Visit from the (future) In-Laws!

The day after Thanksgiving, Ryan's parents came into town for a visit! It was the first time they've been to Seattle, so we had lots to show them. First things first though, as soon as we got back from picking them up from the airport, we settled in for the Auburn/Alabama game...as if there was any doubt, Auburn kicked some serious booty ;) Once we were done winning, we headed out into the town. We immediately ran into a huge mob of people huddled around the Westlake Center. Turns out they were having the Christmas Tree lighting celebration. We decided to continue on to the Pike Place Market to get a taste of that, and of course get a coffee at the original Starbucks ;)

[ryan and his parents at the original starbucks]

We wandered around the market a little more, but by that point most of the booths were closing up, so we continued on to the waterfront for a delicious seafood feast!

[crabpot seafood feast]

Saturday Ryan got to show off one of his projects! He took his parents on a tour of it, and needless to say, they were very proud!

[in the doorway of Ryan's project that's being constructed]

After that we went on to the museum of flight. And saw all the planes. I had been there once before with Jordan, but it was a first for everyone else. There was so much to see, we barely made it out before they closed!

[in front of Air Force One]

By the time we got home from the museum, it was about time for supper, and since the Space Needle is obviously a must see in Seattle, we decided to combine the two by eating at the Space Needle restaurant! I've been wanting to go to it for a while, but never had a good opportunity. The restaurant is right below the observation deck, and it rotates around so if you have a window seat (which we did) you're able to see everything while you're eating delicious food!

 [space needle supper]

Sunday was our snow day! We drove out to Roslyn, WA and rented some snowmobiles for the day and took them up the mountain. It was a perfect day for it with more sunshine than we've seen in a while ;) When we came back down from the mountain we made our way down to the beach of Lake Cle'Elum where we could do some nice fast snowmobiling on the long straightaways!

After a long day of snowmobiling, we headed home with a stop over in Leavenworth. It's a super cute little German town that especially festive in the winter. We walked around all the little shops and even did a little wine tasting! All the lights were super pretty. We ended up having supper there before heading back to Seattle for the night.

Monday we spent the day seeing a few more sights around Seattle. We went back to the market again to see it during the day while all the shops were bustling.

After the market we headed down to Pioneer Square to partake in the Underground Tour (another super touristy thing that I've been wanting to do since we got here!) It was fun to hear a little bit about the history of Seattle and get to go through some of the original (now underground) sidewalks of Seattle and imagine what it used to look like.

Tuesday was pretty rainy, but we were able to drive around to a few other sites like Gasworks Park, Golden Gardens and the Ballard Locks (there was a HUGE boat coming through the locks while we were there). Tuesday night Ryan's mom and I went shopping for a dress for her to wear for our wedding. We ended up finding a super cute little number ;) Meanwhile the boys were cooking up some brats at home, so we got to come home to dinner! Wednesday Ryan and I had to go back to work, so his parents did a few more touristy things around town. When we got home, they had some great seafood ready for us! I wish I could come home to a ready meal every night! That was their last night in Seattle, so we hung out for a while and I had to say my goodbyes so I could get up bright and early in the morning to go back to work. I'm so glad they got to come out for a few days and can't wait for our next visitors to come out (*hint hint to everyone*)!