Birthday Girl!

Steve and I visited my niece Elizabeth last weekend. Her birthday is today and she is now 6 years old! Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

We celebrated her birthday early. At the Italian restaurant we dined at, they had an accordian player that walked through the restaurant, playing songs. Elizabeth was completely transfixed. When he wandered near our table, she talked to him, asking him questions about the accordian (and about the money he had on the top of the accordian).

After we finished eating, the waitress brought Elizabeth some ice cream and the accordian player came back. We sang happy birthday and the accordian player played for Elizabeth.

The rest of the weekend was fun too. We went to a farm to buy pumpkins for carving. (Steve and I forgot to bring ours back to Seattle with us.) I baked an apple pie and Steve made his tomatillo guacamole. Elizabeth, Steve and Pepper played fetch in the backyard for hours. And, Elizabeth opened our presents and played with her new Paint and Swirl.
It was a very fun weekend!

Happy Fall!

Steve and have been enjoying autumn. We've been busy with keeping up the house and with wedding plans, but we've managed to have fun too.

Last weekend, we went to a farm in Sedro Wooley in Skagit Valley to pick apples. We wandered through very long rows of apple trees, sampling as many apples as we wished. There were over 200 varieties, but we only tried a few. We bought about 9 pounds of apples. I made an apple pie with Northern Spy apples. It was great! I liked the tartness of these apples a lot.





It was Pepper's Adoption Day this month. Steve adopted Pepper four years ago. He got a bone to celebrate. We took him to one of his favorite dog parks on Sunday. Here he is after playing fetch.


We went to a few concerts this month - two symphony concerts and Great Big Sea. They were all great! We saw Lang Lang perform with the Seattle Symphony. He was truly amazing. I've never heard anyone play piano like him. If you ever have a chance to see him play, I would recommend doing so. Great Big Sea was also really good. They are a high energy band and very fun to see perform.

Steve's been making some tasty meals lately. He made the tortilla soup in Alice Waters' cookbook, The Art of Simple Food. Very yummy. He's also been experimenting with salads. He makes a great wild rice salad. He tried a new flavor of ice cream - Earl Grey. Mmm....

We've also been reading and listening to a lot of news, like everyone else. We watched all of the debates and got into the routine of getting pizza these nights. We got invited to a large party on election night. It should be a night to remember!

So, that's what is new with us. Of course, we are attending to wedding planning details. There is certainly no shortage of things to plan and decide for the wedding. We're slowly getting things done. We're pretty excited about being able to celebrate with our friends and family. It will be fun to have everyone here in Seattle. Happy Fall, everyone!

Financial Crisis Explained

I just finished listening to this week's This American Life show, Another Frightening Show About the Economy. Steve recommended it. It explained the credit default swap market and how it has contributed to the financial crisis. It also tried to explain how the bailout will work and an alternative solution that most economists favor. It was very well done and it definitely increased my knowledge of the situation. It also scared me even more.

I had listened to The Giant Pool of Money, a show done in May of this year about the housing crisis. This show explained these subprime mortgages and how they became toxic investments. They interviewed people who were involved with these mortgages. They described the dishonest and greedy behavior that existed at all levels from mortgage brokers to banking institutions.

If you want more insight into this enormous crisis that affects all of us, I would highly recommend listening to these two shows.