Twenty-six years and counting...

By Karen

Where I spend 40-60 hours a week

There is a saying that people like to espouse, which is that one should "work hard and play hard."  What they do not tell you is the consequence of both working hard and playing hard... exhaustion!  With lots of late nights at work (see my lack of posts) and weekends packed with activities (see James's posts), I was beginning to feel a bit run down lately.  Fortunately, everything slowed down just in time to allow me to have a proper birthday celebration.

I turned twenty-six last week.  Twenty-six plants me firmly in my mid-twenties, and fact that is still somewhat startling to me.  Growing up, I viewed the mid-twenties as a time of fabulous adulthood - a time when you would have both legitimate responsibilities and the freedom to to do what you wanted.  And while this has come true to a large extent, I cannot help but feel like I am still just a kid playing dress-up and make-believe. 

After surprising me by sending flowers to my office during work, James took me out to dinner at a new restaurant in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle called "The Walrus and the Carpenter."  The Walrus and the Carpenter represents a culinary trifecta of my favorite things: french food, local organic northwest ingredients, and oysters!

   

Pretty interior of the restaurant

We had a wonderful meal at The Walrus and the Carpenter, and will undoubtedly add this restaurant to our roster of favorite places to eat in Seattle. The space is small, intimate, and immaculately decorated, with a large back patio for extra seating in warm weather.  The open kitchen is illuminated by a dramatic chandelier, and is flanked by large baskets of live oysters ready to be shucked.  Speaking of oysters, we had two different types of kumamoto oysters (my favorite!) to start off our meal, followed a seemingly never-ending parade of dishes.

We ended up sampling about half of the menu of small plates.  Each dish was fantastic, but the real knockout dish of the night was the beef tartar.  It was the highlight of the meal, and one of the best beef tartars that James and I have ever tasted.  And, to top things off, they had one of my favorite desserts on the menu that evening, a vanilla bean panna cotta with poached apricots.  Thanks James!

 

Since my birthday was on a week-day, I waited until the weekend to celebrate with my friends.  This year, I decided celebrate with one of my favorite summertime activities - a beach bonfire!  We set up a bonfire at Golden Gardens Beach Park in Ballard, and throughout the evening, friends from high school, college, law school, and various points in between came by to celebrate with me.  It was a great Seattle summer evening with a magnificent sunset over the Olympic Mountains, and we ended up staying late into the night until the park closed.  I didn't manage to take any pictures, but my friend Leon, a talented photography enthusiast, managed to take some really nice photographs that evening.  Check the pictures out on his flikr!  Thanks to everybody who made it out!

All in all, it was a wonderful birthday, and I am glad to have been able to share it with so many of the dearest people in my life.  With a handsome fella' by my side and a crop of wonderful friends, this game of make-believe has turned out pretty well.  =)

*Our good friend Gennessey has just recently started her own blog, Welcome to the Gsp0t, and has put up some fantastic (and delicious) pictures from her recent travels to Asia and the Maldives.  Check it out!