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Hi everyone!
If you're wondering where our vacation photos went, don't worry, they'll be back soon. We've put some photos of the car we're selling in our Picasa account, and because we didn't want just any random internet surfer snooping through our vacation photos, we've blocked them from view for a little while. Of course, if you just LOVE looking through our photos on a regular basis, the best solution would be for you to go ahead and buy our car so we can put the photos back up. Just kidding. :)
We had the opportunity (i.e. ANOTHER WEEK OF FURLOUGH) to take a little trip up to Seattle and Port Angeles, Washington, to visit some good friends: Mary and Luis, who are about to have a baby, and Stacie and Chris, who were just married. We abandoned Fang and Errol to the capable hands of our new pet sitter, and flew up to Seattle last Wednesday, the 9th.
Mount Rainier
We arrived at Mary and Luis' house in time for dinner. We were pleasantly surprised to find that another college friend, Cress, and her family would be joining us for the meal! Luis cooked up a fabulous three course dinner for the seven of us and we had a great time catching up on everyone's latest news.
Luis hard at work making dessert 
Mary, Matt, Ryder, and Cress
First course - new style sashimi
Pasta with mushroom sauce
Our young sommelier
Green Lake Wildlife
Right after lunch, Jeff and I drove over to Edmonds to catch the Edmonds-Kingston ferry over to the Olympic Peninsula. The ferry ride across is always fun, and the drive from Kingston to Port Angeles is scenic and relaxing. We arrived in Port Angeles at about 3:00, and went straight to Chris and Stacie's house, where we met Chris for the first time, and we met Gracie, their dog for the first time as well. We played with Gracie for a while, and got a tour of the cute house, and then we all left together to drive over to Chris' family's cabin on Lake Sutherland. Chris showed us around the cabin, then took us out on his boat for a drive around the lake. It was surrounded by quaint cabins and dense trees and little mountains. Gracie went along for the ride, and delighted in spending much of her time switching between all of our laps.
A sailboat near our ferry
Gracie, who never tires of playing Frisbee
Stacie, Chris, and Gracie
After the boat tour, we went back to the cabin where Chris and Stacie whipped up a tasty dinner of grilled brats, and yummy chips and salsa, and macaroni salad. It was great to picnic outside on the deck and be out in nature. It's not often that we can eat outside in Kansas without our food blowing away, so we were happy to get the chance to do it in Washington!
The four of us at the lake
We headed back into Port Angeles by way of a little detour down Ediz Hook Road. It's a neat peninsula that shelters Port Angeles Harbor. We checked out the cool rock piles and took some more pictures of ourselves. After that, we had to get back to Kingston to catch a late ferry back to Seattle for the night.
We just had to take one of Stacie's famous self portraits!
Michelle on the hook
Jeff on the hook
Jeff and I spent the following morning shoe shopping in Seattle, and then met up with Mary and Luis for lunch at Serious Pie, which is a downtown pizza place that serves up some gourmet type pizzas. It was pretty good. After that, we all roamed about downtown shopping for a while, then went back to the house to rest up for the evening. We had an early dinner reservation at Wild Ginger, where we met up with one of Luis' coworkers from Boeing. The food at Wild Ginger is served family style, and we decided to let our waiter choose a variety of dishes for us to eat. It was a great choice - he brought out five different appetizers and five different entrees, and we all got a taste of each. It was a really fun restaurant and the food was outstanding!
After dinner, we moved across the street to Benaroya Hall to hear the Seattle Symphony Orchestra perform Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. It was a nice concert, but I have to say (and Jeff agrees) that we could NEVER play for their conductor. He was a mess. I'm pretty sure he was half a beat ahead of the orchestra the entire time, and he was flailing all about in such a manner that you couldn't really tell where the beat was, so it was definitely not the orchestra being behind. The orchestra sounded just fine, and they were all together, just not with him. Anyway, it was amusing to watch, and it was fun to hear the Fifth played live.
