2016.

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january

we went on a beautiful wintry hike to heather lake.

we went to cabo san lucas!

i went night skiing for the first time.

i made some "fancy" citrus & herb ice cubes ;)  these were featured on the feedfeed's community cooking site in the herbs & spices feed. 

 

february

barely caught a couple of gorgeous sunsets at the end of the workday near our house. i live for the days when it is not dark out at 5pm.

i baked up a lot of bready goods. 

pete and i went on a fun valentine's day bus camping trip on whidbey island.

 

march

spring came early and it was freaking beautiful.

i discovered the most delicious fluffy chocolate marshmallow filled donut at general porpoise donuts in capitol hill.

i attempted my very first lemon meringue pie from scratch for my dad's birthday. the pie turned out tasty & scrumptious, but looked hideous and you won't find it on this blog. i'm always bummed when recipes don't work out on my first try (especially when i take all the process photos expecting the food to turn out just right)...but it's all just part of the learning process. i'm getting better at accepting that and attempting recipes again instead of turning my back on them forever. anyhow, i'm excited to create some successful meringue magic. 

my company spent several days shooting at snoqualmie pass in the remaining winter's snow for our winter 2017 print piece. these shoots are really fun and a lot of work with a lot of moving parts. its definitely cool to see the images from this project out in the wild, and in print!

during our big shoot, i took this photo on my moment macro lens and it is now featured on the product page for this arc'teryx jacket. 

 

april

we visited pete's fam on lopez island. love that fairy tale house.

spring was GORGEOUS!!! and this photo above was reposted by DESIGN SPONGE on instagram. i about lost my damn mind! that was reallyyyy something.

i carried on my merry ice cube making way and came up with these coffee & coconut cream ice cubes. this recipe was also featured on the feedfeed's cooking site in the caffeinated beverages feed. 

may

i tried my hand at various fruit-as-roses.

pete and i went backpacking in the rain at goat lake.

fun summertimes began to commence. pete and i set out on our volkswagen road trip to utah!

this photo below of our happy cheddar bus in moab was shot with my moment wide lens for iphone, and was reposted on moment's instagram account.

made delicious homemade tzatziki. this image above was reposted by food should taste good on instagram.

june

evening bike rides and picnics are what life is all about :)

evo's annual employee retreat was one to remember. the theme was high school cliques and my marketing team was the marching band. so many laughs and hilarious videos taken that i still laugh wildly at today. 

we had oodles of back porch barbecues and gatherings and rode bikes to our beloved marination ma kai. pete bought a ukulele and we started learning lots from cynthia lin on youtube. she's amaaazing. and cool. pete got another uke for christmas and is still really into it. i think my uke talents peaked at 'three little birds.'

^^^ neighborhood summer solstice partay on the hill. except that durn cloud covered the sunset. we still had a fun picnic. so crazy that this is at like 9:40pm.... ah! can't wait!

lopez island again for the 4th of july! always a grand ol' time!

oregon kriekfest & camping near hood river! 

lake union boat party for piper's birthday!

ADELE!!!!!!!!!! she is just amazing. 

 

august

ohhhh summer night grillin' at its best. i LOVEEEE this time of year.

more fun summer nights!! above is a crazy nicoise salad made by our friend jeff. what a delight!

pete and i spent a lazy summer afternoon on the patio of the bar on lopez island just drinking beer and chatting it up with all the yocals that came and went. such a fun day.

our obsession with locals flip flops is still v strong. we re-upped on our supply on our trip to hawaii this fall :)

pizza & pals. ❤️

^^^ ashleigh's birthday/crab made of bread bash at birch bay!

more grillin' and chillin' and dining al fresco.

lake days.

sounders game!

pete demolished the last 15 feet or so of our very long driveway and we are expanding our backyard! it's not done yet, but the yard is twice the width now. 👍

september

i concocted this mess of chocolate and mallows and s'mores ice cream in a skillet. this image was also shared on instagram by lodge cast iron.

september = sportzball.

so much sports ball..

pete and i went to his friend julie's amazing hindi wedding at the four seasons.

outdoor hall & oates concert with friends!

 

october

pete & i took a fun day trip to vashon island.

halloweener!

 

november

we visited friends in the bay area for the UW vs. Cal game. such a fun weekend!!!

in n' out treat before we headed back to seattle.

fall four square games at work. just like the good ol days.

pete and i celebrated 8 years together! 😘

then we went to HAWAII!

