Storm clouds

We were in North Riverside picking up a few things at CVS when the storm clouds rolled in. This was looking to the west ...

... and this was the east view just a few minutes later.

And before my walk this morning I looked over my milkweed and actually found a caterpillar. It's very small. L convinced me to put it in a jar but I'm leaving it outside. I read that butterflies raised in captivity don't have the instinct they need to fly to Mexico and if they're released they can dumb down the rest of the population if they mate.

Lei maker

E went to a Microsoft intern event yesterday and made this lei. Today she drove to Vancouver, Canada, with a group of friends. Can't wait to see pictures from her trip!

Puzzle master

I've been doing these daily commuter crossword puzzles on my iPad. I usually have to ask for clues, but the last two days I've solved the puzzles 100 percent with no help. They must be getting easier.

And a third perfect score today.

Clematis in bloom

It's taken a long time for this flower to grow behind our garage and now it's finally blooming!

And this is blooming. Not sure what it is.

Came back from Seattle to find another bloom on my lily plant.

I love a good sale

L and I went out shopping yesterday and stumbled across a Party City store that is closing. We got lots of holiday decorations, mostly for Thanksgiving and Halloween.

The cashier said we saved $116.14 today. Actually, I spent $27.73 on stuff I didn't need. It was fun though!

Seattle odds and ends

So we're in the Chihuly glass exhibit and we see a girl, maybe 10 years old, standing on the ledge of this exhibit (!!!!!) so her mom could take a picture. Pretty sure mom told her to pose there. Yes, there are stupid people everywhere. I commented that the girl shouldn't be up there, Andy audibly gasped and the security told them to get down. What dumb asses.

These were the free pictures taken before we went up in the Space Needle. They do a really lousy cropping job and stick your image on a variety of backgrounds. We never saw Mount Rainier the entire time we were there, but here it is in our photo!

Here are the others.

At the Microsoft welcome center, Andy was matched with actor Steve Guttenberg. We were all certain he'd be matched with Jim Carey.

And when we went back to Microsoft, they had a plate of these cute PacMan ghost cookies sitting out.

Andy says I make him pose for all the odd pictures. I do, but they're so fun! And he's a good sport ...

... so here's another one.

He could have looked at these plane models all day. He loves sitting in the back yard and telling me what plane model is going over - oh, there's a 747, there's a 767, that might be a 787. I can't tell the difference. They're all really big planes.

I pulled out my sunglasses on Friday and one of the lenses was missing. Never did find it.

There's no state income tax in Washington state, but they tax everything else. Look at that price of gas! It wasn't $3 a gallon when we left Illinois, and Illinois loves its taxes too.

Had to send a picture of the first Starbucks to L. We didn't go near it. There was a huge line and, like we were told, walk a block and you'll find another Starbucks or an independent coffee store. Seattle is pretty caffeinated.

Guess we should have bought a gum ball for the icky gum wall. Interestingly, E had never chewed gum.

B is 20!

Happy 20th, B!

It's official now. B's 20th birthday was Saturday but we were in Seattle. We went for his birthday dinner last night and today I made him brownies. He blew out the number candles so it's official - he's no longer a teenager!

And he finally got his birthday gift - a new phone. Here they are at the Apple Store in Oak Brook. He's had an iPhone 5 for way too long.

August has been cuddling up to me all day. I think he missed me. He usually hides during the day and only comes out when Andy's home from work.

Belated b-day dinner

We arrived home from Seattle late this afternoon and took B out for his birthday lunch. He chose Fuddrucker's. (We all texted him Saturday for his birthday).

Here's the whole gang at dinner.

We were happy to hear the temperature was around 80 in Chicago when we landed but the skies were threatening. It was chilly in Seattle and everyone said that's summer in Seattle.

L went to church this morning for the pride service and baked the cupcakes on the right, the ones with the flags in them. She skipped worship, though, and helped decorate the parlor for the fellowship hour instead.

Saturday in Seattle

E drove us downtown today for a harbor cruise. It was chilly. I'm glad I wore jeans and took a jacket. Look how big that cruise ship is! There were four or five cruise ships along the shoreline.

Me and my girl.

On the far side of the harbor were the shipping boats. They were loading shipping containers. The size of the boats is incredible. They said the harbor is very deep.

The stars aligned and we were able to meet my friend David from high school (and his wife) in a restaurant by the market. Andy's GPS was a bit off and we hiked up a hill, walked a block and hiked back down before realizing the restaurant was a short walk from where we initially were. It was really nice to catch up with him. He lives in Portland but keeps a sailboat in Seattle.

After lunch E walked us (uphill all the way) to the Starbuck's Roastery. It was neat to see the beans roasting but the walk was hard.

She looks happy.

We walked back to Pike Place Market (downhill - yay!) and saw the gum wall by chance. I had heard about it but wasn't looking for it. It's kind of gross.

This pretty much sums up Seattle.

We stopped for a drink at the Seattle Beer Company.

E thought this mural was pretty interesting because it had Microsoft's founding on it. 1975. Back in Bellevue, we decided on pizza for dinner and got to browse a Japanese dollar store. That was fun.

Boeing tour

The highlight of today was driving to Everett, Wash., to take the Boeing factory tour while E was at work. This is the Dreamliner that can transport the parts of the planes. It's huge.

Andy loved seeing all the planes. The factory was enormous.

Here he is showing off his skills. Air was blowing out of these different shapes and the goal is to get the ping pong ball to stay in the air. He managed to do it on all four pieces. Hmmm.

And here he is pretending to be a bird to learn about flying.

You can't take anything inside the factory (no phones, cameras, purses, etc.) so I took this picture of a picture Boeing had in its welcome center. It's a picture of the main factory building. It's large enough to hold all of Disneyland and have 12 acres left over for parking. Wow. It's so big it makes the planes look kind of small.

We drove into Everett, Wash., and had a quick Mexican lunch at Taco Del Mar.

We had plans to pick up Cindy and Brianna from their hotel for dinner. They arrived in Seattle Monday and E met them downtown for dinner Tuesday night. We had some time before we needed to pick them up so we went to Pike Place Market and were lucky enough to find street parking. This is the stand where you see them throw fish on TV. They didn't throw any fish. And it smelled. Ewww.

The market was lined with vegetable stands and flower stands. We were going to get E a bouquet of flowers for $10 (so pretty!) but figured she didn't have a vase. We were right.

Funny bathroom signs in the market.

The world's tallest man's shoes were on display. He's from Alton.

This sign was funny. Andy did a second take. The line on the bottom says, "False advertising." Made him look though.

We found a cute place, Pike Brewing Company, in the market to rest and chatted with some locals at the bar. That was fun, and the beer was good. The decor was awesome. So much in there to see.

We picked up Cindy and Brianna and drove them to Bellevue where we met E at her apartment. We went to the Microsoft store and museum to show them a bit of the company's campus. Here's Andy trying to do virtual reality, I think.

We found an Italian restaurant in Bellevue, Andiamo Bellevue, with reservations for five (although it wasn't very busy when we got there) so that's where we had dinner. Here's Cindy and E at dinner. Brianna didn't want her picture taken.

This is my techy girl's nightstand.