The Last Two Weeks in Pictures

Grateful Bread (our favorite neighborhood coffee shop) is a weekly occurrence and that's where I found this plant pot. It's true: only love can conquer hate. I think understanding can conquer hate, too, but only when it comes from a place of genuineness. Needless to say, I was inspired and I thought I'd take a few pictures. I'm pretty liberal with my photo-taking, if you haven't noticed.

This one was taken from Lake Washington where we were watching the sunset from the boat of Jason's cousin. I love how the mountains are framed by the sun. I feel like it really shows how amazing the summer weather has been in Seattle. And, lucky for me, plenty of those hot days have been spent on a boat or in the water!

Last Friday, Jason and I went out to dinner with a mutual friend who was in town from Michigan on business. We partook in happy hour at the Tin Table in Capitol Hill and a few bottles of wine later, stumbled (literally) upon a random dodge ball game taking place in the tennis courts at Seattle Central Community College. There were a couple hundred people milling around the facility while about 75 men played a hardcore game. It was crazy! Take a look:

Here's a nice shot of Jason attempting to get someone out of the game. (I don't remember if he was successful, I was too busy taking pictures.)

It was a great atmosphere for young people (most ranging from 12 to 25) and a lot of people stood around to watch the game. I was surprised that the activities didn't get more violent due to the high level of skill and intensity, but the guy who told us about the game (he was like our own little PR man) said it was a "friendly-aggressive" environment. A policemen even drove up to watch the lively festivities!

On Saturday morning, I picked up my old roommate, Bonnie, and we drove down to Burien to help our other past roommate, Adrian, and her parents bottle wine. Adrian's dad makes his own wine and we've helped with other tasks (picking the grapes, for example), so we thought we'd assist in the bottling process. It was really interesting. See for yourself...

This was the top from the camping pot that was used to shrink the paper seal onto the wine bottle. I liked the way it looked on camera:


Here are some of the bottles we used:


Adrian's dad built most of his equipment for bottling the wine. Here is the contraption we used to filter the wine from the large jugs into each bottle:


This is the finished product, aren't they pretty? Steve (Adrian's dad) even water colored the labels of Mount Rainier!


And here is the wine cellar that Steve built to house and age the wine:


Our hands after the bottling process:


On Sunday afternoon, I had friends over for a pool party and dinner. We splashed around for a few hours and then feasted on delightful homemade dishes like black bean burgers:


And pasta salad with chevre and grape tomatos tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette:


And (my favorite) peaches with mint, basil, and chevre tossed in balsamic vinegar and oil:

Yum! Happy September to all!