Posts Tagged edmonds

A 2 hour airport delay means shepherd’s pie & bangers & mash meals at the SJC airport Britannia Arms with a teal margarita, sticky toffee pudding, and a friendly Lab from Germany, then finally in the air with a pretty pink moonrise over the clouds. Safely in Seattle now for Grandma’s 103rd birthday party tomorrow!

Happy 103rd Birthday to Grandma! Another great house party with mimosas plus bakery quiche & several cakes all courtesy of of cousin Stephen! Loved the toddler birthday card modified with an extra century, the Scrabble tiles card, and the world record plaque for most buckets of weeds…haha!

We visited Grandma at rehab today so I played piano for a small audience in the lobby and Mom sang with me for a couple songs.

Fun afternoon with my Peterson cousins!

We should have brought the giant birthday balloons to rehab yesterday in the van…haha!Southwest SeaTac’s Halloween decorations are still up with a cute Seattle skyline painted on a real pumpkin, and both our San Jose and Sacramento flights are at the same gate…haha! Goodbye to Seattle but we will see Grandma again for Christmas!

Grandma has developed congestive heart failure and isn’t allowed any airplane travel anymore, plus I didn’t have time for a longer trip after I’d spent so much work time off on the Spain castle trip, so I just visited Grandma for a couple days in July.

Gorgeous day for the ferry! Headed to Poulsbo today!

Poulsbo is an adorable Little Scandinavia town, with lovely murals, gorgeous flowers, cute Viking ship benches, and gjetost and even beet sillsalat in the market! The lefse looks a little thick though, and no prune tarts at the bakery, so we enjoyed caramel pecan rolls for our snack. Next stop Bainbridge Island…

Since I have two friends who are also now fans of the late-harvest Viognier, we went back for more wine tasting at Eleven in Bainbridge Island! Totally different in the sunshine since the last time we were here, some sideways rain hit us hard! Too early for dinner yet so we are already at Kingston in line for the ferry back to Edmonds.

Had to look out the ferry bow on the way back to Edmonds, but the view as we were leaving was stunningly dramatic with backlit clouds!

Neither Grandma nor I felt very rested, even though we tried to sleep in after Jim & Linda quietly left early in the morning. Grandma wanted waffles again so got those ready while I did my T-Tapp exercises outside again, then I looked up the Theo Chocolate tours in case there were any left, since we knew they were closed on Monday for Labor Day. There was one slot left at 3:30 showing open, but I didn’t want to pay in advance since we weren’t sure if there were too many stairs or too much walking for Grandma, so we decided to gamble and ask when we arrived. We took Greenwood instead of any freeways, but the chocolate building was farther down where Phinney changes direction several times. Some of those hills with narrow residential streets reminded me of Astoria! We made it and the shop said there were openings in the 3:30 tour so just walk over to the tour door. By the time we got there, the person in front of us had taken the last spot! Argh! I said if I’d known that I would have run & let Grandma catch up! Since we were only 2 people, she was able to squeeze us in. That was at 3:10, and instead of walking back to the shop & back again, we stayed sitting there, taking a photo with our funny hair nets on for the tour. We heard several people come up after us and not get in, so we were very lucky to be the last ones to get on, since all the tours the rest of the day were booked solid. She said “this is the hot tour right now” so I guess that’s true? I only heard about them at all because my cousin Kathleen posted on Facebook that she went there a few weeks ago. I guess being the first organic & fair trade chocolate maker in the US everyone wants to visit them.

The beginning of the tour was seated in a small room with 5 different chocolates to taste as our guide described and showed us how cacao is grown and chocolate is made. I knew some of this already but it is still interesting, and our guide was a bubbly girl who was entertaining. Even the 85% dark chocolate was quite good and I don’t usually like darker than 70%. After that portion, we had to wear hairnets to enter the factory floor. Since they have to keep it at 98F, they have a room with windows on all sides with air conditioning so we could stand in comfort and listen as the guide explained all the machines.

We only walked through the actual factory floor for a short trip to the confectionary room, and it was even hot for Grandma, so I’m glad for that little room! In the confectionary room they make their truffles and fun creations. I saw they hang their silicone mats when not in use which would let them dry without sticking to things, so I might try that in the future! They gave us samples of truffles, so I made sure Grandma got to try one of the Scotch truffles. She liked it!

