The Galer Greenspace mini-park's second-anniversary celebration on June 15 drew Mayor Greg Nickels (far right, with back to camera) who recognized McGilvra Elementary School fifth-graders Zenovia Weist (left), Wendy Collins, Brant, among others, for their work on the park in Madison Park at 38th Avenue East and East Madison Street, a former site for illegal dumping.
Our individual style in home furnishings is as unique as our own personality. It is our own reaction to various styles that determine our home-décor passions. And because it is not uncommon for our design style to change through the years, what do you do if the style you like right now is totally different from your current furnishings and accessories?Well, believe it or not, you are in luck, because one of today's top design styles is called "eclectic." Eclectic decorating focuses on mixing and matching a variety of decorating styles brought together with a common color scheme. So remember, variety is good, and your passion for the eclectic style of design sets you apart. Think about it: Aren't the most interesting rooms a mix of unique furniture, art, wall color, floor coverings, window treatments and accessories?Here are some ways to enhance your eclectic style while pulling it all together with color schemes.
Despite interest rates of more than 20 percent, strong competition and the balance of work and family, Barbara Cupp-Gietzen, Emily Scott, Jean Viereck and Kitty Hughes were able to see their Madison House Real Estate business through it all. Their hard work, dedication and passion are evident in the successful company Madison House Ltd./Sotheby's International Realty has grown to be. The four former business partners joined for lunch in early June to celebrate Madison House's 25th anniversary.Servicing the areaLooking back, Hughes remembers her first sale: a Medina home that sold for $59,900. "That home is worth at least $2 million today," she said. "It has been amazing to see the homes when we first started selling them and seeing them now - seeing how much the market has increased in value."Cupp-Gietzen opened Madison House on June 15, 1981. She chose the current Madison Park location, at 4227 E. Madison St., for a variety of reasons: "I absolutely loved the location and believed in it. There wasn't any other boutique office in Madison Park other than Ewing & Clark, and I thought the area and market could use another business. It was close to home, safe environment. I had contacts and could easily travel to the Eastside."
McGilvra Elementary School parents who contributed to the Aloha-themed auction in March celebrated at Kevin and Maria Cahoon's home on June 10 with a memorable margarita party. Six couples worked tirelessly, grilling fajitas, bartending and creating beautiful tissue-paper corsages for the women to wear. With candles flickering, cocktails flowing and conversation at a peak, a sudden blue flame caught everyone's attention. Poor Leeanne Rowlen and Susie Cobb were extinguished with Cuervo 1800 (which we wouldn't recommend). It seems a corsage got a little too close to the flame. Everyone remained safe and unharmed, and festivities continued with one hot party blazing on until 2 a.m. Was there really pole-dancing that evening in Canterbury? Thunder leaves Leschi Billy the Kid strikes again. Seattle's famed Billy Schumacher is back in the world of unlimited hydroplane racing - only this time it's by taking ownership of the former U-8 turbine-powered hydroplane. Billy and his wife, Jane Suzick, will race under the number U-37 in the spirit of the original Miss Seattle of the 1950s. Leschi residents for years, they sadly leave the shores of Lake Washington for a houseboat on Lake Union.
Having grown up along the shores in Canterbury and Madison Park and later in Hawaii, Jean-Pierre (J.P.) Canlis' affinity to water was clear. He got to know the water intimately, studying and surfing it, until he became one with it.His glass art is reflective of that connection. Many of his pieces - like those in his Backwash, Undertow and Waves series in his Ocean Studies collection - "portray the emotion of the ocean," he explained."It came naturally to me - similar to the ocean...," Cnalis said. "If I never see the ocean again, I would still make [art of it]."It's funny what happens when you think about it so much," he added. "It becomes part of you."An inspiring presenceAs his last name alludes, the 33-year-old Canlis is a member of the Canlis restaurateur family. His grandfather started the Canlis restaurants, with his uncle owning the one on Queen Anne and his father operating the one in Hawaii. But while many of his relatives have, in turn, become restaurateurs, Canlis' passion was in his glass art. With his parents' support, he studied art in high school, picking up his first glass-blowing pipe as a junior in Honolulu. Later, he studied glass art at Alfred University's School of Art and Design in New York. During his summers in college, Canlis returned to the Puget Sound area and studied at the Pilchuck School in Stanwood, ultimately working with famed glass artist Dale Chihuly full-time."Chihuly is very different from other glass artists," Canlis said. "He's not afraid to spend money to make something excessively well."He also taught Canlis to "don't be afraid of what you're making," he said.Chihuly's "excitement about his work is contagious. It's inspiring to be around," said Canlis' wife, Leigh, whom he met while she served as Chihuly's executive assistant.
