Girls Weekend #1! [seattle style]

We had a fabulously girly weekend in Seattle! Mom and Tara arrived Friday afternoon. Tara did a great job on the plane. No barking at all, but she was definitely excited to get out of her little crate! After packing up my car, we headed back to the apartment where we had to sneak Tara in the garage door. Dogs over 35lbs aren't technically aloud in the apartments, but i suppose she's not 'technically' living there either. Hopefully we won't get in trouble for it. We just need to teach her not to back when she hears noises in the hall. She's not so used to the apartment life. After getting the dog settled, mom and I headed out on the town to grab a good seafood lunch by the sound and then head to the library (cause mom's a nerd) and several bookstores. The Seattle Library is actually a pretty famous building by Rem Koolhaas. I have been less than impressed by it's appropriateness as a library, but i was excited to come across the 4th floor this time which is completely different than the rest of the library. It has bright red walls, floors, and ceilings and feels like you're walking through someones stomach. It's very confined and provides a nice contrast to the utilitarian openness of the rest of the building.

Mom passed out in the hotel after a long day of traveling and not adjusting to the time change while I went to pick up the rest of the girls Friday night! It was already pretty late when they got in, so we just hung out at the apartment for a little while with a little wine. Luckily Saturday morning didn't come too early. We headed out around 11 to hit up several of the parks in the outer edges of Seattle. First was a bit of a hike through Discovery Park in the Magnolia neighborhood. We hiked down to the beach and saw an old lighthouse at the point of the park. There is also the historic grounds of Fort Lawton. By the time we got back to the car, we had worked up quite an appetite. We headed over to the Ballard neighborhood to find some good/cheap seafood by the water. We ended up eating right by the Ballard Locks which was another thing on my list of things to do! After we ate, we checked out the Locks and even got to see a boat being lowered into the sound. I'd love to go back when the salmon are traveling to see them jumping up the Locks! Next we headed over to Freemont to check out the Freemont Troll! We ended up just parking the car in Freemont and spending most of the rest of the day there. We walked down by the water where there are a lot of houseboats. It's the area that the houseboat from 'Sleepless in Seattle' is supposed to be. I don't think we saw that one, but we saw lots of other ones! It's amazing how much they look like normal houses that just happen to be floating in the lake.

A little further down the water front is the Gasworks Park. There's a little hill there that a lot of kids like to fly kites on, and it was no exception when we were there! The actual park used to be an industrial park where there was a gasification plant for the city of Seattle. Now most of the machinery is still there, but fenced off, and some is accessible to play on. The rest of the area has been turned into a grassy park. I think we pooped ourselves out with all the walking around all day, so the rest of the day was very relaxed...starting with a riveting viewing of 'The Holiday' in the hotel room. Still one of my faves! Mom was out for the rest of the night, so the rest of us got some good Mexican then took a bottle of wine back to the apartment for a few mean games of uno! I think Kimberly rigged the deck cause she won most of the games!

Sunday was another big day of walking around. This time we just walked through the city. We started out making the rounds through the Pike Place Market. We had to stop by the first ever Starbucks and grab a cup of coffee!
Then we just wandered through the market. It's tulip season so there are all kinds of gorgeous flowers out at the market! I ended up buying a dozen tulips later that day. They're so pretty! We headed over to the Space Needle after the market. I'm so glad Ryan and I got our annual passes. We have definitely gotten our money's worth out of them already! It makes it free for each of us and one guest to go to the observation deck which is normally $18 per person each time and we only paid $30 for each membership. Needless to say, I am quite proud of the purchase :)

After the needle, we just happened to be close to one of my favorite pizza places, Zeeks! So we had to sample the goodness and K&L needed a taste of some of Seattle's finest micro brews :) Then we headed towards the water via the sculpture park and walked along the sound for a while. We ended up meeting up with Ryan at the architecture firm that he works at so that everyone could get a tour of it. It's a really cool office especially if you've never been in an architecture firm before as my visitors had not! We ended up going back to the market afterwards in search of a Swedish bakery that Lauren had heard about, only to finally find it and it was closed. I got my pretty flowers though, and mom got her 'mounds' cookie. By that time it was almost time to say adios to half the girls :( We took Kimberly and Lauren to the airport and Mom and I headed up to Oak Harbor for the night so that she could see my sweet digs.Tara was definitely excited to see grass when we got to my house. She's been really confused in the city, and has so far pooped on the sidewalk every time since she can find enough grass anywhere! I've got her a little poop baggie dispenser now so I can clean up her little mess wherever it happens. Monday morning Mom and I took the ever so extensive tour of Oak Harbor. We drove around the base and I took her down the road by the water where I always see eagles. Not to disappoint, we saw 3 or 4 eagles then too! We drove through the rest of Oak Harbor, which took a whole 10 more minutes to see everything, and decided to pack up and head back to Seattle. On the way out, we stopped by the deception pass park. The bridge that I pass over every time I drive to Seattle is still beautiful to me. This time we went down to the park so I could see the view of it from water. It has beautiful views driving over it too. We stopped by the Seattle outlet mall on the way back too. If I actually needed to buy something it would have been much more exciting, but this time it was just a tease that I had to resist in my efforts to conserve my funds. When we got to Seattle, we took Mom to the Mexican restaurant around the corner since she missed out on it the other night. Then we played a few sweet games of Yahtzee at the apartment! I'm pretty sure I dominated this time. At this point, girls weekend came to an end and we took mom back to the airport.

Now I can't wait to go on my next girls weekend in Gulf Shores in less than 3 weeks!!