Chocolate Factory

Joshua went clay pigeon shooting with some guys last Saturday and my friend Kayla must have known because she messaged that she wanted to come up from Portland to visit. It worked out perfectly, especially since a school/work friend also joined us (and also came up with what to do that day- she has the best ideas)

We went and explored Theo chocolate which was the first organic fair trade chocolate makers. They do everything from roast the cocoa beans to making all their own homemade flavorings. We got to wear hairnets but Liz wanted to be extra sanitary and donned the beard net :)

We got to sample a lot of their chocolates and they toured us through the factory. Sadly there wasn't much activity there that day but we made up for it by eating more free chocolate in the store afterwards.

 

 

We rounded out the day with some Mexican food and added a few more to our dinner group. The best part of that night may have been that R Kelly, Nelly, and 50 cent were playing loudly all night. Mid conversation it was fair game to stop and start singing along.

Rockin Double Date

Joshua and I have always loved double dates. Since it's not just the 2 of us we know we can't control what happens and that makes it fun. We've hung out with a lot of couples since we've been here but we haven't actually gone out to dinner and drinks outside of people's houses...until now :)

We went with Kenneth and Jessica to Capitol Hill for insanely tasty sandwiches and chocolate martini's.

We laughed, joked, ate & drank, and had real conversations about community, relationships, God, church and what we believe and how all of it is impacting our lives right now.

Basically it rocked! We even scheduled another one next month- hint it will include shuffleboard!

please check out what someone did to Jimi Hendrix when it snowed:

image from here

This was as tasty as it looked, luckily the 4 of us shared it so no I didn't have to gain 5 pounds.

Introducing..

A  G  A  T  H  A !
my orange kitchenaid mixer and I think I'm in love. I was so excited to use it. My work, ZGF architects threw me a wedding shower/graduation party before I left to come back to Cincinnati and they pitched in to buy me the one gift I never thought I'd get. It is truly one of the nicest things that has ever been done for me. I will always be thankful and now I'm even more thankful because they hired me and I get to work with some really awesome people.

 I made espresso cupcakes and then I didn't think the buttercream that the recipe said would go well on top so I made a white chocolate ganache then topped them with chocolate covered espresso beans or roasted cocoa nibs. I brought them in to work because I promised everyone that I would make them something with my mixer. They seemed to go over well and Joshua and I loved loved loved them. They were crazy moist from the cup of espresso I put in and they are just so cute!!

Well now you've met our Agatha, Josh named this one. You'll be seeing many more of her creations I'm sure. We really want to make my dad's bread soon and she has a part for that.  O and our cow, Felix, creamer was involved because it was 1 am when I was making these and I was feeling a little goofy, plus he's a cutie.

It was beautiful and warm here this weekend! We went to Capitol Hill on Friday and had tacos and went to a microbrewery it was really tasty. We biked like ten miles on Friday and then ran 5 miles on Saturday morning so Sunday we treated ourselves to banana nut and mocha ice cream- we deserved it.
Have a great monday!

Arboretum and Chocolate Martinis!

We biked to the arboretum this Saturday. It was a ridiculously gorgeous day!

The Arboretum has floating bridges that we walked across to a marshy island. It has trees growing all above you and then docks poke out from it to hang out by the water.

 

Please note how stinking adorable the duckling is! His mom was close by it was as if she took him to the playground for the day. He kept crawling on the lily pads. I'm pretty sure I spent 10 minutes repeatedly telling Josh to look at how cute it was!

 

We caught part of the Blue Angels show from Seafair. They flew over us in formations a few times. Man o man they are so loud!

 The rest of the park has a ton of paths that wander all over. We took a long rest in the grass. The sky was so blue. We ate fruit snacks too :)

 Josh had never seen this blue of flowers before, He wasn't sure what to do with them.

 Dahlias are my FAVorite flower!! The button orange dahlias are my all-time favorite. Seattle has a few dahlia gardens and they make my day.

 We headed to volunteer park to check the garden out. I smelled and touched pretty much all of them.

We biked to capital hill and ended the night with coffee chocolate martinis! Just YUM yum yum yum