issaquah

Today, Marcus left for his Lock and Load convention, so I got to spend the day in Issaquah with his mom. We drove over and started walking around this place called Gilman Village...I'm not sure if that was a good idea or a bad one, because all of the shops were stocked with cute kitchen accessories, cookbooks and decorations that we both couldn't get enough of. His mom is really big on the idea of having her own garden one day, so she loves looking at vintage-y signs and flowerpots. I had to be steered away from the shelves of baking pans--they had this fantastic shortbread cookie sheet with flowers imprinted onto the molds--and prompted to choose someplace to eat.

This place also happened to be full of interesting cuisine, which made deciding extremely difficult. We walked past an Afghani restaurant, a Greek place, an Indian one with a lunch buffet...and that was just in the couple of minutes we took to peruse before we got too hungry! I ended up picking Tantalus, the Greek restaurant, and even though the Indian place was a close second (only because buffets mean you get to sample a little bit of all the most popular dishes, which is helpful when scoping a place out) I was thrilled that we chose it! We both got gyros; mine was chicken, Jo's was lamb. They were delicious. We both really love international food, but it's hard to find Greek food around here that isn't intensely heavy and greasy to the point of distracting from the rest of the dish. All of the vegetables and meats on our plates seemed fresh and light. The flavor was phenomenal! I really can't speak highly enough of good pita bread, and this place had it. I wanted to dunk it into some hummus or something...maybe another time!

We spent most of the day checking out apartments since we'll be moving there sometime in the next month or two. I love house-hunting, so it was a really nice time. We found one or two "maybe's" and one place that we really loved that might be a "yes" depending on timing. Issaquah seems like a great town! The apartment we liked the best was literally walking distance from most of the downtown stores and restaurants, which the leasing agent told us would be great for saving money on gas and parking for big events. I wish we could have seen a little bit more, but we got a better idea of the options in that town.

After that, we decided to try getting our nails done together downtown! I was excited, because I normally just do my own and call it good. It was fun--I got a little watermelon design (minus the dots, I guess--I think I'll just add my own!) and Jo got some cute flowers. There was a little family with three girls that came in right as we were finishing up, and they were all psyched because they got to get their nails done for the oldest one's birthday. It was so fun to watch them! The littlest one was sad because only two at a time could go sit in the chairs, so she had to be last. She ended up accidentally dropping her bottle of nail polish and breaking it on the floor, but her mom was extremely sweet about not making her feel bad about it and wiped it up in less than a minute. They seemed really nice--actually, a lot of the people we ran into in Issaquah today did. I'm optimistic!

I had a great time with Marcus's mom today. (Side note: they really do need to come up with a word for "significant other you aren't married to's parents", because "in-laws" sounds really ambitious and formal, but calling them "Marcus's mom/dad" sounds like I don't know them. I'm trying to get used to it, but I feel kind of strange just calling them by their names (we were raised from a really young age to always refer to anyone older as Mr./Mrs./Miss, and even in my 20's I'm trying to shake it).) We love to talk about a lot of the same things, and neither of us can resist checking out cute shops. I'm excited to do this more often!

I think tomorrow I'm supposed to be up really early to go with Marcus's dad to the gym, too. Hmm. We're productive in Washington!

:)