Do you know what a Slough is?

While driving down to Cannon Beach this morning, I kept seeing signs on small bridges along the coast with the word Slough in them. I knew it had something to do with water, but I wasn't sure how it is different than a creek, swamp or river.


Definition of Slough:
1. An area of soft, muddy ground; swamp or swamp like region.
2. A depression or hollow, usually filled with deep mud or mire.
also slue.
3. A stagnant swamp, marsh, bog, or pond, especially as part of a bayou, inlet, or backwater.
4. A state of deep despair or moral degradation.

New Favorite Salsa

Both Wes and I love Chips & Salsa! I'd say we have it 1- 2 times a week and every time we go out of town, we 'need' to get some to snack on. Being in Cannon Beach this weekend, I had to try some new Oregon Salsa called Emerald Valley Salsa . I was a bit skeptical at first, because I'm very picky about different kinds of salsa. But o man!!, this stuff is good. If you know of a grocery store that sells it in Seattle let me know, because I need to go get some.

Another Salsa that I really like it the Arriba brand. I have tried most of their different flavors and they all taste great. I've had it soo much, I needed a change and the Emerald Valley stuff did just that.

2007 Holiday

This holiday has been a bit more crazy than usual (the reason why I haven't been writing). Last Friday we headed down to Yakima to go skiing the next morning up at White Pass. Wes, my bro and I all went up to White Pass on Saturday and were very lucky with the nice snow and pretty good weather. On Sunday we celebrated Christmas with my family in Yakima. We did the whole lunch/dinner (lunner), opened presents, filled our candy bags, did stockings and sat around and hung out.

Monday afternoon Wes and I took the long drive from Yakima to Montesano over White Pass to make it to his parents house for Christmas Eve/Day. On Christmas day we opened presents, drank, ate all afternoon, took naps, watched lots of CSI and just hung out. It was my first Christmas away from home, but I enjoyed it with Wes's family.

We headed back to Seattle on Wednesday night, to work on Thursday. Both Wes and I worked all Thursday and after work went out to dinner with one of Wes's best friends. Dinner lasted until 9:30pm and we still had to head back to Montesano that night, to make it to Cannon Beach Friday morning. It's about a half way point from Seattle to Cannon Beach.

We made it to Cannon Beach this morning from Montesano around 10:30am. It's a bit rainy off and on, but very fun and relaxing.

San Fran Trip Day 3

It was finally Saturday and Wes and I would get to spend the whole day together. We got ready for the day and headed out to find Wes some new clothes. We started at Macy's and ended up staying there for a long time. First I found him some cool new sneakers and then he got two pairs of jeans. After spending a few hours there and no luck with shirts, we went to FCUK. I went there two days before and found a great shirt that I thought would look good on him. He tried it on and ended up really liking it.

Both of us were getting pretty hungry and I had been craving sushi for the past two days, so we ended up across from our Hotel at Hana Zen. We both got the sushi combo with 7 pieces of nigiri and 1 spicy tuna roll. This was one of the best sushi places I've ate at so far.

After lunch we hung out in the hotel for a few hours before we went ice skating at Yerba Buena Rink in downtown San Fran. It has been a few years since I had been ice skating, but about 15 years since Wes had been. I picked it up right away, but Wes had a rocky start. After a few rounds, he picked it up pretty good and was even doing turns and skating backwards with me :)

It was about dinner time and there was this great looking Italian place across from our Hotel called Puccini & Pinetti. Wes has ate there before and said it was pretty good, so we decided to eat there. Once we got there, she hostess said it would be an hour to an hour and half wait, so she took our number and we hung out at the hotel. It was only about 45 minutes until we sat down. I got a Penne Pasta with chicken, sun dried tomatoes, and a gorgonzola cheese sauce with a Spice Cake Martini. All of it tasted sooo good. Wes got spaghetti and meatballs with a hanger 1 vodka drink that tasted like the lemon head candies.

Both of us were so full, we didn't have room for dessert. We ended up watching a movie before we went to bed.

San Fran Trip Day 2

Wes left for work around 8:45am and I stayed in the hotel and got ready until around 10am. Since I didn't get a chance to check out the rest of Westfield Mall the day before, so I headed over there. There are about 8 different floors of shopping, the bottom is mostly a food court, the top 4 floors is Nordstom and the middle 3 floors some pretty good mall stores.

When I was at Bakers finding some shoes, I asked the girl who worked there where a good Pedicure place was. She recommended this small nail place in the Flood Building. It was across the mall in this huge old building that Wes's old office was in on the 7th floor. A pretty random place for a nail salon.

It was about lunch time, so I meet Wes and his co-workers at his office and we walked to Jones and Geary. We ate at Pho Hoa Vietnamese Restaurant a great restaurant in 'The Loin", scary! After lunch I rested at the hotel for a while and Wes went back to work. A few hours later I wandered around Union Square and found some cute jeans at Levi's.

