Perhaps the Best Weekend Ever

The title says it all, could any weekend have been better? To start it off Brad, Taylor's brother, got home from his mission in Brazil Friday morning. Taylor took the day off and we hung out all day with the fam.

Saturday, we went to the pumpkin patch and had more good times just chillin' with Brad. Sunday, was of course the big not-homecoming talk at church, followed by, you guessed it, more hanging out with the Millett Clan. And Sunday was our 6 month anniversary :) 

Now, Brad coming home was pretty great, but nothing compares to Monday. The first awesome thing, Taylor had the day off! Party! I'm making plans to clean the house, get the oil changed, go buy some new jeans etc. I'm informing Taylor of these excellent plans and sense that he is a little less than excited about them. I ask "Hun, what do YOU want to do tomorrow? We don't really need to do all of this stuff"

"It's ok, I'm up for anything. We just have dinner reservations at 6." 

"What? For where?"

"The top of the Space Needle"

"No, you're joking aren't you? Really?! Don't tease me" 

"I made the reservations last week, we're going! Happy Anniversary!"

The background to this: the Space Needle has a restaurant at the top that slowly rotates so you get a 360 view. Neither of us had been to the top (at least not in our conscious memories) and I felt we, as new Seattlites, should go! Alas, it's about $20 a person to ride the elevators up, but if you eat dinner you get a 'free' ride to the top! Now 'free' needs to be qualified, the cheapest entree on the menu was $40. So your affordable ride up really is blown on dinner. I'd been trying to convince Taylor that we should go, that we could plan it for a special occasion etc etc. He really didn't buy into the idea, nor see the need to spend that much on dinner. It came as a complete shock that he had made reservations! :) 

Monday morning we did clean the house, get the oil change, meet Kris and Brad at 5 Guys and buy new jeans. (Granted these weren't for me as expected, but for Taylor.) 

Dinner was fabulous! We dressed up and got there early enough to wander the observation deck at sunset just as the city lights were turning on. 

We ordered crab cakes as an appetizer. Incredible. We scarfed them up way to fast to get a picture. In addition, they brought bread and butter. One was a rosemary butter the other salted butter with flakes of fluer de sel on it. I've never really understood the rave about salted butter--oh my gosh! This was the best butter I've ever tasted! I ordered lamb and Taylor got halibut. I have to concede, mine was good and had better platting. But the halibut was to die for amazing! 

All in all, a fabulous evening.

The Joys of the Holidays

Be it childish, I couldn't wait to go to the pumpkin patch! We were having the perfect fall weather, cold and rainy :) Even some nice sunny days, cold enough to see your breath in the morning and warm enough to take a nap in the sun by the afternoon.
When we finally made it to the patch, after doing thorough research about which was the best one, it started raining when we pulled into the lot. Perfect, thank you Washington.

What a man! Picked up all the muddy pumpkins and toted them around.

Loved the green

We got four pumpkins. Two for carving and two for cooking! I even went out on a limb and got a Cinderella Pumpkin. We had all the Millett's over for dinner on Halloween and introduced them to the Holmes' tradition: Dinner in a Pumpkin, delicious.

Taylor's is the Space Needle, mine the witch. Excellent carving if I do say so myself.

Northwest Pride

Last weekend Taylor and I went to a UW football game. It's been a hard adjustment for Taylor to live without going to a BYU game. I did my best and decided a UW game was as good as we could do. When I bought the tickets for his birthday I tried, as best I could, to not schedule them over an important BYU game and early enough the weather would still be nice. Well, I lost on both accounts. BYU won their first game after 4 losses and it was a downpour all day. Luckily Taylor was able to listen to the BYU game on his phone and we only got 90% drenched I'd say...

Though you can't see, the guy standing up is dripping wet. Despite the rain, we did have good seats. Which of course we couldn't sit in because they were more like mini-puddles than seats.

Though the ponchos helped immensely on keeping our top halves dry; by the time we got home we were soaked to the knee :)

Home Sweet Home

Here is a look at our apartment in Seattle. The first video was when we first moved in, vast improvements have been made! Taylor has recently christened the spider in the second video, Horace.

The D with a bit of west coast drama

Due to extenuating circumstances, namely a husband and living in Seattle, I was the last child to make the trek east to visit "The D" big bad bankrupt Detroit, Michigan. It was a marvelous trip and long overdue! Blake picked me up from the airport and the minute we pulled into the driveway Matthew and Whitney had their faces pressed against the car window fighting to pull open the door and give me a hug. Yea Happiness!
As usual, I found my mom frantically running around preparing dinner for the four elders who had reached their 2 year mark and were going home the next morning. And my Dad locked in his study doing final interviews. It seems as though nothing ever really changes :)
The week was wonderful, partly due to my family and partly due to the incredible spirit of Missionary Work. What a blessing it is for them to spend the next three years in the Lord's work.
Most of what I enjoyed was just being 'home' again. Mom's cooking, Dad's teaching, Blake and now Matthew's hockey, Whitney's girl talk :) It couldn't have been a better time. I don't think I fully appreciated how much I love my Mom.

