"Love, Music, Wine and Revolution..."

Actually, there is very little music and revolution for us these days. And, Sarah's still steering clear of the wine. But, heck, I like that song* by Magnetic Fields, and that title sounds cooler than what we've been up to, which is more along the lines of Love, Scooters, Wine and an Auction.

Love
It's been a couple of weeks since I posted here. So, I'm a bit behind on the pictures of pregnant Sarah. So, let's get you all caught up on my wonderful wife and the tummy monkey.

Sarah at 34 weeks!

Sarah at 35 weeks, all dressed up to go to the auction (see below).

Sarah at 36 weeks. We are really in the homestretch now. At this point, the tot is basically ready to go, and is just filling out and putting on weight. Egad!

Scooter
Since moving into our house, we've noticed that just having the one car is occasionally problematic. We also knew that it would become even more difficult to have just one car, once the baby arrived. But, at the same time, we knew that we didn't want to get stuck with all the costs related to buying a second car (payments, insurance, gas, etc). so, we decided to look into getting a scooter.

After several months of browsing Craigslist, we finally settled on this '06 Honda Metropolitan.

I strike a "dashing" pose in our driveway. Me = Awesome Hip.

Wine
Last weekend was the start of another year of wine making. The '07 "Ranger Rick Red" has been bottled (and is quite good, I might add), and the crush is the big event starting off another batch off grapes on their way to becoming wine.

The '06 Round the World Red, '07 Ranger Rick Red and some grapes we found growing along the back fence in our yard.

The crush involves bringing a couple of tons of grapes back from Eastern Washington to our friends garage, where we crush them (sadly, not with our feet), de-stem them and begin the fermentation process.

I load grapes out of the back of the truck, and down a chute to where they are crushed. I'm quite fierce.

All the grape crush photos.

...and an Auction
Sadly, on the same day as the grape crush, it was also the Annual U-District Foodbank Auction. This is usually one of our favorite events of the year, which is why it was a bit of a bummer to have to juggle this and the crush (one of our other favs). Still it was a great time, hanging out with a table of friends and making bigs on a number of items.

Before the event, our friends Mike and Lane and us had decided we were going to go all in on the wine collection. But, the wind was taken out of our sails when a woman selected it as her door prize. D'oh! Still we ended up winning a Farmers Market Basket, and almost spent $1600 on a trip to Sri Lanka... until we realized that might not be the more practical thing to have when Sarah's just weeks from giving birth. Maybe next year.

Bonus: Haunted Georgetown Tour
On Friday, we decided to get into the Halloween spirit and a group of us went on the Haunted Georgetown Walking Tour. The tour itself, and our tour guide, were a bit -shall we say- uneven. But, it was still fun to walk through Georgetown at night. And gave us another chance to check out the haunted Georgetown Castle.

The tour group outside a corner store that used to serve as a brothel.

After the tour, we also did the Georgetown Brewery Tour, which was much more amazing. Featuring performances by the Circus Contraption crew (who I've raved about before, and who were even the inspiration for this blogs title), it was alternately creepy, fun and cool. Drunken ghosts, sword swallowers, atmospheric music and glow-in-the-dark gymnastic ghost... who could ask for more?

A creepy zombie woman poses on the beautiful spiral staircase of the brwery. A goth kid would love to have this image on her wall.

The gymnastic skeletons photographed using a 15 second exposure. Pretty cool visually... even more cool in real life.

All the haunted Georgetwon Photos.

As I mentioned earlier, Sarah's getting really close to her due date (less than a month to go). So, who knows if I'll get another chance to post between now and then. Both Sarah and I are set to begin our leave on November 14th, so if we are both sitting home bored, waiting for the contractions to start, who knows... maybe one or both of us will be inspired to post. But if the baby decides to show early, and we don't get a chance to post again, as Sarah says I'm too fond of saying: See you on the other side.

*EDIT: Not sure about that You Tube video... it was just the only place I could find Magnetic Fields "World Love" online.

Cribs and kitties.

Early on, while my mom set about planning Sarah's baby shower, I hit on the idea of having a bunch of guys over for a Men's Baby Shower. The idea would be that I would tempt them over with burgers and beer, and then put them to work painting the baby room and assembling baby furniture.

My friends Zeke and Chris work on putting the baby swing together while, in the foreground, my dad does some really hard work.

And, while my friend Bazor got stuck with the lion-share of the painting, I think it worked like a charm. Thanks to his work, and those of my friends and family, Sarah and I now have a painted baby room, and assembled crib, an assembled baby swing... and I even scored an X-Box out of the deal (thanks Ben, Luke and Bazor for that)!

The baby room so far. It still needs a lot of stuff, but at least the walls and crib are taken care of.

