Seattle Vacation, Part 3

You're probably getting tired of all my vacation photos, but there's so much I want to share from our week-long trip! If you ever visit the Seattle area as a tourist, I can definitely recommend visiting 1) Remlinger Farms where you can pick strawberries in the spring/summer, go on carnival rides, and shop the farm's market (definitely for kids); 2) the fantastic and huge Pacific Science Center (with or without kids); and 3) the stunning Chihuly Garden and Glass (without young kids is a good idea because of all that glass). The duck tour was also fun; it's probably better to go at the beginning of your trip to see what you'd like to explore further. Everything but the first was at or near the Seattle Center, which includes the famous Space Needle and the International Fountain. Our hotel was within walking distance to the Seattle Center, so it was very convenient.

Remlinger Farms

Butterflies and life-size checker board at the Pacific Science Center

Mesmerizing blown-glass sculptures at Chihuly

Group photo

Seattle Center

We also splurged on a fancy lunch at Toulouse Petit, which serves New Orleans-style food. My husband started us off by ordering beignets which came with a coffee-flavored sauce. Yummy! We ordered the seafood gumbo (WARNING: super spicy!!), clam and sausage pasta, beef burgers, and chicken nuggets. The fries that came with the burgers and nuggets were very herby, spicy (cajun seasoning?), crispy, and delicious. My older sister and I shared the gumbo and the pasta dish, but the gumbo was so hot (temperature-wise) and spicy that we could only eat a little bit at the restaurant; she took the rest home. The pasta dish was a different story, very lemony and bright, and it was quickly eaten. I also loved the flavor of the chicken nuggets. It wasn't the usual processed frozen stuff, so of course my son didn't like it. :-( But I thought it was very tasty and tender, partly because they used dark meat instead of white. I wish we had gone to the restaurant earlier during our trip so that we could have enjoyed the leftovers. But it was our last chance to spend time with my sister and her sons, and it was wonderful because of that. I miss those boys so much! I wish they lived closer to us.

xo, Gladys

Seattle Vacation, Part 4

This is the last post on our vacation (that doesn't have to do with Fluevogs ... wait for the next post!), which we ended on a geeky note. The Museum of Flight is just a few miles from the Seattle-Tacoma airport, so we spent our last hours in Seattle there. It is a very impressive museum with an amazing collection of real-life and model airplanes, space vehicles, and military/NASA paraphernalia. It's a great place for kids because there are many interactive educational exhibits with buttons to push and levers to move, and partial replicas of planes and jets where you can sit in the cockpit. There was a cool replica of a small part of the International Space Station that included the exercise area for the astronauts -- basically, a treadmill that was on the "ceiling" (since they float in space there is no ceiling for them, just six-sided rooms). Wouldn't that exhibit be perfect if they could replicate the floating, too? :-) There was also a room overlooking the large parking lot that mimicked a control tower at an airport, where you could hear the actual transmissions from the control tower nearby (the museum is located on or near a regional airport, not the international SEA-TAC).

There was so much more than what's in these photos. We didn't even visit one whole wing dedicated to Boeing company. Top left photo is of the convertible plane car (yes, it could both drive on roads and fly), invented in the 1950s. It obviously never caught on -- only a few handfuls were ever built -- but it was a cool vehicle.

My five-year-old son B enjoyed the whole place very much. There was so much for him to see and do. After learning about the solar system at preschool, he's now a pro at naming and recognizing all eight planets in our solar system as well as Pluto, in addition to knowing their relative sizes and distance in order from the sun. Plus he loves planes and vehicles like his engineer dad. I'd love for him to be a scientist-astronaut!

A mother can dream, right?

Randomly, I had to have my husband take a pic of the lovely mannequin in the pic below. We had no idea why she was in this particular exhibit, "Early Days of Airmail," nor why her back was turned to the viewers, but I thought her outfit was awesome, even from the back.

Loved the cloche hat and her fur stole.

