Come Walk With Me to the Eastside of Seattle & Visit Kirkland, Washington

visit Kirkland
We live one mile from this spot at OO Denny Park, so we just grabbed our beach chairs and headed over at 4 pm on a weekday!

The Eastside of Seattle – Visit Kirkland, Our New Home

Come over to the Eastside of Seattle and visit Kirkland, WA. Eight months ago, we made the challenging decision to move to the Pacific Northwest to be close to our newborn grandchildren.

visit Kirkland
4 Generations – My Mom came to visit and we were delighted by the magical sunset. L to R Me, Josephine, daughter Alex, my mom Linda and James. The twins are 7 months in this photo.

We sold our perfectly appointed Empty Nest in Southern California and bought a modern, sleek home with a view of Lake Washington. I have written about our experience HERE and HERE, and for the most part, I would say we are thriving.

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A Romantic Weekend For Two – Is it time to make a plan?

a romantic weekend
Enjoying the Seattle Hyatt Regency Club Level outdoor patio

A Romantic Weekend

Is a romantic weekend for two on your travel list for this year? If it isn’t, you may want to think a little harder, be a little more creative for your sweetheart. Don’t have a significant other? Grab a friend or a grown child and go, because everyone deserves a bit of me time.

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It’s Fun to Let Your Hair Down & Be a Tourist (Sometimes)

be a tourist
At Seattle’s Space Needle on the open air observation deck, the glass benches are angled and made you look like you were falling backwards. (At least we thought it did!) The views are spectacular!

It’s ok to just be a tourist

As travelers, it can be a struggle to decide when to just fit in to the landscape, enjoy the surroundings, soak up the local culture and take in what this new city has to offer. However, sometimes it is FUN to take that selfie on the famous bridge and be a tourist. Heck everybody else is! Right?

When I was in Prague last summer the crowds on the famous Charles Bridge were so large that you literally had to jump in the stream of fellow tourists and swim upstream. People were everywhere. They stop in the middle in order to take just the right photo, they bump into you, they are (mostly) clueless. When facing a situation like this, you have to take a deep breath and forge forward.

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A Girls Trip to Seattle – My Favorite Itinerary Can Now Be Yours!

 

girls trip to Seattle
Sitting on the observation deck of the Space Needle -We totally embraced the moment! L to R: Debbie, Me, Barbara, Karin

 

A girls trip to Seattle has been on my radar for quite some time. I am kind of embarrassed to admit how long it took for me to coordinate this trip for three dear, long-time girlfriends. Two of them have been to Seattle several times, but we had one newby in the group, Barbara.

Barbara has been all over this great big beautiful globe, but never has spent any time in one of my favorite cities! We managed to coordinate three different schedules around Karin’s trip to Alaska, made a date and stuck to it!  It was a miracle of timing, but we did it!

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Where to go this Fall ~ 7 Great Destinations to Enjoy!

where to go this fall

Where to go this fall to enjoy the best of what this colorful season has to offer ~

Summer has ended and we are headed to Fall, my very favorite season! Funny thing is that I live in Southern California where the temps are hovering around 90 degrees! How can I think about cool, sweater weather, drinking hot cocoa, eating warm apple pie and enjoying walks through the autumn leaves?

I can find these desirable images in my imagination, or I can plan a fall getaway! Where can we go? Many of my friends who live on the East Coast will chuckle when I write about how I long for the cooler weather, because I don’t really experience any type of super cold weather in Pasadena. I think I wear a coat maybe once or twice all season at home.

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Seattle: A walk around beautiful Seward Park

Seward Park Seattle

Seattle is truly one of the loveliest cities in the world. We have been living here for 6 1/2 months but now getting ready to move back to Pasadena. I feel the panic of trying to see and experience everything we have not yet visited!

I should not be disappointed in our activity level, we actually have done quite a bit of exploring and Craig reminds me of this daily. However, we had not yet been to Seward Park in Southeast Seattle, so on a recent sunny weekend day, we grabbed Rocco and drove the six miles to the prodigeous park.

Seattle
Here is an aerial view of the park from Wikipedia

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Our Empty Nest Renovation & 6 Months in Seattle

empty nest renovation - Glen Summer House
The renovation of our empty nester fixer-upper will begin in September.

The last time I wrote about the empty nest renovation was clear back in January. It has been quite the roller coaster ride with so many details, so many decisions, so many ups and downs.

A quick review:

Craig and I decided to sell our home, downsize and leave our beach community of Laguna Niguel after 27 years. We left our dear friends, daily routine, and a house full of memories. Not an easy decision.

We purchased a much smaller, 1937 Spanish Colonial fixer-upper home on a quaint, tree-lined street in Pasadena, CA in order to live closer to our family and my Dad who is fighting cancer.

With so many adjustments and challenges, these past seven months have been really difficult and exhausting, however the quality time I have been able to spend with my Dad has been priceless. The move was truly worth every single minute of heartache or discomfort.

We hired an amazing architect, a well recommended contractor and were finally given approval by the city to begin. Truthfully, we have delayed the start a couple of months because of Dad’s illness. He is an inspiration and has suffered more than any person should ever have to. Dad is still outrunning it and plans to continue on this path!

We have chosen fixtures, tile, marble, granite, appliances and floor coverings. The decision making is overwhelming, but exciting. So… now we needed to find a place to live while the house was under construction. The renovation will include every room and every crevice and to live there was just not feasible.

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What to do when it rains in Seattle…Everything!

 What to do when it rains in Seattle. Funny question. My answer is everything. There is everything to do in one of the most stunning cities in the world. Seattlites don’t want us to know that it really doesn’t rain as much as people say it does. In February, if you check your weather app on your …

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Adventures in Seattle: The city that kidnapped our daughter

In 2006 our lovely daughter and oldest child, left for college 1,000 miles away to the home of The Space Needle, Amazon, Grey’s Anatomy, and the world famous Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington. A spectacular view of Downtown Seattle from Alki Beach  That conniving city kidnapped her, kept her superbly happy and did not encourage her to return home. Alex spent four …

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