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January 18, 2006
She had the Birthday, we got the presents
The first wave arrived a week ago Thursday - my sister flew in and met my brother, who was a surprise for her and my parents, at the airport. She had figured out who she was meeting, but had the good sense to keep it to herself (smart one, she is). Dawnise and Mike picked me up from the ferry Thursday night, and when I got home Laurie was asleep on the sofa.
I took Friday off, and the four of us went into Seattle where we hooked up with Vince and Donna, who had arrived late Thursday night. We did the downtown "thing" (Pike Market and surrounds) before heading back to the house, fresh fish and herbs in hand. We had grilled tequila-honey-rosemary salmon, pan fried red potatoes, and sauteed portobello mushroom and flash sauteed green beans, with fresh bread for dinner, and stayed up chatting 'till fairly late in the evening.
Saturday morning, Dawnise got her presents, and my parents arrived around noon. At Dawnise's insistence we sequestered Mike and his stuff in the TV room downstairs - the last stop on the nickle house tour. Watching my mom and dad's face as it dawned on them who was reading on the sofa was well worth the price of his ticket from Northern California. :) We caught up for a few hours before rounding up the troops and heading for the ferry for our dinner reservation in Seattle.
Dinner at Gordon Biersch was good - tempered a bit by the slightly surly waitress and a long rectangular table that sorta partitioned up the conversation. We had intended to dine at the Pyramid Ale House, but due to a football playoff game they wouldn't take our reservation - clearly they didn't need the money that a 17 person dinner tab represented...
From dinner we walked up to Tango for desert - we'd lost four people from our original estimate, so the el Diablo they made was way too big, but it was really good. Not everybody liked it, which bothered Dawnise, but as I kept telling her - it was her birthday - everyone else could just shaddap and deal.
The islanders made the 12:45a ferry back, and we all pretty much collapsed as soon as we got back to the house - especially my folks who had been up for over 25 hours by that point.
Sunday morning was a late start - we ended up at Doc's grill on the marina for brunch, and spent a bit of time wandering around downtown before heading back to the house with lasagna ingredients. Vince and Donna had planned to fly out Sunday night, but the promise of home-made lasagna (yea, it was all about the food) convinced them to change their flight to Monday. We invited our neighbors Dave and Marcia to join us, and had a very entertaining dinner for 11 at our place.
Monday morning we all went into Seattle and descended on the Utilikilt store, where everyone but Dawnise and I ended up with a new kilt, and Dawnise is strongly considering one of the new corduroy ones, in electric blue. (I think that makes three for Vince and two for Donna. Ari, Mike, Laurie and both my parents are the newest members of the clan. I'm still trying to figure out when the hell my parents got this "hip" - sure wasn't when I was a kid ;) )
Laurie had an afternoon flight back to GA, so around 12:30 we dropped her off at the ferry station to catch her car to the airport, and resumed the tour at the Sci-Fi museum. It was mostly for my mom, though everyone seemed to enjoy the event. With a bit of time to kill before Vince and Donna's flight we wandered up to Archie McPhee's, pretty much just for the hell of it, before parting ways - them to the airport, and us back to the ferry.
We tried the pub for dinner, but the 45 minute wait convinced us to hit the Island Grill instead - which was very good, as usual.
Tuesday was mostly an around-the-house day. My dad and I looked at the two sick motorcycles - and may have diagnosed the Trophy's failure to start even with a new battery (hey Dad - it cranked faster after heating the engine block for a couple hours, but still didn't quite catch, so the oil theory might be right). We took a trip to downtown Poulsbo in the afternoon, and returned home for leftover lasagna for our last dinner as a largeish group. My folks had an early (6am) flight out this morning, so they left on an evening ferry, turned in their rental car and spent the last night at a hotel near the airport.
This morning was back to work (boy did that suck), while my brother and Dawnise hung around the house. As I type I'm on the ferry home - we're going to try the pub again for dinner, and Mike has one more day to hang around before he flies back Friday afternoon.
Getting the whole (extended) family together for the weekend was excellent - and completely overshadowed the birthday it was intended to celebrate. The birthday wasn't a complete wash, though -- Dawnise has a standing rain-check for a trip to Teatro Zinzani, to be redeemed when convenient.
Quite a (long) weekend. This coming weekend should be quieter - I might even be able to work on one of the bikes (having both of them off the road is getting my increasingly depressed).
Posted by dberger at January 18, 2006 6:21 PM
Comments
You left out Ari and her first Utilikilt... :-)
Posted by: Hendel at January 18, 2006 11:58 PM