Here are a couple last photos from our trip: a visit to a Cow Chips, a cookie shop that my husband last visited as a child (good cookies), and the requisite visit to the waterfront (we didn't eat at Ivar's, but we liked how the sign in the window says "KEEP CLAM").

Good spot to people watch

Just being neighborly on a rainy Seattle day

Have a happy Monday. Thanks so much for reading!

xo, Gladys

Seattle Vacation, Part 2

While in Seattle, we visited Salish Lodge for brunch. Such a beautiful place, built next to Snoqualmie Falls. The visit was a repeat of the last time we had our family vacation in the Northwest, almost five years ago when my kiddo was only months old. Here I am, holding another infant in my arms.

Rocking my godson C to sleep (it worked!)
Outfit details -- Dress: Patagonia sun shelter dress | Shoes: Fluevog Promise (Hope family) via Amazon (on sale)

Waiting for our meals, sipping wonderful hot chocolate

My older sister and her family minus her preschooler son

My brother and his family

Snoqualmie Falls

My younger sister bonding with my kiddo/her nephew over her iPhone

Celebrating the baby's baptism

xo, Gladys

Fluevog Love: Seattle

Hope: Promise oxfords in navy/ivory

I simply couldn't visit Seattle and not make a trek to the Fluevog store there as well. I wore my new blue Promise oxfords with some navy and stripes that matched really well. It was a cool day so I put on the only blue sweater I had, and it turned out to match the bright blue of the soles of my shoes. Paging Mrs. Matchy-Much.... Hiya, that's me. :-)

Top: Urban Outfitters | Cardigan and jeans: GAP | Shoes: Fluevog Promise (Hope family) via Amazon | Handbag: Coach (hand-me-down) | Socks (see last photo below): Sockdreams

Posing in front of the store on Pine Street

Fluevog | Amazon on great sale

Begin: Cha Cha in black. Brief as my visit was, I managed to try on a couple pairs and talk to dealer Brenda, who was wearing a gorgeous boxy top with her skinny black pants and black Cha Chas. Her outfit was so cute that I had to try on the same shoes as well. Tassels! I didn't realize I was a tassels girl, but after buying the Nzame and the Beezies, I can't deny it any longer. :-) Too bad the Cha Chas run between true-to-size and slightly large, so the size 6 (smallest size) is too big for me even with socks.

Fluevog

Prepare Hi: Rappel in pink was the other pair I tried on. I was asked about these shoes by a friend, and while I'd slipped them on my feet once while visiting the Melrose store, I never managed to take a photo of me wearing them. These shoes are so, so pretty. I think they look great with socks, too. I've heard the zipper might be an issue, but since they were too big for me even with the socks (size 6 is the smallest size), I didn't notice if the zipper was particularly uncomfortable. They run true to size, maybe a little bigger.

xo, Gladys

Seattle Vacation, Part 1

Wearing my new Beezies on the plane

Happy Solstice! Summer is officially here in my part of the world!

The first thing we did after my son's preschool graduation was pack up and leave for our family summer vacation to the Seattle area. Along with the rest of my immediate family (mom, sister, and brother with his family), we visited our eldest sister there and finally met her second child, baby C. I really dislike the traveling part of vacations -- parking, shuttles, security checkpoints, airplanes, dragging all that luggage everywhere, especially traveling with a child -- but it was fun and genuinely exciting to be all together under the same roof again, plus the spouses and all five adorable grandchildren. My eldest sister's house is beautiful, and I was in baby heaven, what with the twins and C. The two older boys, my son and his cousin E, are BFFs despite only seeing each other twice or at most three times a year. They played so well together for hours upon hours, so the adults had lots of attention to lavish on the babies or had downtime to rest. I just had to make sure my son took breaks to eat and go to the bathroom. We had a pretty good system worked out for the few days we were all together.

This baby's cheeks are out of control.

Cuddling with one of my twin nephews

Three generations

My mom with her three youngest grandchildren

Watching the chefs at work at Tutta Bella Neapolitan Pizzeria (seriously yummy pizza!)

