Every time I sit down to try and blog I feel like a need a tutorial! 

Updates are no fun! 

But Mike and Aubrey coming to Alaska to visit was fun!

We picked them up at the airport on Sunday July 28th and spent the night in Anchorage.  Monday morning they meet with friends from Fairbanks 

and had a fun breakfast and caught up on events.

We headed to Seward that afternoon and enjoyed a beautiful trip home along

 the Turnagain Arm past Girdwood and onto the Kenai peninsula.

Highlights were:

Grilling out with Dad 

Halibut Fishing in Cook Inlet with Dave

Dipnetting with the Kenai Harrells

Crab Dinner with parentals

Alaska Wildlife Center

Cioppino with Chef Mom

Hiking to Tonsina Point

Dinner at Double Musky

Church at the Seward Branch

and  because we love them so much

we met in the Seattle airport on Monday morning 

for breakfast before catching their flight home to Salt Lake. 

The time went by way too fast but we are glad they came!