Meanwhile, across Lake Washington, at my Aunt's house, Sarah was quite literally being showered in gifts. By the time her and her mom returned home with everything, the pile of gifts was so large that it looked like a baby bomb went off in our living room. If nothing else, the tummy monkey will be well dressed for the first half dozen months of its life. You can check out a selection of pictures here and here.

Sarah holds up the wonderful baby quilt my mom made. One of the many gifts she opened (notice the pile in the lower right.)

In addition to the new clothes and furniture for the babies, we've also got two new additions to our house hold: Wesley and Buttercup!

Wesley. For some reason he likes to lay spread out on his belly like that, with his legs behind him. It makes him look really goofy, especially when he's also trying to look fierce.

Buttercup... still hiding shortly after arriving. I also just realized, we need to sweep the floor under our bed.

Earlier this week, our friends, Shahaf and Pnina, departed on their own Round the World Adventure. And, just to one-up us, they're going for a full year! Very exciting for them. Wanting to help support fellow travelers, Sarah and I offered to watch their two cats in the absence. We can understand the fears and hassles that come with leaving your life behind while you travel for an extended period of time. So, we were happy to watch the kitties while they were gone so that they hopefully don't have to worry about them while they are exploring the Tanzania, Jordan, Nepal or any of the countless places we are jealous that they are going to visit.

If you are interested in following their adventures, you should check out their travel blog: Honeysun. "What does 'honeysun' mean?" you ask. Well, check out their blog, Shahaf explains in their first entry and Sarah and I both agree it's a great idea for a travel blog name. Best of luck on your adventures, Shahaf and Pnina!

But, back to the cats. It's been great having them around so far! The male, Wesley, was a little freaked out at first, and spent the better part of the first 24 hours hiding under the couch... or in a corner... or under the bed, but he seems pretty content now. Buttercup, on the other hand, is more daring, and is already finding new ways to explore the house and create kitty chaos. I think it will be fun having them around!

Oh, and just to keep the record going...

Sarah at 32 Weeks!

Sarah at 33 Weeks! ...less than two months left!

Falling just a bit closer

I really have no idea what that title means, except it sounds dramatic. And, well, not only is Fall upon us... but the number if days between now and Sarah's due date are getting smaller and smaller. (Then, again, it sounds omnious, which definitely doesn't match our mood these days. Which is somewhere between giddy and overwelmed.)

Speaking of which, let's skip straight to some Sarah pictures, since I haven't posted any of those in a couple of weeks.

Sarah at Week 28. This was actually the picture taken at her mom's place. She's actually facing the other direction, but I flipped it to keep the direction the same as the others.

Week 29. Who's that in the mirror?

Week 30. At Sarah's brother's apartment in Berkley.

...and Week 31. Can you beleive we are at week 31?!

And what have we been up to? A little of this, and a little of that. Probably the biggest event was our trip down to Berkley to see Sarah's brother, Tim, and sis-in-law, Jeanne. Even though Sarah is actually off to Baltimore as I type this, that was most likely our last real trip before the baby's arrival.

Since we were only in the Bay Area for a couple of days, it was quite a whirlwind trip. One of the definite highlights was visiting the Muir Woods National Monument. Despite the crowds, it was nice to get the opportunity to wander through the redwoods (I beleive the first I've ever seen). Here's a picture or two...

Tim and I at the base of a tree, giving you a sense of size. Even as someone who has grown up in Washington, I had to admit these were some big trees.

While staging this picture, a group of people started to surround us. Feeling awkward and holding my camera, I had no choice but to loudly state the obvious to everyone around: "Look everyone! A pregnant girl in a tree!"

The Muir Woods were also interesting in that they not only did they host the delegates which drafted and signed the UN charter, but also were an early gathering place for the exclusive and secretive Bohemian Club. Here are some more Muir Woods' pictures, if you are into pictures of trees.

In addition to visiting Muir Woods, we also visited San Francisco's Asian Art Museum. And went to Vik's Chaat, and amazing India restaurant housed in a large warehouse. With is buslting crowd, blaring Bollywood music, delicious India food and crazy casual atmosphere, Sarah and I agreed that it was probably the closest we'd felt to being in India since we left over a year ago. I'd ramble about it more, but you can just read my review of it here.

Speaking of our trip, it's worth mentioning that, as of September 12th, we've now been back home for over a year. Strange. So, while the title of this entry is "falling just a bit closer," I supposed it could just as easly be "falling just a bit farther away."

EDIT: As a side note, I've recently been making more of an effort to up date my other blog General Admission more often. As I've probably explained before, it's more just my random thougths and interests, and not so much about Sarah and myself, but check it out if you are interested.

