Week 2 in Washington

Happy Halloween to everyone! Yesterday was, in fact, our first visit to the actual city of Seattle. We drove across Lake Washington on the "floating bridge." It was a pleasant drive on a very mild fall day. We spent the afternoon at the Pacific Science Center, under the shadow of the Space Needle. It was great children's museum, with lots of great exhibits. We were able to get in free with our East Tennessee Discovery Center membership. (Having Zoo, science center, national parks membership pays off when you are doing a lot of travelling.) The Center was so extensive we were not able to do it all in one day. We decided to walk down to the shoreline, where we found a Spaghetti Factory, but will come back soon to see the rest of the museum and travel up the Space Needle.

Question: What do the Seattle Space Needle and the Knoxville Sunsphere share in common? Post your answers in the comments.

Saturday we spent in the great outdoors - at a pumpkin farm and corn maze in Redmond. We have been noticing how much more ethnically diverse the population is here, more than any place we have lived in before. I am especially aware of this more in a rural setting such as this farm. In my experience, those places are usually more "white bread," but that is definitely not the case here. We bought some pumpkins which we will be carving tonight.

Settling in Kirkland

We are still down with our home PC, but I have access at work ( and currently, a little down time).

First of all, it is hard to believe we narrowly avoided wildfires in CA! Pam and Craig's place is far out of the danger zones but some of the areas we visit to the north are in the thick of it. The city of Escondido and the Wild Animal Park are greatly affected. Thankfully, according to their website, the animals at the Wild Animal Park are safe despite damage to the park.

We love our new apartment. It is conveniently with walking distance of stores, playground, and a bus route that I am taking to my clinic. It has been mostly gray and wet, but we just had a 2 day reprieve, with a clear sunny sky that offered a great view of the mountains. We are near Lake Washington and have enjoyed several beautiful sunsets. Lots of nice restaurants. A nice library. Kirkland has a lot to offer. We are currently enjoying the fall colors and getting ready for Halloween.

My first 2 days with my job were spent at a training center in Renton, behind the screen of a computer (I am still behind the screen of a computer!). I have been learning to use a Electronic Medical Record program called NextGen. It is fascinating, yet mindboggling. Anyways, today was my first day at the clinic. It is a little chaotic, but hey! it's an adventure. Learning EMR is a very important step for me, and I feel I am finally catching up with the rest of the medical world. At the same time it is almost more of challenge to interact with a patient with a computer between us. I am concerned about how this affects bedside manner. The people here are friendly and helpful. I will be getting a lot of Spanish practice.

More later.

Arrived in Washington

Quick note. We arrived safely in WA. We are settling comfortable in our apartment in Kirkland, WA. We are having PC problems right now so there might not be many posts/ emails for a few days. Things are colder and wetter, but it is definitely beautiful in the Pacific Northwest. We will update with more pics as soon as we are up and running at home. Later.

Hasta Luego, San Diego!

The "Wedding Guests that Never Left" are finally leaving! I am posting as we await our delayed flight at the San Diego Airport (big fog this morning!). We have really enjoyed our stay and the hospitality of Pam and Craig (who are still enjoying themselves in New Zealand). Their apartment has been an ideal and comfortable base for us this past week. We have enjoyed TiVo, high tech cooking gadgets, and a wonderful rooftop to view the bay and landing aircraft.

Wednesday, we watched a puppet show at the Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theater in Balboa Park, and did some more exploring of the park. Thursday, the sun came out again. We took advantage by traveling up the coast to Torrey Pines State Reserve, a beautiful park with great ocean views. We lunched in La Jolla, where we viewed seals basking on the beach. Natalie wants to add that there was a great mermaid statue at the restaurant Azul. From there we stopped off at Mission Bay to fly kites, get soaked, and watch the sunset.

Yesterday, we packed in seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls at the San Diego Natural History Museum, Cabrillo Monument, and Coronado Island.

We are close to boarding so I will end for now. Next stop, Seattle!

Balboa Park

We have enjoyed exploring San Diego's Balboa Park these past two days. We have taken in the gardens, fountains, museums, restaurants, architecture and wildlife. The kids were especially excited to see another amazing mosaic sculpture by Niki de Saint Phalle called the NikiGator. Natalie enjoyed seeing the Old Globe Theatre and Shakespeare sculpture and bench. Walking through the canyons we enjoyed the scent of the many amazing eucalyptus trees and admired the roots of many others such as this tree above.

Seaworld

The weather is been cooler and cloudier lately. We still had an enjoyable outing to Seaworld yesterday. It was a great experience getting to be face to face with dolphins and petting their "melons." It was also really cool seeing the walrus and the beluga whale swimming in their tanks. The highlight of the trip was Natalie being selected to participate in one of the shows and get to shake hands with Clyde, a sea lion.

Legoland

Friday we spent at Legoland in Carlsbad, CA. Thanks to the generosity of our Knoxville friend Marsha Rhyne, we had two free passes! We enjoyed many unique amusement park rides, as well as the amazing lego sculptures and yummy apple fries with vanilla whipped cream.