Dyes Inlet

Most of my posts right now are about things we did before I started the blog. I had been taking pictures of what we did, knowing that I was about to start a blog when Tim's schedule got really busy.

A few weeks ago, Tim took me to lunch at the Old Towne Bistro located in historic Silverdale. We had a great lunch and then headed over to the waterfront park across the street on Dyes Inlet. It is so nice to be so close to the water! This park is only 10 minutes from our house & we can bring the dogs here on their leash (we haven't yet... but we probably will - update: we did! Pictures are at the end of the original post). There were lots of children in the park area & two birthday parties going on. Lots of people were coming and going from the boats & some were kayaking around in the inlet. It was neat to walk around on the rocky beach and look for shells - I have never been on a beach like this one before.

Here are a few pictures of the area:

This is a view out into Dyes Inlet that Silverdale surrounds

I found so many shells that were still intact!

View out onto the "beach" area

We can't wait for family to start visiting us so that we can take them to all the neat places we are finding.

I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago in anticipation of posting it as I needed new posts, but before I got a chance to do that we took a trip back to Silverdale Waterfront Park with the pups. This week the weather was not quite as nice, but since Tim was taking a class this week he actually had some time off work and we wanted to take advantage of it! 

We packed up the pups and a picnic lunch to head out to the green space on the waterfront. Pups have never been on a picnic before & spent most of the time at the end of their leashes or trying to eat our food, but it was still fun for all of us.

After we ate, we walked the pups over to the side of the beach we had not seen before, it had smaller rocks and sand (the pups could not have walked on the rocks in the above pictures). They had not seen waves before and were really interested in them. Luke didn't know they were part of the water & would run toward each wave trying to bite it. Leia was a little more cautious and would only get in the water where there were fewer waves. Eventually Luke started rolling around in the dirty sand and that was our cue it was time to head home! 

 It took a while to get a good shot...

 Finally :)

 Pups trying to beg food

 Loving the waves!

 Look at those cute little ears

Leia hanging back, she wasn't a fan of the moving waves

 Ready

 Set

 Go! Finally playing in a calmer area

Water play made for sleepy pups!

Bonus picture of Lucy helping me change sheets :)

~Katie

Exploring Seattle

Before Tim started back to work, we took the ferry to Seattle and spent some time at the Public Market and surrounding area. I had no idea, but the market is actually 3 levels with permanent shops below the farmers' market area. We had a wonderful time perusing those as well as the fresh veggies and flowers above ground! I wish we had been able to do our grocery shopping here, but we weren't headed back until the evening & thought our produce would spoil.
I did get some earrings, a buddha statue for the living room, two cute pot holders, an ocarina for Tim, and some blackberry honey.

After we finished at the public market we got coffee at the first Starbucks and sat down in a park to enjoy it! It was a perfect afternoon & we can't wait to go back - even though that may not be for a while with this current work schedule. 

On the Ferry

Mt. Rainier in the distance!

Seattle

Tourist shot! (I guess technically we were still tourist even though we live here now)

 fish market made famous by MTV's Real Life

We had skewers from a Korean BBQ stand. The food was FANTASTIC! The shrimp were fried with the head and skin on... that was the only part I couldn't stomach to eat. I tried one... but the texture was too much!

Also, notice Tim sporting his "liberty beard." He didn't shave from April 6 to May 15!!! (We took this trip around the beginning of May.)

Fantastic produce! I wish we could buy our weekly groceries here!

Original Starbucks!

Established 1971... the line was out the door, but we had to do it!

This park looked out onto the water and the Olympic Mountain range is in the distance. It was so great to people watch, there were business people on lunch break, hipster types, and several homeless people napping. Plus several tourists like us.

This is my last picture, there were neat pieces of art all over the area of the city we explored.