^^^ my cutie uncle transported his wine to thanksgiving dinner in a laundry basket. 😂

rainy thanksgiving cocktails with my bestie!

pete & i got the perfect tree from our local produce stand before i left for nyc.

 

december

snow in seattle! only an inch or so. but we still went sledding and made a snowman, haha.

my friend whitney and i went back to new york city! i just love that place! seeing it during the holidays was a dream come true.

^^^at pete's company holiday party.

^^^ i spent my first christmas ever with peter and his family, which is kinda crazy! we'd just never been in the same place on christmas day before this one...so it was pretty fantastic to be with him. i loved it.

saw a cool harry potter themed gingerbread exhibit at the sheraton hotel in seattle.

celebrated my 29th birthday and rung (rang? ruhuuung?) in the new year with friends at a beautiful airbnb on vashon island! i loved pete's adorable surprise birthday waffle breakfast he made for me.❤️

2016 was pretty good to me and i'm so grateful & thankful to lead this privileged life with amazing people around me. it was a rough, at times horrifying, year in this country and around the world.  i will continue to be positive and appreciate every good thing in my life, which i'm fortunate enough to do every single day.

in this online space, i can only hope that any little thing i've shared on this blog may encourage or teach or inspire somebody in some small way, and make their day just a little bit brighter. 

 

xoxo

qp

olde film photos.

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pete found some photos from his old film camera that we took loonnng ago! i just LOVE looking through real, tangible, hold-in-your-two-hands photographs. there is just something so great about it. i don't even care if i don't know the people in the photos... i wanna see em!

here are some that i found the other day. i'm thinking this is 2009-2010.

^^these are my favorite. just look at pete's pure joy being pulled behind the sailboat. not even wakeboarding or waterskiing or anything, just a good ol' fashioned swim-behind-a-boat-while-holding-a-rope sesh. that boy lives to swim.

^^ oohh this picture gives me so many college feels. i'd probably just packed up my little bags and scampered off to hang out with pete and procrastinate my homework on a school night. or maybe we just got off work (we used to work at starbucks until 2 or 3am!). wearing my hood was the best (perhaps even my trademark? my college "look," haha!); the pinnacle in comfort. i don't really wear em up that often anymore, so this pic brings me back to all the days of rollin round town in my hoooood. rollin on a bicycle, that is, because i did not have a car. i essentially had two outfits: my all black smelly coffee starbucks work outfit, and an arsenal of hooded sweatshirts that i wore to school, at home, and to bed. 

^^ i love looking at these because i can tell who took which photos. i think its really sweet & adorable to see a photo that peter took of an otherwise bramble-y, unappealing area in the woods with a few pretty daisies or buttercups popping up. its so interesting to see how different people interpret a given space and how they use a camera to capture the space. the close-up mushroom photo...that's just more my style (i also did a pencil drawing in college of that mushroom photo, so seeing it again really brought me back!). i like to get up close to things. pete likes to capture things in a wider context. 

^^ this photo of me sinking in our inflatable water craft...peter just taking a photo from afar instead of helping me. lololol.

^^ these pics crack me up and also put me right back into the "stress" of college. pete visited me at the ceramics studio that night, where it looks like i am having a great time. he left to go check his work schedule and then came back with TWO beverages for me, a smoothie and an americano. because he wasn't sure which one i would be in the mood for (and because we got that shit for free). but, how sweet is that?! he was in freaking engineering school and could have been doing a zillion more important things. i love that guy. 

art school is weird because you're just forced to create, create, create on a whim. all the time. even when you have zero inspiration or have no idea what to do for a project, you still have to come up with something. there are so many projects i look back on and i'm like, whoaaa i can't believe i made that. because when you're prompted to make something within a certain theme, you're already being put outside your comfort zone. anyhoo, that photo is me undoubtedly scrambling to make something out of clay that would hopefully become a revolutionary work of art. definitely didn't happen. except maybe this huge tootsie roll i made. i still like that thing!

i'm so glad these photos exist. as amazing and convenient it is to be able to see billions of photos on a digital gadget at all times, there is just something so much more meaningful about photos taken on a film camera. you've only got one chance to get the shot, and the outcome is so much more authentic and real.

also, i ought to lay off the triangle-y patterned home goods.

 

 

 

qp