Home Sweet Home

It's hard to believe that we went nearly nine months without a trip to the states/home, but at the end of April we headed back to the West Coast for Greg's brother's wedding. We were both able to tag a week of work on which helped us really maximize our trip with lots of quality time with friends, family and some hardcore shopping.

I was very excited to be back in Seattle but also a bit nervous - what if I didn't 'fit in' at work or with my friends anymore. Thankfully, that wasn't an issue, and in many ways, it felt like we never left. For the most part, not all that much has changed in Seattle since we left. The biggest exception being that they FINALLY finished the flipping of the house next door to ours- I'd say this will help our property value considerably!

Our first week back was hectic with trying to work, managing doctor appointments and seeing friends but it was well worth it. Several of our friends had children before we left and it was amazing to see how much they had grown over the past year. It was really fun to see get to know their personalities.

We were fully de-jetlagged in time to enjoy the second week of the trip where we were officially on vacation and things were considerably less hectic. One of the many highlights of the trip was a group dinner with most of our closest friends at Herb Farm. Karen secured us a private room and we manged to behave ourselves for the most part. A few of us stayed over at Willows Lodge, which was really nice - very relaxing and a great spot for a future weekend away.

Early in the second week, Greg set off for a boys golf trip to Bandon Dunes (see photo below) which granted me some great girl time with my sister Nicole. She had the week off and came up to Seattle for a few days to hang out. We had a fun time shopping around and being 'ladies that lunch'. It was also really nice to finally introduce her to many of my Seattle girlfriends after hearing about each other over the years.

Mid-week, Nicole and I headed down to Portland. After a bit of tax free shopping, I made my way out (way, way out :-)) to Forest Grove for a great dinner with Nikki. They recently built a beautiful new home - I don't know if I envy her farm sink or home theater room more...it's tough to see their 'posh' new home when our flat in London doesn't even have a clothes dryer!

The next day Nicole treated me to a lovely spa day at her fabulous new gym. It was great preparation for the wedding festivities that kicked off that night. Saturday we were able to meet up with my dad and Jan and hear about their preparation and plans to spend three months on the boat this summer in Canada - I sure hope they both make it back in one piece!

Greg's brother, Todd and his beautiful wife, Sarah, had a lovely ceremony at the Benson. They had to have been the most relaxed bride and groom I've ever met. It was fun night, and I must say, Greg did a fantastic job with his speech - I was quite proud. It was fun to catch up with folks and meet some new people.



It was a busy trip, but we really felt fortunate to be able to see as many friends and family members as we did. It's a bit weird not having any visitors or trips home scheduled until we return in November, so don't hesitate to come over and see us!

Our trip wouldn't have been nearly as fun without the support of so many of our friends and family, and a few special thank you's are in order:

- Verhasselts - I had a great time hanging out with you guys. Thank you for driving me all over the Seattle metropolitan area and, as always, for the great conversation - even you T!

- Pannonis - Your seeming ease at amazingly gracious hospitality always amazes me. Thank you again for letting us stay (Nicole too), feeding us (especially the carne asada!) and introducing us to Guitar Hero!

- Tottens - I can't believe you changed the oil and re-newed our tags! Thank you for taking such good care of little H. Can't wait to see catch up over a good Chianti in July.

- MorDees - I had such a good time hanging out together! I soo needed that spa day. Not even sure where to start about the t-shirt - rocks.

- Hueys - Thank you for collecting all my packages :-). It was good to see you but when are you going to come visit?

- Newlyweds - We had such a great time at your wedding. It was a memorable night and we are thrilled for you guys - ditto on the visit for you guys too!

- Dees - I appreciate you making the effort to drive from Cathlamet. I know you guys are busy, so it means a lot.

-Huhs - Thank you for organizing HF and for the A - it saved my life! It was fun to meet Wasabi!

-Matthews - Thanks for a delicious dinner and a fun night - You MUST come visit!

We know how lucky we are to have you in our lives and feel really appreciative of all your love and support!!

