A visit from our New York City friends, Irv and Erin

As a nice cap-off to their Hawaiian vacation, our old friends from NY stopped in Seattle for a long weekend.  We saw the usual sights, Pike's Market and the Underground.  Plus we went kayaking in on Lake Washington, hiking near Mt. Rainier, and drinking at a Mariner's game.  Of course we only have pictures of the hike, but maybe more to come if Erin forwards me some of the others.  The view of Rainier was spectacular, as was the size of my stomach (I don't think I'm supposed to look like this. :))   

A Seattle Summer-lots to do

In June we drove out west to Port Angeles and the Olympic Peninsula.  The mountains were beautiful.  We went with Michaela and Kevin, 2 of Patrick's co-workers and our new friends.

We also hiked along the coast where Kevin got his first sight of the Pacific Ocean.

The point of our travels was for Michaela and Patrick to run a 1/2 marathon and for Kevin and I to run a 5K.  We all did pretty well, Kevin winning his age group.

To celebrate the arrival of summer, we went to the Fremont neighborhood for the Solstice Parade and street fair.  It was quite interesting with naked bicyclers and more male genitalia then I care to remember.  But so much fun all the same.  


My dad and stepmom, Pat, visited for a week at the beginning of July.  We saw as much beautiful scenery as we could manage and had a great time.  We went east a bit to Snoqualmie Falls.  We saw Rattlesnake Lake (below) along the way.  (I have since hiked the peak/ledge in the picture below).

We were able to see the 4th of July fireworks from our roof with a great view of the space needle, too.

We took a walk around the Seattle Arboritum...

and took the Victoria Clipper to tour the quaint town of Victoria, B.C. and the Butchart Gardens.  They were literally breathtaking.

The weather was perfect and there were several opportunities to marvel at Mt. Rainier and the amazing Seattle scenery.  It was a great trip.  

Still more summer fun and visitors to come.  

16 weeks and counting...shorter hair, bigger belly