Our guide mentioned a Walla Walla Onion Truffle they have right now, so we got one for each of us to try…very tasty! Those onions are very sweet in the first place, and it tasted like they carmelized them before adding them into the chocolate. I kind of want to try making some onion chocolate myself now! 😉 I figured this could be my place to buy some birthday gifts, Christmas gifts, and thank you gifts, plus they have Partner Bars where portions of the proceeds go to good causes, so I spent awhile shopping…and when I thought I was done, the clerk pointed out that if I got this or that handpacked instead of pre-boxed, I could get the tour 10% discount, so I went back 3x before I actually paid…ending up still spending about $150! At least it didn’t take up as much physical space in my suitcase as the Mexican chocolate & mole sauce assortment I bought in Oaxaca that took up half of one side of my luggage!

We had thought we would go to the Chiluly Glass Garden and Spaceneedle since the weather was so nice, but after the tour Grandma was tired and asked to go home before dinner. We had a break, then we went to Anthony’s in Edmonds on the water, just in time for a nice sunset dinner of delicious seafood. Yum!

By the time we were finishing dinner, the return ferry was coming, all lit up, with just enough daylight left to see some mountains and clouds in the background. I almost got out my good camera for this, but it was moving so fast, by the time I dug my camera out of the bottom of my bag, I think the ferry would have been docked!

You can keep reading for a lot more photos of the chocolate tour…hopefully more downtown Seattle tomorrow!

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My mom beat me to it, and I would have said the same thing anyway, so I will point you to her version of how we flew up together to surprise my grandmother for her 98th birthday last Sunday! Check out the photos of the sunrise at the airport, and our stakeout of the entrance from our rental car behind the bushes! Heehee…We even surprised my uncle who had planned the surprise lunch! Successful surprise was worth seeing the sunrise in Sac on the way to Seattle! Very fun but loooong day!

Lo & behold, a white Christmas! My grandma’s house is very close to Puget Sound, so the warmer coastal air very rarely lends itself to snow even though the inland Seattle area might get it more often. We have seen some flurries the 23rd or 26th before, but actual snow on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day has only happened once ever before in my mom’s entire life in the Seattle area, and that was in 1990 when we were all there! We couldn’t believe in the early afternoon on Christmas Day when fluffier blobs started coming down along with the rain, not sticking to the ground until about an hour later. My parents’ new black Lab mix Elsie, only a year-and-a half-old, was wondering what this weird white stuff was coming from the sky & on the ground! I was hearing Jack Skellington’s “What’s This?” song in my head as Elsie sniffed & ran around in the snow. 😉

White Christmas in Woodway, Washington!

We obviously did get here safely, but the RV got stuck in the mud in my grandma’s backyard when we arrived after dark, so the morning of Christmas Eve was spent waiting for the Good Sam winch truck that never arrived, with me helping my dad work with long scrap wood, concrete stepping stones and lots of digging, and we eventually got it out & parked on more stable ground. My grandma kept announcing incredulously that I was the youngest person here for Christmas! 😛 She would much rather have some young kids around for Christmas, and so would I, but that wasn’t to be this year. We still had a fun family Christmas, especially when the snow arrived. Since she lives in Seattle, my cousin Kristina on my dad’s side came to visit this afternoon with her son Anders who I hadn’t seen since he was a baby and her 7-month old daughter Solveig I hadn’t met yet. What a cutie! No snow here today, not even any rain, but several inches of snow is forecast for tomorrow for Seattle and all along I-5 south through Oregon, let alone the more easterly route over Snoqualmie Pass we are planning on going to stop by Bend, OR to see my mom’s brother & his family on the way back down to California, so we’re staying at my grandma’s house an extra day. The forecast is back to rain by Friday so hopefully that will be safer driving in the giant RV. No, my dad has not allowed me to drive the RV yet, even though I have earned my keep researching in all the documentation for possibilities why the hot water heater wouldn’t work and figuring out the little-did-we-know-how-highly-useful walkie-talkie system that came with the RV, and in ice & snow he is not going to let me drive his new toy anytime soon. That’s fine with me as long as he stays awake driving the whole way! My parents have no schedule except New Years parties, lucky them, but I have to get back to work on Jan 2nd, let alone get back to my kittens!

I hope everyone has been having a nice Christmas!