Recently, my sister Suzanne) and her husband (Randy) were in town, partially because he had business here and partially as a pit stop on their way to their cabin. While they were in town, Suzanne, our sister-in-law (Staci), and I celebrated Suzanne's recent birthday (way to be a deck of cards, Suzanne!) by having lunch at The Barking Frog and then sampling some of the offerings from the tasting rooms in Woodinville. It was a marvelous, low-key, laughter-filled afternoon together. We ate marvelous food (although waited an insane amount of time for a black napkin, but oh well) and tried many tasty wines. The three of us shared a tasting at three different tasting rooms, so we got some lovely wines to sample, but not so much that we were stumbling through Woodinville.
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| A garden by The Barking Frog |
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| Suzanne and Staci |
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| Suzanne and Staci... up close and personal (and at a diagonal) |
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| The slough reflecting the beautiful sky |
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| A big dragonfly statue near the slough |
The next day, we had a siblings' dinner out with my brother (Troy), Staci, Suzanne, Randy, Eric, and me. Suzanne and Randy suggested we eat at Morton's, which sounded great to the rest of us. We got all spiffed up and headed downtown.
Morton's is an old-school steak house, and I'm a little surprised we didn't see the likes of Al Capone and someone who goes by the nickname of Bugsy or Tiny Timmy Tuna at one of the nearby tables. Being a Tuesday evening, the restaurant was fairly empty, which meant there weren't many people for our loud, uproarious laughter to disturb... and we didn't have to wait long for our food. We told stories, reminisced, teased, joked, and acted like the goofballs that we truly are. It was such fun to reconnect with each other and just be together for a couple of hours.
When the topic of appetizers came up, we all agreed that a little nibble would be nice. Troy asked if anyone else would like to share a plate of oysters. Umm... nope!! Not a single taker, so he ate it all on his own. For every "mmmmm!!!" that escaped from Troy, an "ick", "blech", or "gag" was returned. As for dinner, everyone agreed that we ordered well. Eric and I both ordered the same thing: a plate that had filet mignon (YUM!), prawns, and bacon-wrapped scallops. Oh my... that's all I can say. Just oh my.... :)
Unfortunately for us (probably a good thing for the employees at the restaurant), our sibling dinner was on a work night, so we couldn't stay out gabbing as long as we probably would have had we gone out on a weekend. It was hard to pull ourselves away, but knowing work and waking up early were around the bend, we eventually said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways.
Due to rather convoluted reasons that aren't overly blog-worthy, Eric and I wound up driving Suzanne and Randy's car to the restaurant, so they could drive it to Idaho the next morning. Not wanting to drive two cars downtown, I suggested that Eric and I just take a cab or the like home. We wound up trying out Uber car and cannot say enough about it. We used the app to summon a car (wow - how snooty did THAT sound?) and a driver picked us up within 5 minutes. We could even see his car approach on the app's map. The car was impeccably clean, the driver was very courteous, and we were home in a snap. All in all, a wonderful experience.
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| Staci and Troy... so cute! |
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| Randy and Troy ... da photobombers of Morton's |
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| One guess who does and doesn't like oysters! |
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| This is what happens when Suzanne is emphatic about her topic of conversation |
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| What a sharp lookin' group! |
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| Staci wanted in on the photobombing action, too |
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| Troy, aka the peace sign photo bomber, with Suzanne and Randy |
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