Saturday morning was spent at Pike Place Market with Mary and Luis. We've all been to the market before, but this time was a little different. We decided to take a tasting tour of the market through a guide company called Savor Seattle Tours. It was really good. We had a group of about 16 people, and we were led to nine different stalls in the market for a variety of food samples. The tour lasted about two hours. When it was over, we walked back through the market to do some grocery shopping. We picked up a yummy fresh fruit smoothie, some chocolate covered cherries, and some good anchovies. The smoothie was devoured right away, the rest came home to Wichita with us.
The famous entrance to the market
Sampling a Daily Dozen Doughnut
A cutie from Pike Place Fish
Fresh fruit from Frank's Quality Produce
So pretty!
The neon signs at the market are fun
Gorgeous flowers
This is Brett, our illustrious tour guide, at Beecher's Handmade Cheese
Crab cakes at Etta's Seafood
Mushrooms in the market
We decided to visit IKEA for part of the afternoon. We all love that store, and Mary and Luis wanted to look at some baby items, and Jeff and I just wanted to wander around and see all the great stuff we can't have because we don't have IKEA anywhere near us. We ended up buying a little stuffed mouse toy for Fang, and making a wish list of bigger items that we'd love to have to decorate our second guest bedroom. Oh IKEA, please come to Kansas!
After IKEA, we all needed a rest, so it was back to Mary and Luis' house for the rest of the afternoon. Then we went out again for our last dinner together, this time to Dahlia Lounge. After dinner, we went back to the house and shared our vacation photos with each other. Mary and Luis showed us their England and France photos from over the summer, and we showed them our Austria and Switzerland photos. Then it was off to bed for all of us.
The sun sets on Mary and Luis' backyard
We flew home early Sunday morning and arrived back in Wichita in the middle of the afternoon. We were relieved to find our pups were happy and well fed. I don't think they missed us too much. We'll definitely have to try this pet sitter thing again on our next short trip out of town.
I (Michelle) got to take a fun little trip over to Denver today. One of my coworkers, Phil, owns a couple of airplanes, as well as a private field with a grass strip. A little while back, he received an invitation to the Porsche Aircraft Experience in Centennial, Colorado, which is just outside Denver. He asked around at work to see if anyone wanted to go along for the ride, and a couple of us thought it sounded like a fun way to spend a day, so we signed up to go with him.
We watched the weather all week to make sure it would cooperate for the trip. Phil called over this morning to say we were good to go, and we'd be wheels up at 08:00, so I hopped in the car, picked up our other coworker, Don, and we all gathered at Phil's airport, Eagle Field, outside Bentley, KS. We piled into his 1970 Piper Comanche and were on our way to Denver in no time.
We arrived in Centennial a couple of hours later, parked the airplane, got our ramp passes, and headed over to the Porsche show. The first thing we did was sign up for our reserved auto-cross times, and then we spent some time looking at the airplanes on display. We grabbed lunch at the show, and then got shuttled over to the auto-cross track for some driving.
Two of us (Don and I) were slightly dismayed that only Boxster S's and Cayman S's were offered for our driving pleasure, but Phil was quite content (he was there for the airplanes, not the cars). We got over it pretty quickly, and each took a turn driving the track with one of Porsche's driving school instructors. Phil took a Boxster S, and Don and I each took a Cayman S around the track. We got to drive a couple of laps on our own, then we each got to ride along with an instructor doing the track. It was fun, but I wasn't all that impressed with the car. It's supposed to be a competitor for my new car, but it didn't really compare. I guess that just means that I'm a happy BMW customer!
After our driving, we went back over to the show again. We finished making the rounds with the airplanes, and I took a few minutes to look over the new Porsche Panamera Turbo that they had on display. We eventually all made it back over to the air conditioned comfort of the FBO, chilled out for a while, checked the weather, discovered that there was a thunderstorm brewing, and decided to head back home.
We had to divert to the north a bit to avoid running into the building storm on the way home, but it didn't add much to our flight time. We made it back to Phil's field at a little after 17:00, and Don and I were both home by 18:00, just in time for dinner.
I have to say that it was pretty cool to get out to the mountains and back in only 10 hours and still have time to have fun in the middle of the day. Thanks to Phil for extending the invitation and for flying us out there for the fun!
