travel
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valentine’s overnight.
David surprised us this week by suggesting a family overnight in the mountains to celebrate Valentine’s day. We packed our things and jumped in the car Friday morning and headed for Flat Rock, NC, which is about two hours away in the mountains (and where we spent our 10th anniversary). More and more I like to plan our trips around ideas I find through friends and on blogs, so I thought I’d share with you what we did. The Flat Rock Village Bakery is one of our very favorite places to eat — breakfast, lunch, or dinner — and we recommend everything on the menu. But their brick-oven pizza is…
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asheville.
My brother Kenny, his wife Shari, and their boys, Owen and Oliver, invited us to go with them to a friend’s cabin in Asheville for a couple days this week. It was a much-needed getaway for all of us. We enjoyed the quiet, cool mountain air and the breathtaking shades of fall leaves, eating really great food, and exploring a bit. Mostly we just enjoyed being together.
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the wedding.
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family week.
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wedding week.
David’s brother Joe is getting married in Fenwick Island, Delaware, this week, so the whole family is spending the week together celebrating. Joe’s fiance, Lindsay’s, family rented a big house and Steve and Linda rented another big house, and we’re all having a blast.
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good-bye seattle.
Thank you for indulging our dozens of photos. We truly couldn’t have asked for a better vacation. We rested. We played. We explored. We laughed. We read. We ate (a lot). David has always joked that he didn’t want to take me to visit Seattle because I’d never want to come home. Now I can see why. It’s an incredible place, and I was constantly surprised by the friendliness of people. It’s easy to walk or take the bus. There are charming front-yard vegetable gardens on every block and in some of the parks. You can compost every food item (including meat and oils) and the city will come collect it…
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fun with annie.
Annie took lots of great photos with her camera this week, and shared them with me. She’s been so wonderful with Judah and Amie, who think she is the coolest person ever. They’ve read books, had adventures, watched movies, painted fingernails, done crafts, and played soccer. She and Amie even had afternoon tea at the American Girl doll store today and picked out a puppy for Amie’s Samantha doll. Thanks Annie for loving our kiddos!
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delancey.
In 2007, the year Judah was born, I was sitting in our little book-lined office in our condo in Lititz, PA, surfing the internet, clicking away on our giant Dell desktop computer, and I stumbled upon a blog called Orangette. I’d never read a food blog before, but I knew immediately this blog was special. I loved the quiet, crisp photos. I loved the descriptions of food. I was instantly compelled to jump up and try one of the recipes: stove top black beans with onion and cumin. That began my love affair with food blogs and also sparked a desire to learn how to cook simple, tasty food from scratch,…
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at home.
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whidbey island.
This week Cathy and Pat have given us the gift of freedom. Our kids are having a blast and I’ve rarely seen them so uninterested in having attention from David and me. So we’ve been free to hole up and read books or escape for an evening walk or a morning in downtown Ballard — whatever we feel in the mood for. It’s been so very restful. Yesterday we drove 30 minutes to the coast and took a ferry to Whidbey Island for the day. The sun shines bright here each day now, but it’s still breezy. We wear sweatshirts in the morning and gradually shed clothes during the day as the…