life lately according to my iphone

Last week, before a tearful goodbye to my husband for the summer, I hopped a ride on their boat across the locks.  The Seattle locks takes boats from freshwater Lake Washington to salt water in the Puget Sound. It is always fun to head through the locks because you feel a little like you are on display with everyone on land watching the boats coming and going.

Here is the crew of the Ariel:
I'm choking back tears here...

The final farewell

After saying bye, I hoped in my car and headed over to Coeur d'Alene to spend some time with my family. The Ironman triathlon was on Sunday, so we all woke up at 6:00 am and hopped in our boat to watch the swim start. This triathlon is a doozy! A 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and a 26.2 mile run! It is insane and inspiring to watch.

  

I prefer to be drinking coffee at 6am versus swimming...but that's just me!

Only in Idaho do you see a moose run in front of your house! 

How has your week been so far!? 

iphonography: seattle

We had a busy, but great weekend! I spent Friday taking photos of a friend on Bainbridge, Saturday wedding dress shopping with another friend, and Sunday on Whidbey Island!  I love the fact that in Seattle, it only takes 30 minutes and a ferry ride later to be on an island. The islands (and ferry rides) are some of my favorite things about the Pacific Northwest. 

How was your weekend!? Did you take a small weekend trip or visit somewhere new?

iphoneography is back

Hey all, it's been a while since I shared the view from my phone!  I finally ditched the iphone 3 for a 5, so I have been taking advantage of the new camera, and the picture quality has gotten way better! So here are a few photos from the past couple of weeks.

*Also, I just saw Silver Linings Playbook and it was AMAZING! I loved it! What did you guys think?

We have a new game called Battle of the Sexes and it is hilarious! They girls typically are asked questions about cars or sports and the guys have to answer what an anorak is or what smokey eyes look like...the answers are always surprising!

 You can follow me on Instagram @ashled2

Iphoneography/ Travel Tips and Tidbits with Amy

I hope you all had a fantastic long weekend and soaked up the last bit of summer! Around here you can already feel the chill creeping into the air. My weekend was wonderful, I was able to share it with close friends and my fiance! We were so glad that his boat made it into Seattle in time,  so that he could spend the whole weekend relaxing with his friends and working on his tan! I will share with you his photos from Alaska soon! As for now, here are some photos from our weekend: 

And without much further ado...I have a quirky little interview from Amy, of Don't Feed the Birds, Please. She is a student in England, and it is always nice to get the English perspective on travel:

1. Tell us a little about yourself:

Hullo! I’m AmyBird and I run the blog Don’t Feed The Birds, Please. I’m a student in England. Also, I’m a little too obsessed with birds, comics and Batman (who is my ultimate hero by the way; I do plan to hold a job as a masked vigilante sometime in the near future). Yep, I’m a nerd.

2. When/Why did you start blogging:

I started blogging because I wanted a little place separate from the rest of my life where I could share my writings, poetry and musings with other fauna. I needed a space where I could express my weird and random feathered self.

3. What is your dream trip:

National Geographic do some amazing expeditions/trips. The one that I really lusted over was a photography trip in the Galapagos. It looked amazing. Plus I’d be able to say hullo to Darwin’s non-finch fake finches (those guys are such phonies).

4.. Where is favorite place in the world:

My favourite place in the world….. well, I would say it would have to be Great Yarmouth. It’s a seaside town on Britain’s east coast and I fly down there at least once a year. Yep, it’s the typical seaside place that you see on the old postcards. There are lots of fish and chips, ice-cream and donuts that get thrown on the floor which I then have to fight for with the seagulls (I win of course). Then I can hop down the piers or take a perch on a donkey. I have being going there ever since I was a hatchling. In fact, even my granddad has been going since he was a hatchling! So I suppose over years of HarrisonBird evolution it has become an instinct to dwell in Norfolk for a week or two every so often.

5. Favorite food/ where do you find it:

Did you know that birds love brownies? AmyBird certainly does. It doesn’t really matter what type or where they are from (FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED MEEEEEEEEE!) You may be surprised that a bird has a love of chocolate brownies but then again you’d be surprised at some of the other stuff they eat…

6. Any great travel tips/ secrets?

Don’t hold back and don’t plan too much. The whole point of travel is to experience and enjoy. If everything is planned to the last little detail, scheduled and programmed, maybe your trips will be a little robotic, a little monotonous. You’ve got to ask yourself this: do I want to live every second of life as I planned? I got to say, it will be probably get very tedious very rapidly.

Iphoneography #13

I hope your weekend was great and sunny. We are still in juneuary and have had a little sun here and there...but i'm beginning to lose my mind a bit with this constant drizzling! Anyway, we are moving out of our apartment at the beginning of this week, so our fridge is EMPTY and we have had a week/ weekend of constantly eating out...I have eaten a lot of extremely delicious food (no complaints here): sushi, latin, pho, southern breakfast, mexican, oyesters...

Sushi on the left at Rain and latin food on the right(white fish in a cinnamon type of sauce) at Mojito, one of our new favorites in Seattle. 

Saturday before we headed over to Fremont for the Solstice Parade, we witnessed the pre-parade naked bike ride. It actually caught us off guard while walking to our apartment. It started a block away from our place and we couldn't get across the street because of the hoard of bikers. I definitely saw more naked men and women then I have ever cared to see...and it was chilly (not a pretty sight).

 It took us about 30 minutes to walk into the parade because of the huge crowds, but we were lucky enough to have friends near the front, so we plopped ourselves down on the pavement to watch the craziness. When I started to shoot photos with my SLR, I realized that I forgot my SD card! I did the exact same thing a few years ago at the Fremont Solstice Parade (so frustrating), but thank god for instagram!

 Sunday, Brian and I finally went on that date, at The Walrus and the Carpenter. This is one of the best meals I have ever eaten, no kidding! Everything was phenomenal, from the wine to the oysters. I am also now an oyster convert. I never ever considered eating those slimy things, but once I poured the W&C's champagne vinegar on top, the oyesters tasted like butter. 

We finished off an absolutely fantastic meal with a strawberry crostada, dusted with sea salt and accompanied by creme fraiche. I'm pretty sure I am in love this meal!

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