Spring Break!

Another quarter complete! I had two really fun classes this quarter, Visual Communication and Creative Computing. The first was a lot of designing and learning the basics. This was more of a review course for me, but still a lot of fun. Here are a few of my assignments.

The first was picking a couple words from a provided list and finding a font and manipulating it to represent their meaning.

In this next assignment, we had to take to make visual instructions (no words allowed) to show a step-by-step process of an easy task. Mine was how to cook pasta.

This was a poster for a fictional lecture which had certain criteria...title of event, logo, and all the details.

And for our final project, we had to come up with the visual identity of another fictional speaker series of our choice. It had to relate to design in some way. I chose "chaos" as my theme. We also had to come up with four speakers that would be showcased at the event. Mine were a subway map designer, tv show host from Hoarders, an infographic designer and finally a photographer who specializes in taking parts of electronically gadgets and making them orderly.

speaker series poster

social media advertising

swag bags

My second course was all about learning to code. I'm pretty proficient in coding HTML/CSS for websites, but this was a fun introduction to coding in javascript. We had quite a few fun projects, which you can see all of them here in my portfolio, including my final project which was creating a coloring book application, try it out!

A weekend of culture

When Clint and I were on our cruise last November, we attended a couple of the auctions with Park West. We then got invited to come stay at the Four Seasons downtown for an art event where they had a few artists come and speak and then auction off their pieces. It was a great time, and we had fun pretending to be fancy art snobs.

The room was pretty great...huge soaking tub, and a view of the infinity pool and the Puget Sound.

TV in the bathroom mirror = living large

On Friday we had already purchased tickets to the Seattle Symphony (as part of our attempt to be more cultured this year), so we ate dinner with the group, then walked up the block to Benaroya Hall. The show was Bugs Bunny at the Symphony, and it was by far my favorite performance I've seen. They had a huge screen showing all the old Warner Brothers classics while a live orchestra played the music. Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Pepé le Pew, Tom & Jerry, Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote...all the great ones. It was fun to see the cartoons all these years later and realize they still hold up, hilarious. 

The artist showcased on Saturday, Michael Godard, was quite the character...lives in Vegas, loud, funny and very rock-n-roll. He reminded us of Bret Michaels with that bandana and eye liner. He's known for painting silly scenes with either olives or grapes and incorporating martinis or glasses of wine. Not quite our style, but he was fun to see and turns out he has quite the following.

photo of us with Godard and his fiancé by some of his work

Not an artist that was there that weekend, but Clint and I
bought the one on the bottom right while on our cruise.
Blue Couple by Romero Britto

taking a hot tub break after our workout sipping on
complimentary gatorade

On Sunday, artist Tim Yanke was showcased. He has some really cool work. Most of it is western inspired, lots of head dresses, cowboys and bull horns. He has some really neat abstract pieces as well. I love all the bright neon colors he uses.

photo of Clint and I with Tin Yanke and
one of his dragonfly paintings

We had a great time being wined and dined, but probably won't be going to anymore. Don't think we are really their target audience without a disposable income to spend on art that we don't have room to hang.

Even more birthday celebrating

Well after my birthday, I was still celebrating! Maureen and I got together a couple weeks after for our annual birthday twin dinner. We met in Alderwood at Anthony's, and had a great time catching up. So much change happening for both of us this year! Sweet baby Reid and all his glorious hair was our special guest. Isn't he the cutest?!

quick photo before leaving, or it didn't happen

such a doll face

The next day, Dad took me to Palisade for a birthday brunch. They knew we were coming, and set the table with rose petals and a hand written bday card, so fun!

tiniest birthday cake ever :)

typical gray Seattle day

Palm Desert

Mom and I recently flew down to Palm Desert for a visit with Papa. It was a trip full of all the usual fun stuff...golf cart rides (well, just one ride – the cart had some issues after our first day), lemon picking, cookie and lemon bar baking, lunches at In N Out and the award-winning TKB, Shield's Date Farm, frozen yogurt, shopping, Pasta Night at the Club and even a fancy dinner night out at Lavender to celebrate my birthday!

