music at McMenamins Edgefield

This past weekend my boy and I took a little day/night trip 3 hours south to Portland, Oregon to accomplish 3 big goals:

1. Eat at Nicholas Restaurant
2. Hang out in the beautiful ground of McMenamins Edgefield
3. Watch The National send their audience into a giant awestruck stare

And guess what? ALL THE THINGS HAPPENED!

I've waxed poetic about Nicholas Restaurant before, and I will do it again, hopefully at least another 82 times. It really is the best food I've had in a long time, including Turkey where much of this is the same cuisine. We get their vegetarian grape leaves and their Arabian Vegan Meze every time and I swear it only gets better. Throw in the complimentary pita bread (which they know have a gluten-free version of!) and it's un-for-get-table.

After stuffing ourselves to high heavens, we ventured off to McMenamins at the Edgefield, which is one of the neatest places in the Pacific Northwest. It's a brewery, winery, distillery, golf course, garden, hotel, restaurant, and concert venue all rolled into a gorgeous estate. It was raining off and on, but it didn't matter since there was delicious wine involved.

This was our second time watching The National, and they never forget their passion and love of performing at home. Home boys brought it, and it's definitely up there as one of my favorite concert experiences ev-er. It stayed dry the entire time up until the very end when it poured during the encore. It was very emotional.

What's your favorite band to see live? And have you ever been to a McMenamins?

straight up debauchery

Happy Thursday, friends! I will be MIA until next week while the hus and I are splashing around in Palm Springs and dancing our boo-tays off at Coachella. This is the third time we've taken the venture together, and I can honestly say it just keep getting more and more FUN.

We are meeting up with our good friends tonight who have the cutest 1 year old daughter that we haven't gotten to spend much time with, so it will be fantastic to visit with them. Then Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will consist of morning pool time followed by afternoon/evening/buttcrack of midnight Coachella time - all in 96 degree heat! I sweat just anticipating it.

SeaTac snacks. You can keep your $3 granola bar.

Have a great weekend, and I will meet you back here Tuesday!

weekend happenings :: 2.18.13

3-day weekends are the best. There's always that feeling I get on Saturdays, the semi-panicky one that lets me know I only have somuchtime to get everything done before Monday hits (even when everything = lazing on the couch reading about lactic threshold).

But THEN. There's that glorious feeling I get on Saturdays of a 3-day weekend that make me want to kiss Abe and George for their dedication to our country...and providing me a whole extra to do absolutely nothing (sometimes something. See previous note on that).

Friday afternoon I drove an hour south to Olympia to visit one of my very favorite people in the world that I met in college. She's been globe-trotting around the world since we graduated, so it's nice to finally have her near me. We did a lot of talking combined with a lot of eating combined with some walking around and it was the best.

Quick interjection: this was hands down thee best burrito I've ever had. And it was 100% vegan, with a chipotle aioli. Check them out: Quality Burrito

Sunday: My sister is in a band called Zebra Mirrors, and they had their first show in over 3 months. They introduced their new band mates and their new songs, which I completely fell in love with. They will be recording their next album in April with a guy I went to high school with at his studio in Seattle. 

 That's all for now! I'll see you back here later for a marathon training update, dun dun dun.

What was a big highlight of your weekend?

What meal do you recall that you could eat over and over again?

weekend happenings :: 1.28.13

Happy Sunday! I hope you have had a faaabulous weekend. Here are some snaps from around here the past couple days. 

Saturday morning pancakes:

Those babies are vegan, gluten-free and contain chocolate chips, which basically marked the beginning of lazy Saturday. I kid you not, it was all I could do to not lay in bed the rest of the day. I use this pancake recipe from my previous blog, but ended up having to add in more water yesterday for some unknown reason.

A view from my Saturday afternoon run:

 

AKA, evidence that the pancakes eventually wore off and I got my booty out on the streets (in a good way). Despite beginning chilly and windy, there wasn't a drop of rain and the run was really pleasant.

Post-run lunch:

AKA, girl eats rabbit food. And loves it. Especially when it's covered in olive oil and spices, then stuffed into the oven for 30 minutes. I put this mess on a salad with BBQ sauce, nutritional yeast and sunflower seeds, and when my bowl was empty, I only wanted more.

Saturday night date:

 

This movie was incredible, and made me feel even more blessed to live in the country I do. I'm really bad at following the news, and missed out on a lot of events that were portrayed in the movie. I kept asking Scott "did that really happen?" until he finally said "this movie is a true story. Everything happened." Blew my mind. I researched a bit when I got home, just to catch up a little bit more. I recommend it.

Sunday night pizza date and concert with mi hermana:

We tried out Pizza Pi, a vegan pizza place in the University District of Seattle, and damn. Blew me away. We each got a side Caesar salad (100% vegan!) and split a medium pizza with half Southwestern and half Garlic Sauce Favorite. I can't even...it was just...gah, forget words.

After our meal, it was incredible to think we still had not seen the main show - The Walkmen with Father John Misty (yes, that's April from Parks and Rec.). They were both phenomenal. The Walkmen are a group of standup guys that wear suits and put on such a great show. Father John Misty is the old drummer for Fleet Foxes and is so dang hilarious. His dance moves are out of control.

What was the highlight of your weekend? This includes both meals and activities!

bringing the beat(z)

*I decided I'm going to do a weekly "running recap" of sorts once a week (it's looking like that will be Mondays), instead of the little updates whenever I blog. This will make the updates more consistent and cohesive as opposed to "oh hey, I haven't updated in 3 days so here are my runs that heaven forbid I don't inform you of." You get the idea. 

Today I'm discussing a very important topic - music! More importantly, running/workout music that can pump a girl up and make her want to sweat all over the place. Which is totally me, by the way. The sweat never ceases.

I mentioned the other day how my iPeezy wasn't currently holding nearly as many bombastic tunes as it normally (and necessarily) is. Thankfully, that didn't last long and it is now beefed up, thanks to suggestions from friends and ideas from Spotify. Here are my new favorite additions:

1. Tanlines: Not The Same
2. Tame Impala: Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind?
3. Solange: Losing You
4. Little Dragon: Crystalfilm
5. Florence + Calvin Harris: Sweet Nothing
6. Beyonce: Countdown (I still love her, even if she does lip-synch.)
7. Magic Wands: Black Magic
8. Bombay Bicycle Club: How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep?
9. J.T. + Timbaland: Carry Out
10. Calbin Haris: Sweater Weather
11. Yeasayer: Fingers Never Bleed
12. MSTRCRFT: Heartbreaker
13. Kid Cudi: Pursuit of Happiness (both the Project X remix and the original)
14. Das Racist: Girl (your first thought the second the beat hits will probably be IT'S THE KMART LAYAWAY COMMERCIAL!!!)
15. Frank Ocean: Lost
16. Cat Power: Cherokee

A good friend recently got me into Spotify, and I have to admit I'm loving it. I'm definitely in favor of searching for any artist or song, and having it pop up right there without a whole lot of sifting through different results. I'm not springing the whole $10 a month for premium, which will allow you to use it on your mobile device, but I do like it for when I'm doing computer or house work. You can make your own playlists, and even share them with your other friends that are on Spotify.

Before Spotify came along I was using the "playlist" feature on YouTube, which was the same idea - you just create playlists with all your favorite tunes/videos. I still use this for my workout videos, but like Spotify more for the straight music because the interface was created for such things.

Happy Hump Day!

I have to know - are our music tastes similar? Do the above songs make you swoon or make you want to throw up?