N e w O r l e a n s

I'm hoping to get to some random update posts this summer. 
I'm going to start with my trip to New Orleans this spring. 

One of my besties had been planning to celebrate 

her 30th birthday in New Orleans for probably all of her 20's. 

Joe and I flew over and joined her and some other friends 

in a cool old Victorian house in the French Quarter. 

This is a city I will definitely visit again. 

I loved the feel of it, the cool old buildings, and the amazing food. 
Unfortunately I was too lazy to carry my real camera around so the quality isn't great, 
but below are some photos and descriptions of the trip's highlights... 

We arrived in town on the birthday girl's actual birthday, 

so we took her to Commander's Palace for dinner. 

I think the highlight of this meal was the whiskey sauce they served 

with the (amazing) bread pudding. Brad was even putting it in his coffee! 

We spent the rest of that first evening sipping drinks and getting acquainted 

with the house, including it's varied collection of creepy Mardi Gras masks. 

The next day we rented a car with three others and drove out for 

an airboat swamp tour. I wasn't super excited about 

the idea of an airboat, but my mind was changed once we got going. 

Above you can see our rugged tour guide feeding marshmallows to alligators. 

He was very knowledgeable and had the bite scars to prove it. 

We learned a lot about the gators and the area, 

plus the speed of the airboat helped keep us cool. 

Cruising through narrow canals under trees draped in Spanish moss 

with the sunlight filtering through made this feel like a magical place. 

After a nap we walked to dinner through the French Quarter 

and stopped to watch a wedding parade. 

We went to Domenica at the Roosevelt Hotel for pizza 

and the to-die-for roasted cauliflower with salted whipped goat cheese spread. 

I had read about it on Joy the Baker's blog along with many of the other 

restaurants we visited on this trip. Check out her recommendations here. 

Later that night we walked a block or two over to Frenchman street. 

We started with a Bob Marley cover band and ended at The Spotted Cat 

swinging to music by the New Orleans Cotton Mouth Kings. 

The Spotted Cat was my favorite place we went for live music 

and I will definitely go back on my next visit. 

We had lunch at Peche the next day and enjoyed some seafood. 

Later that night we took a cab over to the Garden District 

and I had one of the best meals of my life at Atchafalaya. 

These were polenta and goat cheese "scallops" which were 

preceded by the best mussels and gnocchi. 

I could not stop talking about this meal for the rest of the night. 

There are so many more restaurants that I want to try next time,

but I will not visit the city again without revisiting this one.

Later that night was the Bourbon Street adventure. 

I had my first and last Hurricane. 

That is about all you need to know about that night. 

On our last full day we rented a huge van 

and drove across Lake Pontchartrain to Mandeville. 

Brad's family friends have an amazing house by the lake 

and Kelly and Brad threw a big crawfish boil to celebrate her birthday. 

This was an amazing experience and we had a cozy feast while it poured outside. 

We had time before our flight on the last day to visit the World War II museum 
and have one last delicious lunch at Cochon. 
Above is the lemon meringue pie...yum. 

Not pictured: 
Hungover breakfast at Luke
Beignets at Cafe du Monde (and the Disneyland-esque line that took an hour) 
The house we stayed in (which you can check out here)

SF and Sonoma

I spent a few days down in San Francisco 

visiting my brother and Kara. 

It was great to spend time with them and to 

see some new things in the city. 

On the first day there my brother and I visited the Exploratorium. 
That place is amazing! Honestly it put my beloved Pacific Science Center 
to shame. I loved that there were so many different areas of science 
represented and everything was so interactive. It didn't feel like it was 
just for kids. I will definitely go back as there was so much to see. 

 Their apartment is just north of Golden Gate Park so we 

spent time exploring Stow Lake and climbed up Strawberry Hill. 

We saw a turtle laying eggs! 

 We also enjoyed lots of good food: tuna melts at Velo Rouge, 
poached eggs la mer for breakfast at Zazie, 
pastries and oatmeal at Cinderella Russian Bakery, 
and amazing vegan Mexican food at Gracias Madre.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was driving up to Twin Peaks. 

It was a gorgeous evening for a 360 degree view of the city. 

Plus it was sunset. Talk about perfect. 

It was also really windy as you can see in the photos of us. 

Another favorite part of the trip was driving up to Sonoma 
with my brother. These photos were taken at Joseph Swan Vineyards 
where we had an appointment and were the only ones there. 
The setting was gorgeous and it was very casual. 
We also went to two tasting rooms in downtown Sonoma. 
Westwood Winery has a quaint little outside patio down an alley. 
The guy working there let us try different grapes and had a lot of 
good information. He recommended we visit Kamen, which was 
trendier and had fancy water and snacks. I really enjoyed all three 
places and felt like we got a good variety. I also bought wine 
at all three and managed to fly home five bottle of red in my 
suitcase successfully. Whew! 

Thanks to Kara and Alex for letting me stay and showing me 
some fun new spots around the city! 

whidbey weekend

I spent the weekend of July 19-21 at the Whidbey house 

with my whole family. My brother and Kara flew up from SF 

and we celebrated my brother's birthday. 

On Saturday evening we took a picnic down to the beach 

and made a fire. We cooked beans in the can and make s'mores for dessert. 

It was such a beautiful evening with a waxing gibbous moon. 

On Sunday we took the boat out and did some crabbing. 

We anchored and enjoyed cocktails and snacks. 

We kept five huge Dungeness crabs for dinner. 

That night for dinner we had fresh crab and a blackberry pie for dessert. 

I made the pie with berries my mom and I picked earlier in the week. 

I also made blackberry gin fizzes from Smitten's recipe. Yum! 

It was so nice to have a weekend with the fam in such a relaxing place. 
This summer is turning out to be full of excellent weekends.