Scotland Golf Day 2 and Days 3-7

Day 2 - The Old Course

We wake up to a glorious morning (it’s a little cold and pretty windy but no rain) and head downstairs for breakfast. There is a Starbucks in the town, but the concierge told us it didn’t open until after 9am “or so”. Sounded suspect to me, but we suck it up and figure we can pay the £18 fee for breakfast once during our stay. DW dives in with the full English Breakfast with baked beans and sausages. I snag a couple of apples for food on the course, but Dave has the brilliant idea of grabbing a couple of (small) boxes of cereal as well as a chocolate muffin. After a pot of coffee between the two of us, we are awake enough to grab the hotel shuttle in time for our golf lesson. Now, DW is normally anti-lesson because his swing is pretty fundamentally sound. In contrast, my swing is a little more temperamental shall we say. However, when I was booking the golf winter package (3 days of golf for £120 including one round on the Old Course) they were also marketing an hour long lesson where you could learn how to play links style golf. DW and I were both thinking learning to hit 50 yard putts, chipping with a fairway wood, playing the bump and run, knockdown 3 irons, etc. Lesson starts and the pro (David Armitage – nice guy but couldn’t have been more than 28) asks what we want to focus on. We say how to play links golf and his response was don’t play when it’s really windy and avoid the bunkers. After that, it was just a normal lesson, a good lesson, but nothing unique to links golf whatsoever. To DW’s utter surprise, the pro did not fall to his knees and praise DW’s swing. He actually had a few material changes. After hitting some balls, we headed inside for a putting lesson with a fancy laser-based system. DW made about 5 putts with his faulty form while I didn’t make one with far superior form. This is a trend that needs to stop. Anyway, the major change the pro makes to my stroke is my grip – I’ve “got Tiger’s grip now”. He makes about 6 changes to DW’s swing, the final change being the grip and to my disappointment – he is also given Tiger’s grip. Oh yeah, from the small talk, we learn that the pro goes to Starbucks every morning. I ask what time it opens and he says, “early – I get there at 7 and they’re already open.” So much for that concierge – although everything worked out in the end as it turns out the breakfast was included in the rate so we spent each morning loading for the day. It was little things like that falling into place that made us feel like we had karma on our side.

Onto the course. We ask the pro how to get to the first tee of the Old Course. We were expecting them to have some fancy shuttle or something, but he basically says – walk along the 16th and 17th and cut across the 18th fairway and you’ll run into the starter’s booth. Our first insight into Scottish golf – they are much less formal/judgemental than Americans in terms of golf. No fancy clubhouses, manicured grounds, fences keeping the public out, etc. – in fact, there’s a road – a public road – that leads to the beach that runs right through the 18th fairway of the Old Course. Crazy. Here we are on our way to the starter.

The Old Course was solid. It wasn’t what I expected at all. Playing it the first time, you don’t think it’s that hard because the fairways are pretty wide and the rough isn’t a foot tall. We’ve been told that the more you play it, the more you come to appreciate the strategy and shot making that is required. Anyway, we had to play off of these fairway mats (basically a small strip of driving range mat that we carried around with us), but you didn’t have to use them if you were 5 feet off the fairway. I’d say that we applied this exception liberally. I didn’t feel too badly about it, because the rule was only supposed to be in effect for a few more days. The greens were enormous which led to a lot of greens-in-regulation, but also a lot of 3 putts. Play was fairly slow so we joined up with a father-son twosome. They were locals so they pay £125 for a year of golfing. As soon as we heard that we put St. Andrews on my possible list of retirement locations. They were also the first of many to make a couple of comments that we heard multiple times: first – “are you guys students?” and second – “Seattle? I love that Frasier.”

Tally for the Old Course:
GSH: 87, 12 GIRs and a whopping 45 putts.
DWT: Need from DWT.
Skins: GH – 10, DW – 8

First tee

Don't worry about that hernia - take plenty of sand...

DW bangin' one off the hotel back into the fairway

Need to focus to hit the 18th fairway

Back to work...

Day 3 - The New Course
OK, I’ll state the obvious and admit that I’m very late in posting this, but I gotta get it written before we leave and our time in London is quickly coming to an end. Also, there were some complaints that I created a new post for Day 2 and thus causing confusion, so I’ve just added the rest of the days to the Day 2 post. Shouldn’t be too bad as my guess is that the rest of the posts will be considerably shorter since I can barely remember what I had for breakfast much less what happened 6 months ago. Anyway, onto the posting…

