Shhh...it's a mystery date

Mystery Date:
Sometime back in February Aaron said, "On July 1st, you'll be late for work."

"How do you know I'll work late?" It was a reasonable guess since I work late quite often, but still, how can he tell five months in advance I'll work late? He's good at predicting my behaviors, but not that good.

"No. Not work late.... be late. We have a mystery date in the morning."

Well, if that doesn't pique a girl's curiosity I don't know what does! For months I wondered, "What could it be?"

Aaron promptly forgot all about it.

Five months later, on the day before the would-be Mystery Date, I doubled checked with Aaron, "Hey, I have a mystery date on my calendar. Is it still on?"

"Mystery date?" he asked. "OH! Yeah....mystery date. Ummmmmm let me check. Ahh...yeah, we're still on".

Had we not just returned from The Great Food Tour 2009 (our trip to MN) I might have taken the entire day off. But since we were just home I figured I should at least work half a day. I forgot to mention to my boss that I would be out the next day so I left him a voicemail before leaving work, "I'm going to be late to work tomorrow...maybe noon or 1:00pm. Nothing's wrong. I have an appointment. Um, I'm not sure what for. Well. See you around lunch time....I think."

I'm sure that doesn't instill a lot of confidence but luckily there are bigger fish to fry than my wee mystery date.

We got up in the morning, and I'm thinking, "let's go! I have to be at work". Aaron says we can't be rushed. At about10:00 we left the house for parts unknown.

As it turns out it's not very far from our house. We were headed into a gated community, less the gate -- it has a security guard who took a look at us and said, "are you here to see the ladies" Aaron says yes, and the security guard waves us through.

"'Ladies?!" What the hell? Where are you taking me??"

I had been tossed off this road 2 years ago when I was training for the 3-Day. They wouldn't let rif-raf like me walk on the road. They turned me around. It was weird. Now we were driving through Seattle's most exclusive neighborhood. It was NOTHING like our neighborhood all of 2 miles away. The road quaintly curves among huge cedar trees and beautiful landscaping. Houses could barely be seen but when I did see them they looked pretty fancy to me. There was the occasional worker driving along the road too. I kept wondering who are the "ladies" and are we going to be stopped and thrown out. There were no house numbers, just signs. If we lived there it would have said, Barr/Charrier with an arrow.

As it turns out there is one particularly fancy garden there, the Miller Gardens. The Elizabeth Miller foundation helped create The Great Plant Picks which is about the only way we know what plants to buy. People who know what they're doing with plants try out a million different varieties and then report on the most difficult to kill types and put them on the GPP list. They keep the exotic, hard to grow ones for themselves.

We arrived at the Miller Garden (which we found by following the directions: "you'll cross four speed bumps, at the fifth bump look to your left...."). There were 3 other people and 2 interns there. The gardener of 12 years gave us our tour. I don't think we were seeing the "ladies" like the security guard predicted but it got us through the checkpoint and I sufficiently caught off guard when we arrived at the garden. Apparently the tours are extremely limited because the fancy neighborhood doesn't allow many guests. Moreover the tickets get reserved within hours of registration. Aaron had signed us up back in February.

The garden was totally and completely overwhelming, but we had a great time. It took me by total surprise and was really, really fun. They go all over the world looking for rare and exotic this'es and that's and bringing them back to try out. Mostly, I fell in love with one room of the house which was half indoor and half outdoors, complete with a fireplace. I need one for myself now.

After our 2-hour tour we left. I was totally exhausted!! I needed food. We stopped for lunch and then I made my way back to work. I snuck back in to work and got down to business, but that made my week!! Aaron is SO sneaky!!

Anniversary Art:

Speaking of gardens. It'll be a while before we can sell tickets to tour the CharrBarrGardens but we're keeping most things alive. We bought ourselves this really cool bird bath in honor of our first wedding anniversary. Our hope is to use it as a center piece in the front yard when we re-landscape out there some day. For now I refuse to put water in it because I don't want to make the yard any more hospitable to crows or coons by supplying them with fresh water. If they're going to lurk around our house there are going to be some hardships.

We also stopped by a yard sale and picked up 4 beautiful ferns and 3 really arty big flower pots all for a few bucks. We've still got to plant them but we're excited to try some new things and I love having fancy pots to plant in. I'm all about the containers!

Crows:

The crows taunt us at their every chance. They wake Aaron up in the morning with their, "CAAW...CAAAW". They still pick the little tags our of the dirt and jump up and down on the wedding tree. Lately, they've taken to sitting smack in the middle of the waterless bird bath just for the view, I guess. It's proof I'm not entirely my mother's daughter because they've perched themselves in the front yard and I haven't whipped out a gun and shot 'em from the kitchen window. I would consider having her do it though.

Dream Kitchen:

Check out this amazing kitchen picture. I want this kitchen!!! I don't know how many woodshop classes it'll take, but I think a curved cupboard looks awesome!!!

Happy Birthday America!!!

Last week was my second favorite holiday (next to the opening of baseball): Fourth of July!!! Last year Aaron and were shut-ins, spending the entire day at both computers researching and writing our wedding ceremony. I learned later that my pal Martin did the same thing, writing a wedding ceremony from scratch, but he did it in a few hours one night in a bar. That was probably more fun but in the end we're both hitched to the one we love so that's what really matters. I digress. This year we gathered with our good friends, Martin & Cynthia, Ed & Brigit, and Martin's brother Dennis. We went to see the Mariner's rookie league team, the Everett Aquasoxs. It's a great place to go because you're up close and personal with the game. There are tons of family entertainment between innings And as the sun goes down you can see all sorts of fireworks on the horizon. After our big bottom of the 10th win they haul out a little set of fireworks into center field and put them on as music plays throughout the little stadium. We ate popcorn and ice cream and had ourselves a time!!! I hope we can do it again next year.

That's the news for now! Cheers!