Happy boy with his cousins

Adorable nephew

My brother with his newest neph

My sister-in-law with one of her twin babies

My mom with her newest grandson -- told ya about those cheeks

Lovely sisters-in-law

Salted caramel chocolate chip gelato with a shot of espresso = OMG

Peach gelato -- prettier than it was tasty

Iron Man in training: my nephew playing at Target

My favorite pastime: tickling my baby nephews

My younger sister finally arrived from SF to meet her newest nephew.

Happy twins!

The older cousins = best buds forever

xo, Gladys

New Shoes + Fluevog Party on Melrose

Happy July! If it seems like Fluevog Central over here, I KNOW. June surprised me that way. Since my kid got out of school, my summer so far has consisted of 1) family vacation in Seattle, 2) swimming and potlucks with friends, and 3) Fluevogs. Throw in some extra hours of sleep, and it would be ideal. But I can live with it as-is. :-)

Integrity | Amie in aqua-green. Coffee | Arabica in black/turquoise.

As I previously posted, the Fluevog summer sale opened last Friday. I got an invite from the Los Angeles store to attend their sale preview event last Thursday evening, June 27, which turned out to be a party with sweet giveaways. The deal? The first 30+ people who purchased something (on sale or not) were eligible to pick out a pair of unworn vintage Fluevogs that were languishing in the back of the store for one reason or another. Usually, they were former floor/demo shoes that now showed a mismatch in color between the left and right shoe, which meant that they couldn't be sold. (You probably know it gets really sunny in Los Angeles, so the demo shoes get a little sun-faded.)

I got to the store a little late (it started at 5pm) because of traffic hazards on the freeways (grr, L.A. freeways). Luckily for me, however, my friends Jih-Fei and Francine had my back. Both had never tried on Fluevogs before, but they were game to join me at the party. Jih-Fei got there the earliest and stood in line*, so he was the 24th person in. I was number 37. When it came time, he traded numbers with me so that I could be one of the first 30 people. He said he didn't have a specific shoe in mind anyway and wanted me to get the vintage shoes. (So thank you, dearest JF! I owe you!)

Playing Hooky

Last week, my son skipped school so we could go to Disneyland with one of his cousins who was on the last full day of his trip in L.A. before going back home to the Seattle area. Verdict? Better than school. I was always what they called a "schoolgirl" since I enjoyed school so much, but going to D-land kicks school's butt. We didn't stay through the evening like we usually do when it's just my little three-person family (me, husband, and son), so the little guy was pretty sad when we had to leave before it got dark. We got in a few good rides, though, and saw Mickey first thing upon entering the park in the morning. And given that the park wasn't completely packed that day, it was very much worth it.

xo, Gladys

My Mom's New Kicks

Happy 4th of July to those who celebrate it!

So, I left you all hanging a little bit at the end of my last post. What was the second pair of shoes that Fluevog L.A. gifted to me and that I subsequently gave to my mother?

My mom in Fluevogs

The Hope | Promise oxfords in purple, still available for sale at the Fluevog website. I'm not sure why they were one of the free pairs, but I'm very glad they were. My mom texted the above photo to me the other night when she went to see Josh Groban in concert at the Hollywood Bowl with a few of her friends. Her verdict? The concert plus fireworks (celebrating the 4th of July a little early) were "fantastic," and the shoes were "very comfy." Glad to hear it, Mom!

This is what the shoes look like under indoor lighting. Not as pretty since you can't really tell they're dark purple. They look more like a reddish-brown here. Still very handsome shoes, though. You may have noticed that I have the same style in a different colorway (navy/cream). I can personally attest to their comfort. I took my pair to Seattle and enjoyed the heck out of wearing them. No break-in period. :-)

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't let you know that the gorgeous burgundy/light pink colorway is currently on sale at Fluevog for 30% off. I'm surprised that these are on sale since the colorway seems pretty classic. (Previous colorways that went on sale were orange and a bright teal/blue. Definitely trendy colors.) You can see the burgundy in action here, when my friend M tried them on at the store late last summer. Gorgeous, I tell ya. You're lucky if you get them!

xo, Gladys