Wes and I were headed to Parker and Lauren's house for the night, so I met up with them at their office. We took the Muni train up to their house in the Cole Valley neighborhood and then hiked up the hill for about 10 minutes. Parker made some lamb with rice and a great salad. I'm not a big fan of Lamb, but I tried a few pieces.

After hanging out and eating some chocolate ice cream, Wes and I walked down to The Castro neighborhood just down the hill to catch a cab. We took the cab back to our hotel and passed out right away!

Reader's Digest New Logo

My last job was with Allrecipes.com, who was bought out by Reader's Digest, so I was actually employed with Reader's Digest. Well anyways, they decided to re-brand their really really old logo, but not much has changed. The typography is different, but it's the same old boring black text with a little extra splash of red as the apostrophe.

What do you think? Is the old logo or the new logo better? And what is the big chunk out of the 'D' in Digest? It looks like the red apostrophe was once there in the 'D'.

1st Day in San Fran

I left Seattle at 6:15am and landed in San Francisco around 8:20am. It was a great flight and there was no one sitting in the middle of the three seats in my row, so I had extra room to stretch out. My bag was sent to San Fran the night before, so it was there waiting for me when I got to baggage claim. That was nice not to wait 20 minutes.

I found the Bart (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and took it downtown San Fran to Hotel Fusion where we are staying. The hotel is in a great location, right in the middle of the shopping area, about two blocks from Westfield Mall and about 3 blocks from Wes's work. I made it to the hotel and got ready for the day, since all my makeup was in my bag that was already in San Fran.

Before heading to Wes's office and getting lunch with his co-workers I had some time to do a little shopping. I went to FCUK and DSW Shoes for about an hour. There were some fashion sneakers that I really liked. It was about noon, so I headed to Wes's office and we went and got sandwiches at Witch Craft. It's a very popular sandwich shop where lots of business professionals eat.

After lunch I found a really cute casual black dress at Armani Exchange. I also ended up buying those cute fashion sneakers at DSW Shoes and at H&M 3 shirts and 1 belt. Wes's friend Parker told me about a great gelato place in the Westfield Mall called Melt, so I decided to get a treat. There were so many good flavors it was hard to choose, but I picked the Toasted Coconut Almond Fudge gelato. And man, it was as good as it sounds.

It was about dinner time and Wes was almost done with work, so I met him at his office. About 20 - 30 of Wes's company and I went to an Irish pub called the Irish Bank for dinner and drinks. It was a really great pub, with a good atmosphere and great people. We were there for about 4 hours and I got to know his co-workers and they are tons of fun!

My Flight to San Francisco

My trip to San Francisco has been great, but it had a bumping start. My flight out of Seattle on Wednesday night was suppose to take off at 8:30pm, but it was running 45 minutes late. I had a connecting flight in Portland that I was going to miss because of this delay, so they told everyone who was going to San Fran, not to get on the flight. They made the San Fran passengers wait until everyone boarded before they told us not to get on, geez!

They had no other flights to San Fran that night, so I was stuck in Seattle. They rescheduled my flight for 6:15am the next morning with a direct flight to San Fran. There was a couple that didn't live here, so they put them up in a hotel and gave them a free dinner. Since I wanted to go home, they gave me $100 worth of coupons for a later Alaska flight.

Alaska Air did a pretty good job in helping us out and they were really nice. I had this same issue before with connecting flights and delays with US Airways a few years ago coming back from Las Vegas (connecting in San Fran). US Airways wouldn't even put us up in a hotel for free. They were going to give us a discount rate of $70 dollars to probably stay at run down motel in San Fran, so we ended up sleeping on the floor in the airport where all the terminals are. It was so cold and we couldn't get to the gates where you wait for your flight, because they closed security.

DSW Shoes Online Store Goes Live Early 2008

If you don't have a DSW Shoes in your hood and love their shoes, you will be excited to know that you will be able to shop on their online store starting early 2008. Working for an online retailer, I personally think every retailer who has built a solid store, should have an online store.

Here are a few retailers that I wish had online stores:
Express
The Limited
H&M

The Little Gym of Bellevue Cheerleading

As I'm sure most of you know, I work for the The Little Gym of Bellevue part time and it's such a positive environment for kids and their parents. We are starting a new Cheerleading program starting in Feb in our Winter/Spring session. All the teachers got together today and we had a training day. It was really neat to see how these little Spirit Bugs, Giggle Poms, Cheer Friends or Flyer Flips will be able to learn to do basic stunting, chanting, rhythm and counting skills and even a bit of gymnastics incorporated into the class. This will all be in a non-competitive environment where kids can build their confidence, motor skills, development skill, social skills and gain trust of their peers.

I would definitely recommend this new program to anyone who has a little kid from 3-12 yrs old that wants to try something new or even just wants to build skills in a team environment.