EDIT 2.0: I made two corrections to the above entry. First, in the final picture of Sarah, she is only 31 weeks pregnant, not 32 like originally captioned. In addition, several people freaked when they saw reference to "babies." Sorry, that was supposed to read "baby's" ...why might not know the sex of the tummy monkey. But we know there is only one tummy monkey in Sarah's belly.

Real quick

Real quick entry this week. But, not because we haven't been doing anything, but instead because I'm not feeling particularly verbose right now. In fact, we've actually had a great couple weeks. Including our second Third Anniversary dinner, at the the Corson building, which -quite honestly- was easily one of the Top 10, nay, Top 5 dinning experiences I've had in Seattle. Small, intimate, excellent and proving again that the best meals are those where you don't get to pick what you eat. I'd recommend the Corson Building to any fan of food who is willing to fork over the money for a wonderful meal.

Also, we made a trip down to Texas to see Sarah's family, who hadn't had a chance to see her since she's gotten pregnant. It was a good visit, if too quick, and I'm glad we all had the opportunity to see them all, even if it was a little bittersweet. Still, we can take comfort in the fact that we will be seeing them all in just a couple months when they come up to visit after the baby hits the scene!

Speaking of which, here's a picture of Sarah from two Saturdays ago!


She's definitely entering the homestretch (emphasis on "stretch")! Less than three months to go! In the excitement of our trip to the Dallas area, we forgot to take a picture of her last weekend, but we know her parents did, so hopefully we will be able to get a copy from them. And, when we do, I'll be sure to post it here.

In the mean time, just to pad out the entry a bit, here's our living room with some of the new furniture we picked up for it.




It's not exactly Buddhist flags in Leh, but still.

Traditions: old and new

The last two weeks have seen us observe one annual tradition, start what will hopefully become a new one... and celebrate an anniversary.

First off, the weekend before last, Sarah, our friend Ambika and I loaded our camping gear into the Honda, and headed up into the Cascades again. This time, it was for the Annual Lake Phucquala Camping Trip. This camping trip began back in the misty backwaters of time, when my dad and two of his friends would head into the woods, dragging their sons in tow. As the years have passed, the roster of these camping trips has changed from year to year (this year, in addition to the three of us, it was also my dad, his two friend and one of their wives), but the location has stayed fairly constant over the last half dozen or so years: Lake Phucquala. You won't find Lake Phucquala on any of the maps, namely because it's the name we've given to a small swimming hole between the Salmon La Sac campgrounds and the Lake Tacquala.

Sarah, the belly monkey and I... in the woods again.

Years ago, my parents actually lived up at Lake Tacquala each summer in a small cabin. My father was in Forest Service, and combined with their winter exodus to Sun Valley, Idaho (where he worked as a ski patrol man); I see parallels between those years for them and mine and Sarah's journey last year. A path less taken and adventures outside the usual 9 to 5 lifestyle.

The cabin my parents lived in each summer, years ago.

Sadly, this year, the weather was on the cold side, so we weren't able to take full advantage for the Lower Lake Phucquala swimming hole. But, we were still able to make a trip up to show Sarah and our friend the wild flowers around Tacquala as well as the cabin my parents once lived in.

OK... I was able to do a little floating in an intertube. But, it was cold.

Ambika gets to knock 1 thing off her list of "100 Things To Do Before you Die," ...lay in a field of wildflowers.

In addition to the boozy fun of camping at Lake Phucquala, Sarah and I also got to take part in the Inaugaral Meeting of the Whidbey Island Country Club this last weekend. The Whidbey Island Country Club wasn't an actual country club, instead it was our friends' parents' house on Whidbey Island. Still, we all got dress up in our finest whites, linens and summer party dress and made our way to Whidbey Island.

Everyone dress up for summer, and enjoying a game of croquet all civilized-like.

Sarah and Charity, looking their best.

There we indulged in champagne, cocktails and lawn games ranging from croquet to Lebonese Horseshoes. This time, the weather was our friend, and between the sun and cocktails, everyone had a great time as the afternoon rolled on. Also on hand was a surprisingly large number of dogs and babies. Apparently, Sarah and I aren't the only ones getting domestic these days. Plus, it proved a wonderful opportunity to ride a ferry... something Sarah and I realized neither of us had done since the sketchy ferry rides of the Mekong Delta tour.

Ben and I show off our skills with the mallet.

The less we talk about this, the better.

Here's hoping that there will be a Second Annual Whidbey Island Country Club gathering.

Finally, wedged between those two gathers was a little Anniversary: Sarah and mine's third wedding Anniversary. Our "official" dinner is actually later this week, at the Corson Building. But, we still had a wonderful dinner at Sitka and Spruce.

