Days with Esther

Esther had off work yesterday and today while Jonathan had to go back to work, so it was just us girls hanging out during the day. 

Yesterday (Wednesday) was a laid back day, we started it by walking down to Pioneer Cafe to eat breakfast. I ordered a chocolate croissant (yum-o) and my very first drink with lightening white espresso in it, a wide-eye chai. White espresso is lighter in taste, but contains 30% more caffeine and also has this peanut accent to it, it was good and blended well with the chai.

Esther had an appointment in the Eastlake area of Seattle, so we both drove there and then I got to wander around for about an hour and a half all by myself. I ended up walking out to the docks and taking a few pictures and then walking down the main st to a French bakery. I splurged and bought a strawberry tart, it was phenomenal, probably the best I had ever had. I ate it and read a book that I had bought at Elliott Bay Book Company until Esther was done.

After Esther and I met up, we headed to the Washington Park Arboretum and walked around for quite a bit. It was beautiful. All the tulips and daffodils are still in bloom, and all the trees are starting to blossom. 

For dinner we stopped at Romio's, and Jonathan and I shared a glutinous pizza while Esther was able to order a gluten-free pizza. It's so great that Seattle is more health conscious than most other cities because I think it definitely helps Esther feel like she still has some options while eating out.

~~~

Today was Esther and my shopping day... :)

She took me to Pike Place Market again and we got coffee on the third floor of Lowell's. The sight was extraordinary from the 3rd floor; you could see West Seattle and the tops of the Cascades in the distance. Afterwards we visited some of the more big stores, such as Anthropologie, Urban, Nordstrom, etc., but also explored a few of the endless local shops. We then stuffed our bags in the car and drove to Wallingford for another appointment and then ice cream at Molly Moons.  This might sound crazy, but Jonathan suggested that I get the balsamic strawberry ice cream, so I did and it was really different, but it was really good! 

And now I'm back at the house and will soon be picked up by Josh Chiu for another night out 'n about town.

Mmm Coffee :)

I can honestly say that I have never had so much coffee in one week... let alone one day. Ever.
But the coffee here is so good, I mean like amazingly good. 

In the 5 days I've been here, I've been to 6 different coffee shops, as well as had my brother make me several lattes from home; he can make an extremely yummy latte. And the result of consuming all this caffeine will mean that I will definitely need to ween myself from it when I get back in Durham.

I really should be going to bed, but I'm going to quickly tell you what I did yesterday and today.

Yesterday, Jonathan and I took the Water Taxi to downtown Seattle and walked around the Pioneer Square area. We mostly checked out shops here and there and snapped pictures along the way. Two places that really made a stamp in my memory would have to be the Seattle Library (holy cow the architecture is OUTSTANDING, I don't think I've ever seen such a cool public facility) and The Elliott Bay Book Company. Elliott's is a huge bookstore that I could literally spend hours in if left alone. Today, Jonathan and I got to travel to Ballard, get lunch and again browse the local shops and then go to Fremont and do the same.

In the late afternoon I met up with Steph Gwaltney and had the 3rd latte of the day at a coffee shop called 'Hotwire' in The Junction. Yes, you read that right, I had 6 shots of espresso today, all of which were fully caffeinated. It was wonderful to catch up with Steph. We used to grab coffee or take long walks back in the day, so it was a treat to be able to do it again.

Tonight we had J + E's small group over at the house. We had dinner together, fellowshipped, and studied Matthew 4:1-11. It was such a blessing to be apart of the small group and heed the wisdom of the older ones surrounding me. One thing that was brought up that really resonated with me was the fact that while Jesus was in the wilderness, it says that the devil visited Him and honestly tried to tempt Him, in other words, the devil taunted Jesus. The devil even used practical things (like bread for his physical hunger) to temp Jesus, to allure Him into sin. Yet Jesus was selfless, he wasn't focused on taking care of his own needs/physical needs, but the needs of others. Jesus had every capability of turning rocks into loafs of bread, but he didn't because that's not why he was in the wilderness. Isn't that incredible? Way too often I give into temptation, I fall into selfishness; I put my physical needs above my spiritual needs even though Jesus clearly points out that it should be the other way around. Wow. I'm so thankful that Jesus loves me no matter how imperfect I am. He knows my heart, my selfish ways, but loves me just the same. My Lord is a marvelous God!

Okay, off to bed I go.

Night!

Short One

Here's just a short little bit about my day today. Today was really chill; I woke up about 9am or so and got to enjoy a bowl of cereal and read my bible for about 2 hours, it was a very nice treat. At about 1:30pm Jonathan, Esther and myself ventured out to 'The Junction' where we ate lunch, stopped by the Farmer's Market and went into one cool record shop. At the record shop, they had these music preview stations that were particularly neat; they were telephone booths, but they had headphones rather than normal phones. You had to dial in the number of the song you want too, which in my opinion is very cool. I'm thinking I might need to go back and snap a picture of them if nothing else.

