Summer 2005 -- A Brief (Backwards) Recap w/ Photos
This past weekend, two of my closest, dearest friends, Gen & Sarah, came out to Seattle to visit me. They arrived on Thursday night and left at ass o'clock Monday morning. In between, we visited the Pike Place Market and the waterfront on the sound, spent Friday Happy Hour(s) in Fremont, had excellent Mexican food down by the lake in Madison Park, played board games (Apples to Apples, Loser, and Taboo), climbed Mt. Pilchuck, had brunch at the fabulous Coastal Kitchen, drank a lot of margaritas, and talked for hours. I honestly can't say whether my favorite part was reaching the top of that mountain (the first mountain I've climbed to the summit of in at least ten years) or spending Sunday afternoon with a pitcher of margaritas and just talking the way old friends do when they have the time to sit together and talk, but the whole weekend (except for taking them to the airport Monday morning) was wonderful. I took some pictures, mostly on the mountain, but here are a couple of highlights:
Sarah & Gen, early in the hike.
View of the Cascades from about midway up the mountain.
View of the Cascades from the summit.
Sarah calling her boyfriend from the summit of the mountain
Starting down from the summit
Before Labor Day weekend, the last big thing I did was move into our new home. We live in a beautiful, if somewhat transitional, neighborhood. We're blocks from Lake Washington, blocks from the Arboretum, fifteen minutes from downtown or the east side. We live in the four-bedroom upstairs apartment of a huge house, with lemon-cake colored walls and a balcony the entire length of the front of the house. It isn't perfect, but I like it here. Here are some pictures of the early days, before we had moved in very much. Hopefully, when all the boxes are finally gone, I'll get some "moved in" pictures.
In mid-July, Ray and I drove over to Missoula, MT for the wedding of a dear, old high school friend of mine, Cara Robinson. Several old friends, including my little sister, were there, and it was a great time. It was very casual, and held in a mountain lodge above the city. Probably the best part (for me) was just seeing old friends, and Cara looked fabulous, as you can see in these pictures.
The biggest event for me in the summer of 2005 was moving across the country from Champaign, IL to Seattle, WA. I took pictures throughout the trip, although I didn't bother to take my camera out much in Wisconsin, because I spent most of my time in that state pissed off, or in Minnesota because there really wasn't much to see there. There wasn't much to see in South Dakota, either, but we stopped at a lot of the tourist traps to break up the monotony. We'd had this brilliant idea to get from the east end of Minnesota to the middle of Montana in one day, so that we could enjoy some of the natural beauty in the rest of the trip, but that turned out to be a really bad idea, because by the time we'd driven the 15.5 hours, we didn't feel like getting up the next day to see Yellowstone, or much else in Montana. We did get to enjoy some time in Coeur D'Alene, ID, though, and just loved it.
Before we left Illinois, we had a lot of "one-lasts" to take care of. One last visit to Chicago, one last relaxing weekend with friends, and one last party at the old apartment, which no one seemed to get any pictures of, but Ray video-taped, so maybe some day I'll get to see pictures from that event, as well.
This summer began with two big camping trips. The first was the 24th Annual White Family Memorial Day party, which was fairly laid back and uneventful this year, but it was also dry and sunny, so I'm not about to complain about it being uneventful. I did, unfortunately, get quite drunk the first night, which I blame almost entirely on my dear old friend David, who managed to keep my glass about half full at all times, thus utterly defeating my ability to gage how much I was drinking. It was fairly bad, though. The rest of the weekend was much less ... er ... exciting, but quite beautiful. I took a lot of pictures, mostly of people just sitting and relaxing.
The other camping trip was the Bonnaroo Festival, which was amazing, and which I've already written about at length here.
And that was my summer. In my neighborhood, the grade schools are back in session, and little kids are probably writing their own "What I Did This Summer" essays. I hope they all had good ones, and I hope you all have a beautiful autumn.
Sarah & Gen, early in the hike.
View of the Cascades from about midway up the mountain.
View of the Cascades from the summit.
Sarah calling her boyfriend from the summit of the mountain
Starting down from the summit
Before Labor Day weekend, the last big thing I did was move into our new home. We live in a beautiful, if somewhat transitional, neighborhood. We're blocks from Lake Washington, blocks from the Arboretum, fifteen minutes from downtown or the east side. We live in the four-bedroom upstairs apartment of a huge house, with lemon-cake colored walls and a balcony the entire length of the front of the house. It isn't perfect, but I like it here. Here are some pictures of the early days, before we had moved in very much. Hopefully, when all the boxes are finally gone, I'll get some "moved in" pictures.
In mid-July, Ray and I drove over to Missoula, MT for the wedding of a dear, old high school friend of mine, Cara Robinson. Several old friends, including my little sister, were there, and it was a great time. It was very casual, and held in a mountain lodge above the city. Probably the best part (for me) was just seeing old friends, and Cara looked fabulous, as you can see in these pictures.
The biggest event for me in the summer of 2005 was moving across the country from Champaign, IL to Seattle, WA. I took pictures throughout the trip, although I didn't bother to take my camera out much in Wisconsin, because I spent most of my time in that state pissed off, or in Minnesota because there really wasn't much to see there. There wasn't much to see in South Dakota, either, but we stopped at a lot of the tourist traps to break up the monotony. We'd had this brilliant idea to get from the east end of Minnesota to the middle of Montana in one day, so that we could enjoy some of the natural beauty in the rest of the trip, but that turned out to be a really bad idea, because by the time we'd driven the 15.5 hours, we didn't feel like getting up the next day to see Yellowstone, or much else in Montana. We did get to enjoy some time in Coeur D'Alene, ID, though, and just loved it.
Before we left Illinois, we had a lot of "one-lasts" to take care of. One last visit to Chicago, one last relaxing weekend with friends, and one last party at the old apartment, which no one seemed to get any pictures of, but Ray video-taped, so maybe some day I'll get to see pictures from that event, as well.
This summer began with two big camping trips. The first was the 24th Annual White Family Memorial Day party, which was fairly laid back and uneventful this year, but it was also dry and sunny, so I'm not about to complain about it being uneventful. I did, unfortunately, get quite drunk the first night, which I blame almost entirely on my dear old friend David, who managed to keep my glass about half full at all times, thus utterly defeating my ability to gage how much I was drinking. It was fairly bad, though. The rest of the weekend was much less ... er ... exciting, but quite beautiful. I took a lot of pictures, mostly of people just sitting and relaxing.
The other camping trip was the Bonnaroo Festival, which was amazing, and which I've already written about at length here.
And that was my summer. In my neighborhood, the grade schools are back in session, and little kids are probably writing their own "What I Did This Summer" essays. I hope they all had good ones, and I hope you all have a beautiful autumn.