If you were to walk into any given classroom in the Kirkland area, it wouldn't take long to summon up a pretty homogenous snapshot of the student body. Children of color sprinkled throughout a majority of white kids. Storerooms well stocked with supplies. New backpacks hanging from rows of hooks.But affluence - which is usually invisible at the elementary level and painfully more obvious at the secondary level - mingles with poverty in our school system. Yes, the schools are well-maintained and the Lake Washington School District has an enviable modernization schedule (thanks to levies which are not state-mandated, but voter-approved). But, beneath the façade lurks a tale of inequity.In more than half of the 48 schools served by the Lake Washington School District throughout Kirkland, Redmond and Sammamish, 14 percent of the students receive free or reduced lunches (meaning the family's income is at a low enough level to quality for state aid). Some schools have half their students earning this dubious qualification.And the district receives $1,000 less per student in state funding than comparable neighboring districts - Bellevue, Mercer Island and Seattle can generate up to 34 percent - making our district even more dependent on local levies to meet schools' basic needs. To rub salt in the wound, levy funds are limited since grandfathered-in levy lids mean that our district is only able to raise up to 24.9 percent of the funds provided to the district by the state in a local levy.
As we all know from reading the headlines, real estate in the Puget Sound region has appreciated significantly over the past few years. As a result, many people have much of their investment assets tied up in this real estate - whether it's a rental home, apartment house or commercial property.But what happens when these investors no longer want to manage their property? When they get to a point in their lives when they no longer want to deal with what I call the three Ts - tenants, toilets and trash? And, when it comes time to sell, how can investors avoid the fourth T - taxes? There is a way for investors to take their real estate holdings, defer taxes and still earn an income stream from the appreciated real estate. A way for these investors to trade in their rental residences - with rents that don't always keep up with the rising value of real estate - for a larger, institutional-quality real estate option that until recently was only available to very wealthy investors. And, there is a way to do this without paying taxes on the real estate sale.
Today we're going to talk about the right way, and the wrong way, to take your cat to see the vet for the first time. The right way is to pick them up in your arms, in a nice quiet room, soothe them with your voice and place them gently inside the pet carrier. Carefully close the pet carrier door, all the while talking in dulcet tones to keep your beloved animal peaceful and feeling loved. The wrong way is how my husband attempted to do it today, which resulted in bloodshed, excrement and a chipped tooth. His, not the cat's. The chipped tooth, I mean. Also, for clarification purposes, it was the cat who had the crap literally scared out of him and not (as was the rumor) my husband. We have two cats that have not seen a vet before. One is the mother of the boy, who is the result of an unfortunate act of incest by our third cat, who is now in his fourth month of a serious time- out for breeding with his sister.
At Jennifer Livingston's new teacher orientation, she, like the other new teachers, received a $200 new teacher grant from the Lake Washington Schools Foundation (LWSF). She was pretty excited. So when her principal alerted her to a free grant writing class, also offered by LWSF, she was the first to sign up.Together with a team of teachers from Rose Hill Elementary, Livingston attended the two-hour free seminar held at the Lake Washington School District Resource Center in December 2005. For Jennifer Livingston and the staff at Rose Hill, Grant Writing 101 has already paid off - Rose Hill Elementary received $3,000 in grants this past spring and the staff is ready to take on more.The idea behind the free class was simple: The foundation was brand new and didn't have the resources to give away the kind of money it wanted to. But they can still help generate dollars for the district by helping teachers, staff and parents get support from other, bigger foundations. It's like the old Chinese proverb, "Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime." Teaching grant writing is essentially teaching people how to sell their good idea to the right donor.
I have learned that this town is a village in and of itself. There is more community spirit here than any other place I've experienced. I was able to learn and enjoy Kirkland by taking time in the office to talk to local diners as they came into the office after the dinner hour and tourists from around the world. As are most businesses, the downtown Kirkland merchants are looking for that key to success, and trying to understand the market trends. Success is achieved through dedication to meeting the public's needs. It has been found that more than 70 percent of people who shop retail, do so after 4 p.m. OUR lights are on at night to cater to all those who come downtown to experience dining, shopping and evening events.As an established business in Kirkland, we [Hallmark Realty] realize we have to be aware of the ebb and flow of downtown Kirkland. As a business we obtain our clientele through referrals, advertising, marketing materials and Web sites, and enjoy a large amount of clientele through walk-in traffic. We have found it very important to stay open until 8:30 p.m. - a time when most of the people are experiencing downtown Kirkland. The evening hours give our agents the opportunity to meet and serve a larger number of clients. As such, our agents are available to welcome both new and past clients.