We had a fantastic day! We tried out happy hour at The Brooklyn (which we do NOT recommend) and then at The Diller Room (which we highly recommend) and finished the evening with dinner at a local Thai restaurant with our friends Jennifer and Peter before heading back home on the ferry. 

~Katie

Egg Rolls and FRG

As of the beginning of June, I am the new treasurer of the FRG for Tim's boat. The FRG is (according to our Facebook) :

a non-profit organization whose purpose is to plan, coordinate, and conduct social, informational, care-taking, and morale-building activities to enhance family readiness and enable the USS ---------- to meet mission and military family lifestyle challenges. The USS ----------- FRG shall promote friendship and mutual support among the members.

Pretty much just family members from the boat who want to make the Navy experience the best it can be :)

This FRG is kind of in limbo because the boat is in the shipyard, so right now there is one FRG for the entire boat and we are trying to start it up strong. I am in charge of setting us up as a legal non-profit  organization right now, which is something new and exciting that I have never done before. I'm exciting to have something important to do with my time since I am not working outside our home.

We had a officer meeting last week, pot luck style. I was excited to try something new so I documented it in pictures!

I don't exactly have a recipe... I used a couple of different ones to come up with mine, but this was the 

main site I used: 

http://steamykitchen.com/13029-my-mothers-famous-chinese-egg-rolls-2.html 

They turned out very tasty! I brushed them with oil baked them instead of frying them:

This is shredded cabbage and carrots. I also added mushrooms, garlic and mung bean sprouts.

I had ground beef, which turned out fine as a substitute for pork.

This is the finished product, they were perfectly crunchy in the oven! I served them with a sweet & sour sauce as well as a spicy chili sauce.

The FRG has their next meeting coming up soon & it is pot luck, as usual, so I will hopefully have a fun new recipe next week as well!

~Katie

Home is Where the Navy Sends Us: Portland

This is the last installment of pictures from our journey from Charleston, South Carolina to Washington State's Kitsap Peninsula!

Once we left Utah, we traveled half a day to spend the night in Idaho and then half a day to Portland. We spend that evening and the next entire day exploring Portland, it was wonderful!

We took the dogs to a dog park to run off all their pent up energy and then walked around downtown while they napped in the room.

I even gave beer a real shot by ordering a local "flight." Which is sample sizes of several different local beers. I actually didn't like a single one! But we still had a fun time. We even walked down to VooDoo donuts, a legend in the area! We went inside and looked at their crazy donuts, but their ATM was broken and they only took cash, so we didn't order anything.
After a fun day, we spent the night in Portland again & drove the 3 hours to our new home in the morning!
It was an incredibly long trip, but much more fun that I thought it would be.

Everyone was learning to love each other by our night in Idaho

Are we there yet?

Welcome to Oregon

 More beautiful mountains!

This water wheel was behind a rest stop in Oregon, there was a placard next to it but I honestly couldn't tell you the story behind it now.

We followed the Columbia River for a long time.

Portland's famous Benson Bubblers

Beautiful bridge in Portland

Lumberjack near the dog park

best friends :) This only lasted the course of the trip... Lucy hates the dogs again.

Old Town Chinatown in downtown Portland

Voodoo Doughnuts

~Katie

Home is Where the Navy Sends Us: Utah

Like I said in the last post, I didn't take any pictures through Missouri, Nebraska and Wyoming. They are all a blur of flatness and we drove for 12+ hours each day since there was very little to see. When we got our first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains I started snapping pictures again & took quite a few in Utah. We spend an evening and then half a day in Salt Lake City, touring the Mormon Tabernacle grounds and eating at two tasty  local restaurants.

Rocky Mountains in the distance! 

Lucy loved hanging out in the back with all our things

Once we arrived at our hotel in Utah, Tim & the pups had to take a little nap.

Mormon Tabernacle Grounds

Mormon Tabernacle

A nice man was kind enough to offer to take our picture

We toured the museums on both sides of the tabernacle

Up next, another day on the road & Portland!

~Katie