At 4pm we all headed over to Jonathan and Esther's church, Wit's End, and attended their service. I really liked the pastor, he was genuinely nice and extremely intelligent. He applied scripture in a very applicable way that was refreshing and challenging. He spoke on baptism and what it means to be baptized.

For dinner we met up with Adam and Steph Gwaltney and Joshua Chiu at Mama's Mexican Kitchen in Downtown Seattle. I loved seeing those dear friends of mine :) I had really been missing all of them and it was so nice to catch up. We laughed a bunch too.

That's enough for tonight, I'm thinking I need to go to bed.
Much love!

P.s. I'm up to 1 iced mocha, 2 lattes and 1 cappuccino so far... :)

Getting to know Seattle

Yesterday, Jonathan and I got to go explore just about every major attraction in Downtown Seattle.
We started at Pike Place Market, went by the original Starbucks, bought what Esther calls "squeaky cheese" from Beecher's. We traveled through the Alley ways to snap pictures (I absolutely love having other photography lovers in my family!), we visited Seattle's Art Museum (my favorite piece of art was definitely "Love & Loss" by Roy McMakin - you should try to Google it), we had lunch at "Serious Pie" which is an amazing pizza shop. We stopped at quite a few really cool paper and bookstores, we had coffee at Stumptown Coffee (their Holler Mountain blend is amazing, simple amazing...), we got to check out the Glazer's camera shops, which had photography stuff galore (Glazer has a total of three shops; one for camera bodies and lenses, one for film and lighting equipment, and one for rentals), if I could have... I would have bought just about everything in those stores. I felt like a child in a candy store and I was particular fascinated with the Nikon FA (an old 35mm) and just about all the Leica cameras. I was good though, I refrained from spending all my money and instead bought some film for my polaroid camera that I had been having a tough time finding. Okay, enough about cameras... I should probably tell you that I most definitely went and checked out the Space Needle and I can honestly say that being 520 feet above the ground was exhilarating. It made me wish that I had gone on "The Eye" while I was in London because you could see soooo much and it was beautiful. I love architecture, so it was a treat to be in one central location and be able to look around at all the gorgeous homes, offices, parks, and landmarks.

For dinner, Jonathan, Esther, myself and the two dogs (Fran and Rae) walked to West Seattle's 'beach' (which is about a ten minute walk from J + E's house) and sat on a bench to eat and look at the illuminating lights of the city from across to water - it was picture perfect. After having enough of the cold, we headed home.

I finished the day with a much welcomed quite time. God has continually been pressing on my heart how important it is to be open to who God might bring into my life to speak with about his love and salvation. He's also been speaking the importance of being led by Him. I often times call out for his will and guidance, but as a human, I almost always let Him know just how far I'm willing to go. This shouldn't be the case, I should utterly surrender my life to bring glory to His name. I know God has stored in me the desire to travel, but even more importantly, I think he has intentions for me to be more actively pursuing mission trips, especially when I am still young and do not have a family of my own to manage. I don't know if these mission trips mean overseas or not, but I do know I need to have an open heart and a heart to want to share everything I have with God's children.

"Nevertheless I am continually with Thee; Thou hast taken hold of my right hand. With the counsel Thou wilt guide me, and afterward receive me to glory." Psalms 73:23-24

"For Thou art my lamp, O Lord; and the Lord illumines my darkness. For by Thee I can run upon a troop; by my God I can leap over a wall. As for God, His way is blameless; the word of the Lord is tested; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him. For who is God, besides the Lord? And who is a rock, besides our God? God is my strong fortress; and He sets the blameless in His way. He makes my feet like hinds' feet, and sets me on my high places. He trains my hands for battle, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. Thou hast also given me the shield of Thy salvation And thou help makes me great. Thou dost enlarge my steps under me, and my feet have not slipped." 2 Samuel 22:29-37

Well, that's enough for now. Later Alligators :)

Yesterday

Okay, a little bit about yesterday:

The flight to Chicago from Raleigh-Durham was pretty much an average flight. Waiting in Chicago was not quite what I expected though. RDU has really made the C terminal pretty nice, so when I got to Chicago, well, it was so crowded and quite dingy, which made for an interesting contrast. The flight I boarded for Seattle was packed full, there was not even one seat open. I really lucked out though, I had a window seat,which I always try to get, and my neighbor turned out to be a Christian who was in Chicago attending a theology conference. The man, his name was Kevin, was quite talkative when we were casually talking about why I was in Chicago, but when I finished and asked him why he was there, he seemed to turn a bit shy. He started to explain that he was there for a conference, but left it at that, so I went on to ask what kind, and he then added 'theology conference'. I think he was surprised because I then asked 'what kind of theology?'. He quietly and cautiously replied with 'Christian theology'. I honestly believe that he was shocked when I said 'that's great' and began to ask him about the speakers. It turns out that John Piper was mainly leading the conference and it was about the prodigal son. I saw this man go from kinda shy talking about his faith to being wide open and expressing his love and opinion of God like every Christian should. It reminded me that too often we settle as Christians, we try to fit in or not weird people out, but what we really should be doing is openly professing our love for Jesus Christ.