Although named for the mercurial Greek god of the sea, the Neptune Sailing Club lends a far tamer option for those wanting to tame the high seas - or the lake.Snuggled behind Anthony's Home Port in the Kirkland Marina are four 22-foot sailboats - two Catalina 22s (designated for family outings) and two J-22s (the racers) - there for the taking on Lake Washington by any of the club's 85 members. The only restriction is you've got to sail between the lines - or at least the triangle - of the SR-520 bridge to the south, Sand Point to the west and the far end of Juanita Bay to the north.Venturing to the edge of these boundaries and back will be close to the three-hour weekend max, says club president Keith Krumm. This time restriction is lifted during the week, although boats must always be checked back in by 5 p.m.
Time hasn't been kind to Juanita Beach Park since the area was turned into a popular waterfront hotspot by the Forbes family in the early 1900s. That was made possible when Lake Washington was lowered by almost 10 feet as part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal project, said Michael Cogle, planning and development manager for Kirkland Parks and Community Services. "When the lake was lowered, lo and behold, there was this wonderful sandy beach exposed," he said. Lakefront property owners Leslie and Alicia Forbes recognized a golden opportunity when they saw one, and the couple built a bathhouse near the beach with a dance hall on the second floor, Cogle said. And people came from all over the region to rent beachfront cabins during weekends, he added.Kirkland Deputy Mayor Joan McBride, who grew up in the city, said there also used to be an artists' colony in the area. That was before her time, she said. But McBride remembers hanging out at the beach when she was a kid, when it was much nicer.
The City Church on 132nd Avenue Northeast started out in 1992 with a core group of 21 people whose first service in Bellevue drew 40 parishioners, according to Jude Fouquier, a church elder. The growth of the non-denominational evangelical organization has skyrocketed since then, and a congregation of what has turned into a mega-church has reached approximately 6,000 people who attend services not only in Kirkland, but also on the Sammamish Plateau, Seattle's Central District and Belltown neighborhood, as well as near the University of Washington campus, he said.Headed up by Pastors Wendell Smith and his wife, Gini, The City Church members come from different ethnic backgrounds; they're rich, poor, young and old, male and female, Fouquier said. "And so we believe in diversity because it's a true representation of God's kingdom."Parishioners also come from Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Buddhist, Muslim, atheist and Shintoist backgrounds, he said. "But the thing we have in common ... we all have come to a relationship with Jesus Christ."That belief is common in Christian churches, but Washington state is often described as one of the least church-going areas of the country. Fouquier thinks that's great because, he said, that means there's "more fish in the sea."
When Vivian Estrada was growing up in the Philippines, she and her extended family picnicked on Saturdays down by the river near their town. "It was a nice river," says Vivian, stroking the air in curves, "clear and flowing. Lots of shade." While men rested and children played, her mother and aunties cleaned laundry in the river.Now Vivian works at the Queen Anne Laundry Room among gleaming white machines. The setting and method are different, but the activity is the same.Vivian was born in 1957 in the municipality of Mabini, province of Pangasinan, north of Manila. She is the sixth of nine children in the Estrada family. The eldest were twin girls, one of whom died of asthma as an adult. Vivian's father was Mabini's postmaster, and her mother was a laundress in a nursing home.Vivian studied banking and finance at the University of Pangasinan, where she met fellow student Marcelino Abarra. The two fell in love and got engaged. Then Marcelino moved to Manila to take a job as a sanita-tion engineer for the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), and they continued a long-distance romance for two years. Finally Vivian decided she, too, would find more opportunities in Manila, and moved there without finishing college. She got a job as a filing clerk.After a five-year engagement, Vivian and Marcelino wed in 1981. Eventually they bought a house in Manila and had three sons: Gerald, Jason and Jonathan.While Marcelino worked at the MMDA (eventually putting in 28 years), Vivian ran a mini-mart out of one room in their home. It not only supplemented the family's income, but neighbors gathered there. "Neighbors know each other in the Philippines," says Vivian, "not like here."
The city's Landmarks Preservation Board designated the Treat House at the corner of Queen Anne Avenue and West Highland Drive as a historic landmark. The June 7 vote was unanimous, said preservation-board spokes-woman Beth Chave.It was a decision welcomed by the Queen Anne Historical Society, which was stung by the demolition last year of the historic Black Mansion just up the street on West Highland. "What is really a landmark house was, in fact, preserved," said John Hennes, historical society president. "It is satisfying because it is a more significant house than the Black Mansion was."But the owners of what is now an apartment house were deeply disappointed by the ruling, said Art Skolnik, one of the state's first historic-reservation officers and someone who ironically argued against the landmark designation for the Treat House. "We feel the historical designation was inaccurate and didn't accurately address the building's integrity," he said.