Our First Overnight Guests at the Condo!

It's a family member... it's a long lost childhood friend - NO - it's a SunTrust Recruiter and her buddy!!!

That's right folks, Elaine Emmons and her Vandy Career Center friend Megan (oh no - or is it Meghan??) came by and we all had SUCH a fantastic time!!! They were our first official guests to stay overnight, travelling from Portland (where they visited family) all the way to Canada.

The 2 Southern ladies arrived on Saturday night, but before I continue, I must give you some background... If you'll remember back a few days, all of our furniture and boxes arrived at the condo exactly one week and 2.5 days before their arrival. Add to that my insane work schedule and Clay's obsessive need for neatness, and...well..it's pretty much a recipe for disaster - right???? RIGHT.

Ok, fine. I took off July 3rd in a desperate attempt to rid the condo of unnecessary shtuff shipped 3,000 miles cross country. 48 hours, 2 fireworks shows, 2 FULLY STUFFED, PACKED, and LOADED Freshcape Car-FULLS of boxes for charity later, and well - the place was at least presentable to guests.

Enter Elaine and Megan. Great to see Elaine, and just as great to meet Megan. (BTW - Megan, Seattle and its residents loved you as much as you loved it!!! MOVE HERE DARNIT!!!! ;)

Ok, enough of sounding like another Crawford woman I know, on with my story. So our guests sat sipping wine in wonderful awe of our views as we discussed their overall plans for their Seattle visit (always nice to have someone appreciate the views we pay way too much for - in fact, I've decided that lining up guests to do so each month for the next two years will help ease the pain of rent, so all potential visitors please sign up now!!!) First on the list? A view of the Needle. Check!!!! Right from our condo!!!! Sure, we could go to the top, but cloudy skies don't exactly warrant the $16 per pop to do so...

Next up? "Well," Megan says, "my research says to visit some park . Have either of you heard of some park of all statues?" "Ahhhhh," I say, "You mean the Olympic Sculpture Park?!?!" "Why yes!", Megan says. This was the really cool part where I got to walk her to the balcony and say - "it's right there!!!" Check, check!!! How cool is that?? We also walked down to check it out first hand (much to Clay's appreciation as he's been begging for me to get my arse off the couch and walk around there for weeks now). It is definitely a nice walk, but I have to say the status leave a lot to be desired. Seattle has a lot of ugly statues! The only one that was mildly interesting was this one to the right. We can definitely see the large red thing in the back right (turns out it's an eagle), but we can also see the random spinning ampersand which seems so bizarre. Reading the plaque explains it as an ode to Love and Loss: think of it as a crossword puzzle - there are two benches facing each other (the two L's), a table in the middle (the O), the two S's come down on the left and the V and E to the right. Kinda cool. I guess. At least you would think so if you saw the other statues. Everything is relative, right?

Next we headed to dinner. Now I've walked this path a hundred times but apparently walking it with strangers DEFINITELY pays off as strangers come equipped with both cameras and encouragement for Clay to stand underneath his namesake sign which is only 2 blocks away (and I walk past several times a week)!!!!!!!!!!!! This is one of my faves since moving to Seattle - thanks Megan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry ladies - this man is taken!!!

In return of convincing my Claybie to display the gun show for the camera, I went to a DISGUSTING (for me only ;) ) seafood restaurant. They all liked it which made it amazing for me too :P Heck. I'm feeling generous. Mom here's a pic to boot. But pretty much you should no longer expect anything for Christmas. hahahaha ;)

Overall it was a great day and we had even more great times on Sunday before the girls headed to their next adventure, but those stories and pictures will have to wait for the next blog entry. Stay tuned folks!!! :)