Simpsons in Seattle

A "new" wizard-themed bar and restaurant called the Splintered Wand opened in Ballard last fall, and the demand for it was crazy because well, it looked neat and there were covid restrictions on capacity. Reservation were hard to come by though, so much so that I booked a table for four LAST OCTOBER for yesterday! In any case, the reservation has been on my calendar for a while now and I had been looking forward to the visit. When I made the reservations, I opted for the first seating because I figured it was the easiest ressies to snag and would hopefully be the least crowded. We got there 3 minutes before it opened at 4:30, stood in line to get in for about 5-10 minutes and then were seated on the second floor of the 4 story (skinny) restaurant. Service was very slow but we enjoyed ourselves by oggling all the different decorations and took our time exploring the other floors of the restaurant. Downstairs was the main bar area, the 2nd floor had tables, the 3rd floor was de

It's been a few years since we visited Methow Valley (see post from 2016 here ), and since the kids are way better at skiing now, we all have gear, and we love this area, we booked a non-refundable trip out to this ski heaven a few months back and then crossed our fingers for snow. Well, we didn't get snow but we DID get a super fun weekend hanging out in a neato, modern, container-style like cabin right on the trails and we all got some great practice runs in. Just in time too because the snow really wasn't great - bare patches were starting to show so I'm pretty sure this was the last weekend for skiing. They typically groom trails through April but not this year! Anyway, here's some pics of our fun weekend. Methow Valley (where Mazama is located) is the largest cross-country trail system in the lower 48 with 120 miles of trails, and our rental was right on one of the loops so it was so easy to do a few loops and then come back in to rest. We're already thinki

I caught Nora in this reading position the other week. Doesn't look at all comfortable but whatever it takes to get her to read, I guess!