Weekend in Snohomish

We spent last weekend literally across the country, staying with my best friend, her husband and their furry children in their new house.

It wasn't an exciting weekend.  Susan is expecting a little one soon and so the activity level was pretty low-key (although she and her husband still stay up well past my bedtime...even accounting for the time change).  But, after the stresses of the last couple of weeks, it was exactly what we needed.  Still, one of these days we really should plan a longer vacation to go sightseeing in Seattle.  Maybe stay downtown for a couple of days.  Queen Anne Hill, the Fremont Troll, the Experience Music Project, Pike Place Market, Chittenden Locks and Emerald City Trapeze are all on my to-do list for a real touristy trip.  Maybe I'll also dye my hair purple and wear some punkish clothes and try to pass for a native.

Anyway, back to what we really did last weekend, which was hang out with my best friend.  Even if we don't do anything real extravagant, it's always great getting to see her and her family.  When you live across the country from a lot of your friends, sometimes you miss just spending couch time with them watching movies or playing games.

We spent a bit of time in the kitchen.  Cody made my favorite recipe for them, carrot and ginger soup, tried out their kitchen gadgets (he's now decided we need a stand mixer and an immersion blender) and got some cooking tips from Susan.  We also helped her with both the baking and the disposing of crack brownies and strawberry champagne cupcakes.  We watched some movies (the males both enjoyed being able to watch stupid movies...because he wanted to *points to other one*).  They introduced us to a new game called Rummikub.  I'm sure they enjoyed having us around, as we were not that good at it.  Although, I was starting to improve by the end of our last night, Cody was still not doing well with it.  It might have helped if he had laid off the wine while trying to play.  Maybe we should get that game.  I'd definitely enjoy beating my husband more often...

I bought some painting supplies and introduced Susan to the art of low-cost wall art.  She was a bit intimidated at first but it didn't take too much convincing for her to get started.  After all, it's cheap entertainment.  And, if you do end up with something you like (as long as you don't try or expect to paint a masterpiece, you almost always do) you can hang it up instead of buying something.  We were especially interested in making things for her little girl's room, since babies aren't really able to weigh in on the quality of their decor.

Susan's Painting on Canvas

We both created some colorful paintings of flowers, trees and dragonflies, a few of which she might actually even put up.  I also attempted a picture of their youngest furry child, Maggie.  Please don't tell her that she was the model, since she's already kind of anorexic.  Actually, they think it's mostly a ploy to get human food.

Snohomish is a really cute town.  They have an absolutely awesome paved running trail.  We ran three one-mile sprints and a ten mile long run on it (on non-consecutive days).  On both days, I was inspired to beat my usual pace (8:05 - 8:30 min/miles during the speedwork...I was so impressed with myself).  Of course, I regretted it almost immediately after the ten-miler.  My right leg is still "special" since my sprained ankle last year.  I run funky on my right side and the increased pace and mileage made my knee hurt, due to an unhappy IT band.  I've taken most of this week off from running (it was a recovery week, anyway), bought a foam roller and made a massage appointment to make sure this doesn't turn into a bigger issue (it can become chronic for some runners).  I'll also be running slower and paying more attention to my form when starting back this weekend.  One step forward, two steps back.


Snohomish also had a neat downtown area.  I've never seen such a vibrant business district in such a small town.  The population was only about 8000, but there were many restaurants, specialty stores, and even several bakeries.  My friend did "market research" on one of them and was very pleased to find that they were not very good at making cupcakes.

Snohomish Business District - Photo by myoldpostcards (Creative Commons)

Side note, the carpool lane is amazing!  We drove back into the airport on Monday around 8:00 AM.  Traffic wasn't terrible, but being able to go the speed limit when all the other lanes are moving at about half-speed was awesome and would definitely encourage me to find a carpool if this was my daily commute.