Honeypie! I love you even more than a did a year ago in Istanbul!

Speaking of Sarah, let's check out how the tummy monkey is developing!
Sarah at 25 weeks! On possibly her last pre-baby trip to the woods!

Sarah at week 26! All dressed up for the country club!

The complete Lake Phucquala photos.
The complete Whidbey Island Country Club photos.

Departures, Birthdays and Weddings

Quick entry this week!

Last weekend was a flurry activity for Sarah and I with one friend having a going away party (he's moving to New York), another celebrating her 30th Birthday, and two other friends getting married to each other. It was the sort of whilrwind of activity that literally makes you sad to see the weekend end, but which also leaves you more tired and harried than when it started. Still, good food, good wine (for me at least) and great company! Who can really complain... even if we are falling behind on chores around the house.

Here's Sarah!

24 weeks!

In that picture, Sarah is all dressed up for our friends Birthday dinner. The party itself was a Marjorie. It's one of our favorites, and actually were I celebrated my 30th Birthday. Good stuff!

But, even though we are behind on our chores and projects at the house, I can definitely tell the nesting instinct is kicking in. The babies room might still a pile of stuffed animals and baby clothes, surrounded by a light dusting of sample paint chips; but we've got a dinning room table...


Hopefully this will mean lots of dinner parties in our future! Although it is odd to think that just a year ago, we were still homeless and living out of our backpacks. How things can change in a year.

From drifting to nesting.

Camping and bottling

Don't you love how, in the my last entry, I boldly claimed that I was going to start posting on a weekly basis... and then promptly disappeared for about two weeks. My bad!

Actually, I'm blaming summer! Despite the notably lackluster weather, our summer plans have somehow run off the rails, and we've now found ourselves in a situation where we feel like we are playing perpetual catch up. Luckily, a lot of our "obligations" have been fun ones.

For starters, two weekends ago, we made our way out to Lake Kachess in the Cascades for our annual Cancerian Camping Trip with my brother, sister-in-law and about two dozen of our closest friends. Camping with that crew is generally more about grilled meat and warm cheap beer. But, Lake Kachess is still a stunning location.

Travis and our friends look out over Lake Kachees.

Big J plays the guitar... well, until the camp host came by at midnight to tell us to stop singing old Pearljam songs.

In addition to sitting around the campfire, playing cornhole and taking a short hike, we also spent a lot of time just floating on Lake Kachess in our inter tubes. Probably my favorite moment of the weekend was an extend float with Sarah, my brother and another friend where we made our way down the lake from the public park back to our campsite. Floating on a lake, drinking beers and talking to friends is definitely one of life's great pleasures.

Sadly, I didn't get an pictures of us floating on the lake, so here's me sitting in a stump throne.

In addition to it being Shahaf's Bachelor Party, this weekend was also the bottling of the 2007 Ranger Rick Red. As regular reader know, me, Sarah, my dad and several of our family friends have been making our own wine. My dad's college friend, Gary, started making wine years ago, and last year brought Sarah and I into the fold. This year was my dad's turn, and we ended up setting up a barrel in the crawlspace below my parents place.

Bottles drying and preparing to be filled.

Gary fills a bottle from a carboy. To the left of him, you can see the corker.

Since the barrel was a new one, it oaked up faster than usual, so this last weekend we got to empty barrel into bottles.

The barrel... recently emptied.

Another neat thing that happened last week was that we got a package in the mail. A week or so ago, I contacted the Washington State Archive and asked them if they had any photos of our house from "back in the day." As it turns out they did have one on file, from 1950 (the year after it was built), so for a small fee they sent me a copy of it. Here it is...

Isn't it cute! To see it today, click here.

It's interesting how buying a house has made me suddenly and massively fascinated in my neighborhood. I try to chat it up with our neighbors. And find myself reading up on Beacon Hill and Georgetown's histories. And, browsing local blogs. I've lived in a number of Seattle's neighborhoods at this point (The U District, Greenwood, Queen Anne Hill, Capital Hill and Belltown) and while there were things I liked about all of them; I haven't ever felt this compulsion to feel connected to it history.

Maybe its because we own the house. Maybe it's because our trip actual strengthened my attachment to Seattle. Maybe its because I'm getting older. Or, maybe it's because we are having our first child. Whatever the reason, I find myself really intrigued by where we live.

And I think we're framing the picture.

Oh, and speaking of having a baby. Here's Sarah!

(Since I didn't get a post in last week, you get to see a double feature!)

Sarah! Camping at 22 weeks!

Sarah! Back home at week 23! She's definitely grown since I started taking her picture at week 19th!

Yay!

(Complete photos of the Lake Kachess camping trip. Complete photos of the wine bottling.)