We head down for breakfast and it’s another “full English breakfast” for DWT along with a couple of muffins for the course. Dave has officially earned himself the new nickname of Muffin Top for the remainder of the trip. Today it’s the New Course and a couple of weathered Scots are teeing off in front of us complete with plaid knickers and everything. As we are getting set to tee off, a couple of guys come tearing up to the tee in a golf cart. This was the only cart we saw at St. Andrews as most people hire caddies or just carry their clubs (they don’t even allow carts on the Old Course). Anyway “the DBs in the cart” – as they came to be known, were tragic. They drove up near the greens, in the rough and alongside the bunkers and were right up on us eventhough there was nowhere to go. It seemed like they were in a huge hurry like they were trying to squeeze in a round before a flight or something. Muffin Top and I grew tired of their antics and decided to offer to let them play through. They quickly accepted the offer and we enjoyed the role reversal of playing right up behind them because when they asked the old Scots whether they could play through they were met with a chuckling “piss off” (or maybe it was something a little more colourful).

Fired up for the New Course

Not bad huh

The DBs in the cart

I saw another really cool thing on the New Course that illustrates the difference between Scottish golf and American golf. A couple of guys in the fairway over had their dog with them. He was just trotting along next to his owner. Now, I don’t think I’d try this with Morgan because she would try to chase after the ball, but they’d never allow this on a course the stature of St. Andrews in the U.S.

If you look closely you might see the dog

The New Course was another great course at St. Andrews, but if memory serves, we liked the Old Course a little bit more. I had a nice front nine, but the back was tough.

Tally for the New Course:
GSH: 86, 5 GIRs and a pedestrian 36 putts.
DWT: Need from DWT.
Skins: GH – 7, DW – 10

Day 4 - Rain, Wind and Jubilee Course
So, as we were driving from Edinburgh to St. Andrews I heard something on the radio about “gale force winds” and today was the day that the storm hit. As we came to learn, gale force is actually a technical term (google it) where your “progress is generally impeded”. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just windy. It was pouring down rain so we dressed as warmly and dryly as we could, stuffed our pockets with “little hottie” hand warmers and headed out to the Jubilee course. We should have known it was gonna be a tough day when we were greeted in the first fairway by a foursome of locals heading back to the clubhouse saying, “got the course to yourselves lads!”

Could be a tough day

I actually started out OK although the wind was comical. Most memorable shot I hit was a 3 wood from an elevated tee on a 140 yard par 3. Had to aim about 100 yards right. Two putt for par. After that, I learned first hand the meaning of “water resistant” versus “water proof” pants. After about 45 minutes my pants had soaked through, and while it was uncomfortable to have wet underwear, the worst part was that I couldn’t keep my hands warm by putting them in my pockets. Pretty soon I was whining incessantly. Tried to do everything to keep warm including jumping jacks but it was a lost cause. Probably funniest point was when I was taking a practice swing and I lost a hold of the club. It looked like I had thrown the club into the sea. Luckily there was a lower tee box where I was able to retrieve my 5 iron. That’s about all I remember about the Jubilee course. My scorecard disintegrated, but DW had me down for a 43/51 for a big old 94. I was just happy that I didn’t lose any fingers to frost bite.

We drove on the road that cuts through the 18th fairway of the Old Course and then headed back to Edinburgh with the heat on high. We also established some theme music to the trip because the radio station kept playing “Don’t Go Breakin My Heart” and we heard the ridiculous “United States of Whatever”. It was gonna be tough to dry out our stuff, but I spotted and snagged a space heater from the hall and that was huge. Needless to say, I immediately put waterproof pants on my Christmas list.

Strategy #1 for drying our stuff

Luckily, I snagged the space heater...

Day 5 - North Berwick - sweet!
After drying out the clothes and doing a bit of a pub-crawl in Edinburgh we headed east to North Berwick. This course was recommended to me by the pro at West Seattle and I have to say this was the most enjoyable round of golf I’ve ever had. The course was great, the people were really friendly and it was just a ton of fun. It was really really really windy again so scoring was pretty difficult, but there was no rain so no whining out of me on this day. I’m not poetic enough to do the place justice so I’ll just throw in a bunch of photos.

A wee bit of wind lads

If you look closely you can see the rock wall that snakes through the course

The wall is pretty big factor on this hole

Tally for North Berwick:
GSH: 94 (ugh, thought I had done better), 6 GIRs and too many (40) putts.
DWT: Need from DWT.
Skins: GH – 4, DW – 14

Day 6 - Carnoustie and last day in Scotland
Headed up north to Dundee to play Carnoustie. I must say, I didn’t love this course. Could have been that it just didn’t compare to North Berwick in its character. Also, they had a temporary green set up on the famous 18th so that was a bummer. Probably didn’t help that my swing was an absolute mess on the front nine – leading to a mind boggling 53. For me, the most memorable part of this course were the bunkers and the train that runs right next to the course. Anyway, I clearly was out of it because my score card doesn’t have any stats – just a 53 on the front and 44 on the back. At least I broke 100.