We had great weather, the sun came out and it was the perfect temp. We also got quite a bit done around the house. Papa climbed up into the attic crawl space (always best to do when someone's there to realize if you get stuck), to fix the dryer and also gather some old Christmas decorations to donate. We also cleaned some clutter out of the garage, and went through a box of old photos which was a fun time.

We missed Uncle Bub on this trip, but made sure to send him plenty of photos to make him feel jealous like he was there with us!

Papa and I in the roadster

off to pick lemons

you can tell we do this often and come
prepared with our own picker

pretty sunset

even prettier sunrise

dinner on the patio at Lavender

delicious pork chop dinner

Pasta Night – my fave!

aftermath

finishing off the trip with fro-yo
before the airport

Snowed in

Last Monday, Seattle had a snow day! I took advantage of being "snowed in" and worked from home, while Clint braved the weather and left his place to go to his office in Bellevue. Everything looked so pretty covered in white, and was such a surprise! I hadn't heard it was a possibility, and with how hard it was pouring rain the night before, it was pretty shocking to see the next morning. Eventually the rain came and there was barely a trace by Tuesday, but fun while it lasted.

panorama from my place

panorama view from Clint's

started to snow again while Clint was at the office

Birthday celebrating!

I had quite a fun time celebrating my birthday this year, the big 3-5! My day started with finding dozens of chocolate chip cookies at my desk that my coworker had baked, she is the best. I had people coming by to wish me a happy birthday all day, and snagging a cookie or two. We then went out to lunch to one of my favorite local Italian places, Gallianos. 

Then when I got home, I saw that the frog cupcake fairy had popped in for a visit leaving me with a sweet card and a one-night stay at the Hotel Vintage Park downtown. While calling mom to say thank you, my doorbell rang, and there was Sarah with a fun birthday surprise! She was in the area, and so sweet of her to drop by. She gave me a "birthday in a box" full of a bunch of little surprises – a birthday candle, crown, confetti, pocket crystal ball, fortune telling fish – so cute.

I headed over to Clint's for a night of pizza and Netflix at my request. He had gone and picked up Pagliacci's, and we stayed in watching tv for the night. He also surprised me with roses, a smelly candle, bath bombs, and a gorgeous amethyst ring – my birthstone!

The next day, Clint and I had a staycation planned. Our first stop was Banya 5, a bath house in South Lake Union, where we relaxed in the sauna and steam rooms and soaked in the three different pools. We each had a massage as well. Such a fun treat!

Banya 5

After the spa, we went to the Hotel Vintage Park to use the gift certificate mom had given me. We checked into our huge room, and promptly fell asleep. It had been an exhausting morning of relaxing! We then got ready for dinner, and headed to the lobby for the free wine tasting hour.

Then we caught an Uber and headed to El Gaucho for dinner, where we were completely spoiled and feasted on the 20oz tenderloin for two, such piggies. We also had the table-side caesar salad, mashed potatoes, and strawberry cheesecake for dessert.

so nice of them to remember!

delicious!

Thoroughly stuffed, we headed downstairs to the Big Picture to use the movie passes we had. They were showing Hidden Figures, which was such a great movie! We were in the front row with foot rests, so I kicked off my shoes and got comfy.

The next day, we checked out of the hotel and walked around downtown doing some shopping at Macy's, Nordstrom Rack and a stop at the first Starbucks at Pike Place Market. Always fun to play tourist in your own city.

And as I love to keep the celebrating going, I still have plans to have dinner with Dad, and also my birthday twin Maureen this weekend. Looking forward to catching up with her and hearing about how she spent my her birthday!

Baby Tryg

My mom and I took a day off from work a couple weeks ago to drive out to Stanwood and visit cousin Jami and her new baby, Trygve (trigg-vee) Elmo Sollid. We brought Jimmy John's for lunch, and got in some baby snuggles. He is so sweet, and either slept or quietly stared at us the entire time. 

Jami seems to be doing great (and looking fabulous!), it's so fun to see her as a mom. Although, hearing the details of Tryg's multiple day birth doesn't quite have me convinced I'm ready for motherhood just yet.

Congrats Jami and Bjorn on your adorable baby boy! 

a little snooze

cousins <3