There is a restaurant in Washington State (in Woodinville) called the Herbfarm.

It is without doubt the best restaurant I’ve ever been to, and I consider myself very lucky in that I’ve been to some amazing restaurants all over the world.

This is DEFINITELY a special occasion place, as it’s just too expensive for mere mortals to go that regularly, but if you like a great dining experience and consider yourself a “foodie” I’d totally recommend you visiting if you get the chance.

The restaurant is a farm to table establishment, where they grow most of the produce and have special relationships with a number of local vendors to provide amazing ingredients to create a truly unforgettable meal.

If you like to eat and get out in 20 minutes, this is not for you. You arrive at 7 and are greeted with a cocktail (if you get there a little earlier you can get a tour around their gardens and taste some of the produce off the vine!).

Then service begins and you are lucky to get out by 11pm, so this is an experience, not just a meal.

After the first course, the owner and head chef comes out with the wine sommelier and they tell you about the menu and pairings. This includes telling you how they came up with the menu and where the ingredients came from. They introduce you to all the staff for the night and the meal continues.

You can purchase a wine pairing for each course, and if you aren’t a wine person you can try their botanicals. ( Trust me have the wine 🙂 )

I’ve been fortunate to visit the Herbfarm a few times now, and this year for my birthday I decided to invite James and Abi (and Aidan, Abi’s other half) to a birthday dinner. So, Lisa and I flew to Seattle (as we are now in Colorado) and Abi and Aidan flew in, as they are based in Fresno, California. We stayed at James’ for the weekend and on Saturday night we went to the Herbfarm for dinner.

We made this a “joint” birthday celebration as James had just had his birthday too.

The food was amazing, the wine unbelievable, and someone sensible (wasn’t me) took some pictures of each course. Lisa had the botanicals and James, Abi, Aidan and I had wine.

There were 10 courses in all, and you get a little menu book to take away showing you everything you had.

Below are pictures of the menu and each course.

Again, if you ever get the chance, and LOVE food and wine, treat yourself to an amazing evening.

Here’s a link to the restaurant’s web page. The Herbfarm.

Here’s the menu:

Here’s the family just before dinner:

And here’s the courses in order…

This weekend Lisa and I flew to Fresno to attend Abi’s “White Coat Pinning Ceremony”

This recognized a phase in Abi’s doctorate where she has passed sufficient exams to start her clinical rotations. She has almost completed her first year (of three) and in two months starts gaining practical experience as a Physical Therapist at an outpatient practice.

The weather in Fresno was really nice (around 70°F or 21°C) warm and sunny so we got some great pictures after the ceremony. The ceremony was nice (and short) and her professors helped her into her white coat and gave her a pin – the White Coat has to be given back on Monday lol.

It was great seeing where she studies and we saw where she spends all her time (either in a classroom, a lab with her cadaver or the library where she studies)

The sad part of this bit of her education is she doesn’t really have any down time over summer and is expected to work in a PT practice in-between school semesters without any pay!

This feels very wrong to me, a lot of the students in the doctorate program are borrowing money to pay for their education and pretty much for 3 years they aren’t given the opportunity to earn any money. All the clinical rotations are considered part of their schooling/education. Yet the PT Practices get a student PT for free!

Oh well, it’s an important part of the process I guess and it’s only 3 years.

Anyway, we had a great (short) visit, and it was lovely to see her in Fresno.

Here are some of the pictures we took over the weekend:

We are so proud of Abi. We just got back from San Diego where we saw her graduate Magna Cum Laude from San Diego State University (SDSU) with a Batchelor’s Degree in Kinesiology.
For Abi, it’s a couple of months downtime before she heads to Fresno State University to get her doctorate in Physical Therapy.

Lisa, James and I had a wonderful weekend, lots of sun, sea, food and drink celebrating with Abi, her boyfriend Aidan and his family, and friends and family from Washington State and England (Thank you Nikki and Craig and Tania and Manesh for coming so far).

She’s now over halfway there, just 3 more years to go.

I took the camera and captured some pictures of her around the university and down on the beach. SDSU is a really pretty university with lots of white stucco buildings with Spanish tile roofs, makes a great backdrop for graduation pictures.

Here are a few shots (from the many I captured).

Again, congratulations Abi.

Friday turned out to be a really beautiful day and as we had family (Regan) in town I decided to take a day off work and go out and enjoy the weather.  We all voted and picked Seattle as the location thinking the view from the Space Needle would fantastic.

So first we hit Pike Place Market.  The temperature was over 80 degrees and the tourists were out in force but we had a great time walking through the Market grabbing pics along the way.  I love the flowers, fruit and veg stalls and took a load of pics at each.  We found an interesting pasta stall and I got some great close up shots of pasta, I can see some of these making great wallpapers.

We walked past the gum wall which was recently cleaned and found that people had once again started to “decorate” the alley (much I’m sure to everyones delight – I don’t think anyone wanted Seattle to remove all the gum).

Then it was onto the Space Needle.  Now I’ve taken so many pictures of the Needle it’s difficult to come up with something new or interesting.  I got one shot I quite liked standing below the needle looking up and a couple of others getting the needles reflection in the “Experience Music Project” (EMP) building.

As expected the views from the top of the needle were amazing.  You could see for miles and even Mount Rainer was super clear.

To end the day, we finished up in Kirkland grabbing some Seattle Hot Dogs (you definitely need to try a Seattle dog if you never have) and then spent some time sitting by Lake Washington.

I took (as usual) a TON of pics, I’m just posting a few here today.

Really pleased I took the day off as I’m typing this on Saturday morning and it’s raining outside – you gotta love Seattle weather!

This weekend my new Fujifilm X-Pro2 camera body arrived and I have to say I’m delighted with it, I LOVE this camera and think it’s probably the best one I’ve ever owned (and I’ve had quite a few).

It’s beautifully made, feels great in the hands, super fun to use and full of features. The rangefinder look and feel is great fun (just like my X100T) only now with 24 mega pixels and the new Arcos film simulation. I now also get my ±2 stops for exposure bracketing (about time fuji) so I can’t wait to get out and shoot some landscapes.

So what do I shoot for the first time? Well those of you who know me know I’m not a huge fan of pet portraits. Actually strike that, I don’t like shooting any animal period! I just don’t have the patience (or probably the talent) to get a good picture.

But this weekend Roxie was just sitting in the kitchen looking at me with a brilliant “I’m guilty” look on her face. I have no idea what she did (must have been something) but I thought I’d try and get a shot anyway. What was amazing was that she just sat there and didn’t move. And I got (I think) a great shot.

So here’s my first posting with the new fuji (I love this camera – have I said that yet?), hope you love the Guilty Doggy image 🙂