Dan and I have been making an effort this year to take advantage of our West Coast location to explore the places in our “neighborhood.” (It’s a rather large neighborhood that extends from SoCal into Canada and east toward Colorado…) This year, we decided to take the short flight up to Seattle to celebrate our sixth anniversary.
We started with lunch at a funky, eclectic, utterly Seattle and utterly delicious restaurant, Cyclops, in Belltown. We appreciated the insider suggestion from Dan’s good friend from high school, Paul, and his wife, Carissa, who now live in Seattle and met us for lunch and a little exploring.
We took another tour through Pike Place Market after a stop at Fran’s Chocolates, recommended to us by Nick and Laura who visited during one of their Seattle trips. We then wandered around until we found an upscale, newly opened Thai restaurant for a very enjoyable dinner with gelato on the way back to our downtown hotel.
On Sunday, our actual anniversary, we packed in the fun starting with an underground tour of Seattle from the time when Seattle was at beach level before it was flooded and slowly built back up. Basically, when the city flooded (along with its sewage), the time it was going to take at least seven years to build up the ground level and rebuild all the buildings. Store owners couldn’t wait — seven years of no profit just wasn’t an option. So they rebuilt at beach level and used ladders to get from the new street level down to the stores during the process of raising the ground level above flood levels. Eventually, there was an entire city built below ground level that can now be toured. It was a great way to start a lightly rainy, grey, chilly, Seattle Sunday.
Seattle Space Needle.
We then trekked over to the Seattle Center to gaze at the Space Needle and tour the impressive Chihuly Museum. (After a first nerdy stop to gaze at the Gates Foundation.) Each new room in the museum earns a gasp because the displays are stunning. The Museum ends with a tour of the garden, structured by color to meld with nature.
I’d highly recommend the museum to any tourists, although there’s lots more to visit such as going up the Space Needle or the EMP Museum.
It was then nap time (vacation!) before getting dolled up for some of the best salmon we’ve ever had at Etta restaurant near Pike Place Market to celebrate six years of marriage.
I am so happy to be able to continue to choose to love this man, and to have him continue to choose to love me. I’m thankful for our time to grow together and to build a stronger relationship. I continue to be impressed by this handsome, charming, ridiculously intelligent and hard-working, kind man that I get to be married to. It’s amazing to learn that even when you love someone with all your heart, you can be surprised to find that love getting bigger and bigger. Happy anniversary to my best friend!
On Memorial Day Monday we took a Greyhound bus from Seattle to Portland to visit our Portland family. We visited the Bonneville Dam Fish Ladders to see the salmon running before holiday battling traffic to Multnomah Falls.
We stayed an extra day and the kids tried unsuccessfully to convince their parents to let them skip school to hang out with Uncle Dan and Aunt Andrea. While they were in class, we hiked ~7 miles from Pittock Mansion to the Japanese Rose Garden, and back. We kept a fast (read: please stop to let us breathe!) pace thanks to our hike leader and friend, Jeff. The garden is expansive, and I never knew that each different rose would smell so differently. (That’s what you learn when you literally stop to smell the roses.) I’m so glad we got to visit the mansion with it’s view of Mount Hood and the rose garden, and hope to have a chance to return to the garden with a picnic lunch.
After school we got a few more hours together before heading to the airport and taking the short flight home. What a great way to celebrate six years of marriage!
Sprocketts by the Bay 