jarrbar

My dear friend, Bryan, opened the cutest little bar in Pike Place Market called JarrBar. It's a Spanish themed bar featuring Jamon Iberico, a special type of cured ham made from black pigs in Spain and Portugal that feast on olives and acorns. It's delicious and JarrBar is one of the only places you can find it in the city. Check out this great write-up from Seattle Times!

thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! We spent out Thanksgiving with good friends and good food. Every year this group manages to successfully deep fry four turkeys as well as tempura (because you can never have too much deep fried anything) and serve it up along delicious sides and homemade pies. It was such a fun day. I am definitely thankful for this group of friends and for always being able to afford and feast of this magnitude. We are all truly fortunate. 

My one regret is that I didn't get a group picture. I was too full to make it happen, so unfortunately not everyone is represented. Here are a few pictures from the day, though!

searching the san juans

Anders and I just got back from a week long boat trip in the San Juans! We rented a yacht from NW Explorations with our good friends, Bryan and Amber. Bryan took a course to learn how to drive the boat, so we didn't have to have a skipper on board, which worked out great (that would have been awkward otherwise). Stops included: Friday Harbor, Stuart Island, Roche Harber, Sucia Island and Rosario Resort. It was a different kind of trip for Anders and I. Normally we are off to some foreign country, so it was really nice to spend some significant time exploring our backyard. 

Our yacht for the week, the Navigator

Bryan let me drive

 I forgot to take interior shots except for this one of our living room.

 Happy hour on the boat every afternoon

 Anders in a captain's hat

 Prepping crab pots

 Droppin' the pots

 So many seal lions and harbor seals! I eventually just had to stop taking pictures of them.

 We caught some!

 You can only keep crab that are 6 inches, so we had to measure all of them and throw back the females and the small ones

 Plenty of keepers, though

 Hiking around Stuart Island

 Madrona trees have peeling bark and twisted branches

 We saw Orcas!!

While we caught plenty of crabs, the only fish we caught was this bitty baby!

Sucia!