Monthly Brew – November

This month

I got 12 ounces of decaf whole bean Tilikum Crossing from Portland Coffee Roasters in (you guessed it) Portland! They’ve been around since 1996 and their mission is to improve connections, not just in the local communities that they serve, but also the communities, farmers, and partners that they work with.

They have cafe’s located in Portland and also a few more in the PDX airport! I only wish they had some merch! Their design team does a fantastic job on the labels for each coffee (I’m very much a “buy the book based on the cover” kind of girl).

The coffee itself smelled AMAZING. I got this just in time for fall and the flavor complimented the “cooler” weather (hello from Florida) wonderfully. There was a hint of cinnamon which brought a crisp spice to the overall flavor of the coffee. It’s a medium roast and wasn’t too full bodied. It’s definitely a coffee I could enjoy every morning and one I could share with friends on a cool fall night. This roast is a blend from a few countries including: Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Peru, and Papua New Guinea. It’s balanced so well and isn’t bitter at all. It’s a rich, flavorful coffee with notes of graham cracker and caramel and a hint of cinnamon. Portland, you’re weird, but you know how to coffee.

My rating: 5 beans!

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Seattle Recap 2018

Today is January 31st and I’ve been horrible about this whole blogging thing. I finally got our Christmas Letter out just in time for Christmas this year (it’s the small things) so i figured I’d cram the rest into one blog post.

In November we celebrated our 1 year anniversary and flew up to Seattle. We had the time of our lives and wish we could’ve stayed a bit longer. I feel like we only skimmed the surface of what there was to see.

First of all the weather was perfect the whole time. And it only “rained” once but Seattle rain is like Florida fog so we weren’t that worried..

Our rental car was a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which was super nice until we realized Seattle has exclusively parallel parking.. we got to our Air bnb which was perched on a cliff. It was perfect and the view out of the panoramic windows every morning was breathtaking!

 

 

We were starving so we stopped by a Mexican restaurant and got burritos bigger than our heads. It was west coast Mexican which tends to lean more toward a “chipotle” vibe which was 100% fine with us! We walked down a few blocks to grab a coffee from a place called Uptown Espresso which as it turns out was one of the best coffee shops in the area. They’re known for their foam which is super creamy and dense instead of milk bubbles. We went there a few times over our trip.

 

I wanted to grab some photos so we looked up the best viewpoints in Seattle to see the whole city and ended up at this park, which was AMAZING.

The next day we did Pike’s Place Market which was such a culture shock to me. I’ve lived in Florida all my life so just being on the West Coast was mind-blowingly different. The lobster tails were as big as my arms.

 

Another thing Seattle has is BUSKERS. We were in one of the shops and RAN outside to see this one man who had the most incredible voice.

The next day we headed an hour outside of Seattle to do a bit of hiking. We headed up to a waterfall that doubled as a power plant. The photos don’t do it justice.

 

We planned this whole trip around Dermot Kennedy’s concerts in Seattle and Portland. They just so happened to land near our anniversary! If you haven’t heard this man sing you need to.

The next day we headed to Portland which is a three-hour drive from Seattle. But totally worth it. But the drive back the same night…. post-concert and exploring, was ROUGH! Scariest drive in fog, EVER!

 

We did a little sightseeing before the concert and got lost in an underground mall.. We ended up sharing a Lyft with 2 other girls who were going to the same concert and had been to the Seattle concert too – we aren’t the only crazy ones!

The day after, we went exploring again. We got “Teriyaki” from a local place, which is apparently a MUST – also it was prob the best Asian food we’ve had ever. We drove by UW and the Bridge Troll and Sam looked up a park for us to watch the sunset. It was freezing but my teriyaki kept me warm mostly.. there’s nothing that can compare to those views.

After that, we went to go see Fantastic Beasts (because we wanted to live like the locals) and found a quaint little movie theater on the top of the mountain in West Seattle where we were staying. (THEY ONLY HAD REDVINES!!! WIN FOR SAMANTHA!!) It was the perfect way to end the night and we felt so at home.