I can honestly say I felt so blessed to sit by Kevin and talk about our faith for about 4 1/2 hours. I left feeling like I gained some wisdom from him, as well as feeling like God used me to pour some encouragement and maybe even wisdom into his own life.

When the plane finally arrived in Seattle, it didn't seem like it had been 4 1/2 hours, but man was I happy to no longer be sitting down. Jonathan, my dear brother, was waiting for me in the baggage claim and thankfully we didn't have to wait to terribly long for my checked bag.

We left the airport and headed to Jonathan's house is West Seattle. Oh my gosh... I LOVE it here! The city is soooo intriguing and the mountains in the background are simply amazing. Jonathan's house is really cute and comfy, and the mini downtown area here is so much better than Durham and Chapel Hill's. For the rest of the day we ended up exploring California Ave, a street in the mini downtown area (known as 'The Junction') where we stopped for coffee and visited some really neat local shops. We then headed to Bellevue to pick up my sister in-law, Esther, from work and ended the day with dinner from Chipotle and a movie called 'Lars and The Real Girl".

Okay, well that's it for now. Today's journeys will have to wait, for I'm already having a hard time finishing this. So goodnight dear ones!

Here at last

I'm here :)
...and so happy to be.

I wish I could write in depth what my journey to Seattle entailed, but I am extremely exhausted (I guess that's what happens when you fly in a plane for about 7 hours). So for now, I will say that I'm here safe and sound, and that God has been so good. Today has been such a blessing and I can only begin to imagine what the rest of my week will behold. I will try to fill you in more tomorrow, but for now, I'm off to watch a movie with my bro and then hit the haystack.

G'night!

My upcoming adventure

In less than a week from now, I will be traveling to Seattle to visit my brother, Jonathan, and his wife, Esther. I am very excited about this trip because it will be the first time ever being on the west coast, and traveling for a long period of time all by myself. This trip will also be the first time that I plan to explore a new city partially by myself because we all know that Chapel Hill and Durham obviously don't count :P.

My mom probably cringes at the thought of this, but I am making an effort to go out all by myself, while in Seattle, to explore the town in search of some neat spots to document with my camera (of course) and simply for the sake of exploring. I guess you could say that I'm using this trip as a prep-course for all the Europe trips I hope will follow in the years to come. I think also, another reason to explore on my own would be because I so strongly believe that God has engraved in me a desire to explore and discover things, yet that side of me hasn't really been exercised as it should. I have a bad habit of getting too caught up in day to day life rather than really enjoying and experiencing the meaningful desires God has put in me. I can only comprehend that that's why I went overboard with picture taking when I first found out that being a photographer was not only a fun thing to be, but it was one of the utmost desires of my heart. So to sum all this up, I know this trip won't make me a better person or even equip me to be a great explorer, but I believe God's going to use this trip to bless me. I have a feeling that I'm going to come back from searching, growing, and experiencing more of God's heart, and hopefully have more of a vision of what I want to explore in my life.

On another note (although, this can still be tied to exploring), I really want to work on a 'project' while I am in Seattle. Back in February I had an idea that was originally simple; it involved going to different coffee shops practically everyday and just experiencing the true Seattle atmosphere. However, my brain kept spitting out more ideas and finally, I decided to give myself an 'official project'. This 'official project' would include: visiting at least 5 different coffee shops, each on different days, snapping pictures of the space (I pretty much have to do this part :P), and then conducting a survey that would document the space/vibe, the products, people, etc. Ultimately gathering information to then create a book after I return home. I was even thinking about trying to get reviews from other coffee shop visitors and make connections with the baristas and/or managers so that once I have published my book (on blurb.com) I can share it with them. The purpose of the book wouldn't be to make any money, but rather to challenge and develop my journalism skills, which I feel I am somewhat lacking in. I also see this 'project' as a way to do more than the average tourist; it would allow me to become familar with the day to day and practical life of the umbrella city. So yes, I am going with a project in mind and we'll see what comes of it ;)

Okay, well until my arrival in Seattle, farwell loved ones!

Rachel Grace