We haven’t had a date night in a while, so we went out tonight since Elysian’s 2nd beer of their 12 Beers of the Apocalypse release party was also happening. We got to Elysian about 10 minutes before 6pm and there was no line but all the tables were taken. We waited 10 minutes or so and then got a table within view of the festivities, kinda. I had the Rapture Heather Ale and watched Dick Cantwell, dressed as a Pope, give his speech.
We decided to not have dinner at Elysian and instead walk over to Restaurant Zoë, which has just opened again after being closed for their move from Belltown to Capitol Hill. We used to go to Zoë for any special occasion before we moved to Vashon and a few times since. I’m glad to have it open again and much closer to home. The new place’s decor is less “New York” (sophisticated, contemporary) and more “west coast” (casual, rustic) and the prices are a little lower. I liked the old place, but I like the new place too, and it’s more spacious, which I prefer. The old place had a great Ahi Tuna appetizer and a hangar steak that I always ordered, but they don’t have either on the new menu. That’s too bad. We had their “Regrade Manhattan” and I had the burger, both were very good.
Schuchart/Dow featured our project in their company newsletter this month. It’s a nice write-up of the project.
We happened across the movie The Way tonight on Apple TV and decided to rent it. It was pretty good. I decided that, when the kids are old enough to hike long distances and before they are too old to want to spend a summer with us, we’ll take the kids to Spain and walk at least part of the El Camino de Santiago trail. It seems like a cool way to visit some towns in Spain. Documenting it here as a promise to myself.
Our street’s 26th Annual Progressive Dinner was tonight. This was our second, we went last year for the first time. This year, we hosted the appetizer course and Gay made a few dishes. People started arriving at 5pm and we all left to the main course down at the Farrell’s house at 7. By 9:30 or so we were at the Zorn’s for dessert and the awarding of the Garden Award, which means we got rid of it from last year! We were among the last to leave and we were home at 10:45pm. We already know most of the people but we met a couple of neighbors we hadn’t yet met. It’s a great street to live on!
Boy, was I wrong about Obama and GM. I thought giving GM a bailout was going to be a huge mistake. Not only are they surviving, they’ve regained the top position in number of cars sold (Volkswagen is #2?!) and all those auto industry jobs were saved. Impressive, especially considering it’s only been 2 years. We’re all still owners of GM do we still need to be paid back, but it seems possible now. Sometimes government does work.
We woke up to snow this morning after waiting Monday and Tuesday for snow that never came. There was 2″ of snow already. We had gone to REI yesterday to get Eva some winter clothes and for sleds. After lunch, Gay bundled the kids up while I tied cord to their new sleds, which were bought yesterday. I pulled Havana and Eva on the long sled and Gay pulled Hudson on his own sled to the hill next to St. Joseph’s at 19th & Aloha.
A bunch of people were already there, mostly older kids. After just a few successful trips down the hill from halfway up, I took all three on the long sled. I ran down next to them with the cord to guide them. I fell, they crashed. Eva fell on her face in the snow so she had had enough. Hudson didn’t want to go again either. I took Havana down one last time. Before leaving, I ran into the Tully’s on the corner for coffees and we walked back home.
The highlight of the year and a big life change for us in 2011 was moving from Vashon to Seattle and into the house we’d been renovating for a year. Eva was born just a few days before the start of the year so we were back to handling an infant again after having 2010 with toddlers only, no infants. We were so busy with the kids and the house that we didn’t take any vacations or even go anywhere outside of Seattle all year.
Early Friday morning we took the kids downtown to see Santa. By Saturday, they were excited for Santa to come. This was the first year that they understood the Santa concept, so Havana came into our bedroom at 6am Sunday morning asking to go down to open the presents. Hudson was already in bed with us, so she woke all three of us up. Eva wasn’t even awake yet so Gay got her and we all went downstairs.
Gay had made a coffee cake on Saturday so we had that and coffee to wake us up. Havana and Hudson were excited to see Santa’s presents by the fireplace and in the stockings. They didn’t finish opening presents until noon because they had to stop to play with the ones they’ve already opened. For lunch, Gay made a strada and we had champagne. So we just relaxed the rest of the day.
We had Steve and Renuka and their kids over for Christmas Eve dinner. Steve and I offered to cook the entire dinner. He brought a prime rib over around 2pm and I had most of my dishes prepared and ready to be cooked, as soon as the rib roast was done.
Eric and Sandi stopped by after Eric picked him up at the airport, after flying in from NYC, on their way to Eric’s family in Bellingham. We had drinks and appetizers, oysters and cheese and crackers, and watched the Seahawks game while the meat roasted. We were eating by 6pm and then Steve and I opened the barrel-aged Old Rasputin and had that while the kids watched a movie and Gay and Renuka cleaned up the dishes (ha ha!).