Number 1 at Carnoustie

Sadly our time in Scotland had come to an end. We made it back to the airport with time for a couple of last pints as Dave tried to get his PC to power up. It was a fantastic trip where everything seemed to go right (except for the rain on day 4, but we really can’t complain because it started snowing right after we left) but at the same time it was good to get back to London to see Tiff and the Doodle. Dave’s flight back home was the next day but we were able to squeeze in a round at Royal Wimbledon before I dropped him off on the Picadilly line to Heathrow. Hopefully we get a chance to make it back to Scotland soon.

Wine and Cheese in Paris

After such a great time at the Vigneron Independant last fall, we vowed to go back in the spring if we were still here. So we talked our friends John and Sarah into joining us in Paris for the weekend. Greg and I headed down on the Eurostar on Friday morning. After checking in at the Golden Tulip again, we headed to Chez Clovis in Les Halles for lunch which I wouldn't go out of my way to try, but was fine. After a bit of shopping, and finding a closed Loft store for Greg, we headed to the wine show. The venue wasn't as good this time with low ceilings and multiple rooms instead of one big room, but it was still great. After trying about 15 different wineries we headed back to the room for a quick nap and met up with John and Sarah for dinner at our fave Bistrot Vivienne.

We awoke the next morning to to find the sun out and ran out to grab croissants and coffee for all of us to enjoy out on our balcony. John and Sarah brought the tunes and it was a great way to kick off the day. We shopped a bit in the 1st and then headed to the Christian Louboutin store. Despite our best efforts neither Sarah or I could really find a pair that we had to have, so we decided to grab lunch at another good spot Le Cafe des Inities and think it over a bit.

The boys at CL

After lunch we all grabbed a Velib and John led us on a lovely ride along the Seine where I FINALLY purchased her little piece of art from a crazy street artist that I saw a few trips back but could never find her or she woudn't have the piece I wanted. We then shopped a bit more in the 5th & 6th where everyone pretty much found what they were after. After a quick break at a cafe, the girls headed back to Paul and Joe in the 1st for a pair of shoes and the boys hit some art galleries. We all took a nap, as we had a big night ahead of us.

We had a fantastic dinner at Thoumieux, which is worth going out of your way for. Greg had a tremendous Cassoulet and it felt like we were the only tourists there. We found it on this website and have vowed to try more of his recommendations. After that we headed to our first cabaret show, Lido. Sarah and John got a recommendation from some French friends of theirs that live in Seattle, but I have to say, I think we were all a bit disappointed - it was full of half naked women and Greg fell asleep. Anyway, I thought Americans were famous for our love of cheesy entertainment, but this was over the top. Anyway, I haven't seen Moulin Rouge, but I would head there over Lido if you find your self in Paris seeking cabaret.

The next day after a late breakfast and the return of the rain, we headed to the wine show. We all tried a few and we bought a few cases to bring back. It has to be the best value out there only 5 euro for the whole weekend and there must be over 5000 wines to try. John and Sarah headed to the train station and we followed a few hours later. We tried to grab an earlier train but didn't have much luck so we wandered around the Indian area of town outside the tran station looking for a snack. We ran out of time, but it was an interesting neighborhood to explore.

The ride back was a bit rough with lots of unhappy and loud children, but we just plugged in our ipods and reflected on the lovely weekend.

Croatia - Paging Dr. Kovac

We've been really lucky so far in our travels - the summer was rainy wherever we went, but in retrospect I don't think we would have changed anything. Until Croatia. We'd heard great things about Croatia. Many named it as their favorite place to visit, commonly referred to as the "Tuscany before everyone knew about it." Well, to us I that meant great food, wine and culture. Sign us up! - we had a long Easter holiday and decided we'd spend it in Dubrovnik. Six full days, five nights and a lot of Kuna (Croatian money) later we had to laugh or we would cry.