 We went to the temple with all the Sister Missionaries :)

 The beautiful Detroit Michigan Temple

 The front and back yard of the Mission Home

 We visited the University of Michigan campus. This is the law building...major relapse of Art love

 We enter downtown! This is The Depot, once a beautiful classically inspired building, now broken, burnt and abandoned

 South America, anyone? Nope, your friendly downtown neighborhood.

 Just down the street from the previous photo, the new LDS Church! 

 And behind the church a nice house. Quote from Erin "Hmm, I don't think it had fallen over last time we were here"

 Business is bustling!

 Once you get into the very small heart of downtown, it's quite nice. I loved the buildings! Major detroit plus: Awesome Architecture!

 The fam :) Across the river is Canada! Love Blake and Matthew's faces

 Just me and the boys outside the GM building. By far the nicest and biggest.

Blackberries, Washington's Dyer's Woad

Several weeks ago, Taylor and I went blackberry picking. To many Seattlites and Washingtonians these are obnoxious weeds with inch long thorns. Though I had a very difficult time thinking how anyone could say this, I soon discovered why. They grow everywhere and once they start--unless you want to attack the thorns and spiders, have your clothes, arms and legs torn to shreds--you might as well give up hope.

However, if you find a nice patch, that hopefully isn't on your property, life is wonderful! We picked for maybe an hour to an hour and a half and got LOADS of berries, in our baskets and in our stomachs :) With only one or two scratches and purple fingers as side effects.

Kris, Taylor's mom, and I got together and made several batches of jam! Our first was Peach Blackberry a longtime family tradition for the Millett household. We followed by making freezer blackberry jam. Both are so delicious. I also made a blackberry peach cobbler, yum! With all of these delectables, I chose to freeze the rest. I'm thinking a blackberry banana ice cream would be amazing.

Meet Big Albert

Another exciting day at home, I decide to ditch my run and do some mat pilates. I lie on the floor and am ready to being with a set of hundreds when I see a large-brown-leggy something running right for my face. With a small scream and an enormous jump, I'm up in time to see it change course and run under the couch. This spider is huge, an average size body with legs that stretch to a diameter of at least an inch if not more. I text Taylor and he laughs. 

Thus begins the battle Ashley vs. Big Albert. I crouch low to look under the couch and sure enough there he is, legs stretched out ready to run at a moments notice. The question now becomes how to get him. I need to scare him out of his hiding place and squish him. In my attempts he runs underneath the other couch. I get the broom and use the handle to scare him out of that couch. He crouches, obviously in terror of the giant before him, between the wall and the couch. Using the broom handle I try to smash him. And I miss...how could I have missed his giant legs? Sadly after this pivotal moment, he runs under the couch again and is gone forever. Though I stood sentinel for hours—to this day I have not found him.   

And So It Begins...

There have been multiple times since Taylor and I were married when I thought "I should have a blog because this is way too funny not to share." However, there have been equal as many times when I have thought "Every Mormon wife starts a blog, I am not going to!" Alas too many of those previous moments won out and here we are.

I suppose the best way to start out is by a quick recap of all those moments when I should have blogged.

Starting with the first. It was Taylor's second week of work and I was busy job searching. About 1 o'clock my stomach and my brain couldn't take the endless job descriptions and cover letters. I decided to have a quesadilla for lunch.

To fully understand this story you have to know a little about our kitchen. It's the perfect size, square foot speaking. It is a little sad when it comes to cupboard space and more especially when it comes to the opening of the cupboards. Though MASSIVE on the inside, the opening is only about six to eight inches wide. Try fitting a ten inch skillet into one of these, it takes nearly ten minutes to take out all the smaller ones, put the large one back in, do some minor rearranging and then finally be able to shut the door.

That being said, I went to make a quesadilla and I already had a skillet out and ready to go. It only briefly crossed my mind that this was stainless steel, not the typical nonstick I use for tortillas. But, as stated previously, my stomach and brain were passed their due date and I wasn't about to battle the pans in the cupboard.

I take my uncooked tortillas from the fridge peel one off and put it on my now hot pan. Big surprise, it immediately sears to the pan. I remove it from the heat, scrape it off and start again. Still, I am far too lazy to wash this pan, get a nonstick pan out only to have to wash that one as well, so this time I add some olive oil to the pan and am more careful in cooking my tortilla.

All goes well, cheese, beans, meat, salsa a few spices and life is good. I prepare to flip. My brain, fueled by the tantalizing smell, is in an even more desperate attempt to nourish itself and is thinking less straight than before. "I'll flip it with the flat wooden spatula I used to scrape my previous tortilla off. Sounds a bit risky...but it's a quesadilla, how hard can it be?" Well surprise surprise. Instead of flipping it over the whole thing opens face down and is now searing meat and cheese onto my nonstick pan. I grab a plate scrape as much as I can onto it, top it with salsa and sour cream and enjoy my lunch.