Saturday, October 10, 2009

Puyallup, Washington


We flew up to Seattle early Friday morning out of Burbank's Bob Hope Airport to spend the weekend seeing friends and attending the University of Arizona Wildcats at the University of Washington Huskies football game.

This is now becoming an annual event which gives us a chance to visit with two our our favorite people, Christie and Jason Johnson. If you are new to the blog, Jason and Christie were our housemates in Sicily during the 2008 Italian football season while Jason was quarterbacking the Elephants to the playoffs.

Of course, any trip to Seattle also means a great visit with our dear friends Mark, Susie, Sophie and Mallory Johnson. Thet are not related to Jason and Christie if you were wondering.

This trip would be a little different because instead of our normal game plan of spending the whole weekend in Seattle at Mark and Susie's home, we would instead spend the Friday night at Jason's parents home in Puyallup about 45 minutes south of Seattle before being handed off to Mark and Susie Saturday night after the game at Husky Stadium.

With Jason and Christie at the Ram Restaurant in Tacoma for lunch.

The Ram has a strict Anti-Gun Policy!

Puyallup's Good Samaritan Hospital

Puyallup is world renowned for two things.

First, it is the only city in America, if not the world, that has two P's, two L's and two U's in its name.

Secondly, it is the birthplace of Lori Wrout, one of Rio Mesa H.S.'s best teachers. She was born at Good Samaritan which gives the hospital "Historic Landmark" status.

We drove past the Puyalup Fairgrounds and were pleasantly surprised.

KARMA!!!

The Fairgrounds were hosting a Scandinavian Heritage Festival. The Swedish flag is the blue and yellow one on the far right.

I wonder if everybody in Hässleholm will dress like this handsome couple?

Laurie was ready to start her first foray into shopping for her trip to Sweden.

My newest Scandinavian friend Bengt

VERY cool hat!

Christie wearing her authentic, traditional Dirndl

More on this later.

Swedish Cuisine to be sampled

Unfortunately, no XXL

I will need to learn local cooking techniques while I'm in Sweden.

The Puyallup Fairgrounds was also hosting an Oktoberfest!

Now the Dirndl makes sense!

Dueling Outfits

Christie's Burberry purse trumped the white stockings. . . maybe.

There were so many people of Germanic Heritage dressed in their traditional outfits in the Biergarten.

Enjoying the traditional Puyallup Oktoberfest Beer Gloves

An Oompah Band is a MUST!

Your hair should always match your stockings

We just HAD to enter this Tournament!

Hammerschlagen Action

The rules are simple, who can pound a nail flush into a log with the butt end of a hammer the fastest. You get one attempt at a time as the hammer rotates around the log between six or seven players.

It was not as easy as it looked and was great fun!

So ended our first day in Puyallup, Washington.

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