Probably the biggest factor in our forgettable vacation was the weather. The whole of Europe was hit with torrential rain during the weekend. If you watched the Pope at the Vatican on Easter Sunday it was just a sea of umbrellas. Dubrovnik borders Italy, and we had the same weather. There were a couple days that were dry and we made the most of those - walking the city wall and eating outside. Unfortunately, that's really all there was to do in Dubrovnik. The town is really small and the main activity is lounging in/near the crystal clear Adriatic or taking a ferry to a nearby island and lounging in/near the crystal clear Adriatic. I'm sure this is all quite enjoyable when it's warm and sunny out, but not so much when it's 45-50F and raining. So, the second big factor in the trip was the length of time we spent in Dubrovnik. As I mentioned it was a nice little town, but two days would have been enough - especially because we were fatigued of the food after day 1. Every restaurant had the same menu - squid, white fish, mussels and french fries. The food quality was fine but the lack of variety was uncanny. I actually ordered french fries and a green salad for lunch one day. We spiced things up with pizza one night and spent 90 minutes walking in the rain looking for a Mexican restaurant. To make matters worse, the restaurants were pretty expensive - although we did get one meal for free. We stayed at the Hilton (which is supposed to be one of the best hotels in the town) and I was going to have some yogurt with granola. Luckily Tiff noticed that my granola was moving and turns out it was infested with insects. I handed the bowl to one of the workers and to make up for the incident the manager offered us a free dinner at the restaurant (which is supposed to be one of the best in the town). Now, it is odd that as compensation for a food hygiene issue they gave us more food, but the chocolate dessert was really good. I shouldn't be too harsh on the hotel. It was actually pretty nice and they upgraded us to an executive level room with access to the club lounge. My guess is they felt sorry for the fool who booked 5 nights in March. I've never been a big believer in splurging for a nice room, but when you're there for a nearly a week and it's raining out it was good to have a view of the sea and access to a room with free drinks and snacks. The gym and sauna were also pretty good and we spent more time there than planned.

View from our room.

Dubrovnik does have an interesting history. You can read more about it here, but basically Yugoslavia broke up as a Republic of different countries and Serbia and Montenegro heavily bombed Dubrovnik which was deemed a protected area. Backlash from this bombing led to a quick establishment of Croatia as an independent country. The photo below is a map of the old city illustrating all the damage that was done. You can see in some of the photos that work is still in progress to rebuild the old city.

Tiff on the city wall.

Some bombing aftermath

Unfortunately, Easter came early this year and it happened to be the first weekend of March Madness. I did talk Tiffany into hanging out at an Irish Pub that had the games on - Katie O'Connor's for a couple of hours to watch her American Eagles give Tennessee a good match. I then purchased €20 Internet access so I could watch GU lose to freakin' Davidson in an epic collapse. At least with the Internet we were able to plan our next holiday in May when we're headed to Portugal. I think we're done with eastern European countries for now - we're spoiled by Paris and Italy.

Here I am at Katie O'Connor's.

Easter means a Cadbury Egg for Tiff.

St. Partick's Day

This is the first year since 1940 that St. Patrick's Day didn't fall on the 17th. Why? Because Easter is so early this year the Pope didn't want everyone getting drunk during Holy Week so the moved it back to Saturday.- you can't make this stuff up! The only problem, they forgot to tell anyone. I was in Dublin a the week prior and no one seemed to know the date had moved. I am pretty sure they wouldn't have changed their long weekend plans much even if they did know :-).

We celebrated on the 17th (we found out the change in date too late too) with our friends John and Sarah (and Hank) by having them over for an Irish dinner.

The Menu:

• Black Velvets (Guinness and champagne - Greg's peanut butter in my chocolate, two great tastiest that are better enjoyed separately in my opinion)


• Selection of Irish cheeses from La Fromagerie (served American style - before dinner)


• Soda Bread (Cooks Illustrated recipe - very easy for bread)
  
• Lamb Stew (Greg tackled this with the Cook's Illustrated recipe and it was really, delicious)
  
• Green salad (Nothing fancy, but needed to get a bit of veg in there)


• Chocolate Guinness Cake (Nigella Lawson recipe)
  

It was all really good if we do say so ourselves - I think this menu will become an annual tradition. This photo doesn't really do it justice - the orange carrots and the parsley really don't pop the way the did in real life. Our lamb came from our favorite butcher, Allen's in Mayfair and was delicious.

It was a fun night even if it wasn't really St. Patrick's Day!