Weekend With My Friends

For those of you that don't know my girlfriends (Tammie, Shelli, & Tracy) they are insane travelholics (is that a word?). They go on several trips a year all over the world. This benefits me because they are very sweet and bring me presents!

Before we even moved to Silverdale, they were planning their trip here. Unfortunately for my parents, they planned the trip before my parents told me they had thought of coming up the same weekend. Unfortunately for me, now I have to wait a year for my parents to visit me. They think they have to wait until the next Labor Day (why I don't know). Anyway, my girlfriends bought their tickets to come visit me for Labor Day before we left Salt Lake City. I was really happy about this because I was not looking forward to saying goodbye to them and this kind of broke it up and made it a little easier.

They arrived early Friday morning (Aug 29th). The airport is actually over inbetween Tacoma and Seattle, so I had to get up a little early in order to be there on time. Because Jake was still very little we couldn't leave him at home all day (still can't actually). He's sometimes a little difficult to control when I'm the only one in the car so Jake got to travel to the airport in his crate. He wasn't happy about this at first. He wined for a bit to let me know he was not happy. Shelli & Tracy (who sat in the back seat) entertained him for the rest of our traveling that day so he didn't have to travel like that again. That day we found our way (luckily because I had never driven there by myself) to Pikes Place Market which is one of the many famous attractions of Seattle. It's an open air market that actually reminds me a little of the Philippines. They sell fish, vegtables, fruit, flowers & many kinds of decorations. It's a lot of fun and definitely a cool experience if you've never been there. Jake got to spend a little time in his crate in the car waiting for us because they don't let animals in the enclosed building with the food. He had a nice nap, but was happy when we returned. We then returned to Silverdale and they got to see our new apartment and we met up with Tom after he got off of work. We then went to dinner at a cool harborside restaurant called The Boat Shed. We all had a lot of fun and I think we all loved our meals.
Saturday morning we left to go on a drive up the Olympic Peninsula. We stopped at several different light houses. It was a beautiful drive and we really enjoyed ourselves. As a side note, we picked up an area information paper with a note about Forks, WA. For those of you poor uninformed people....that's the location of the fictional characters in Stephanie Meyers Twilight books. They have started a Stephanie Meyers Day on "Bella's" birthday. What a hoot! Not something I would go to, but an entertaining thought!

Sunday was of course a relaxing day with church and an easy day hike. I use hike very loosely. There is this cute trail that meanders through town (however there is tons of trees so you would have no idea you were in town at all)! We took a nice leisurely walk through this trail. It was very pretty, relaxing & a nice Sunday outing. Jake also enjoyed it, but by the end he was pretty beat!

Monday was their last day here and we decided we would go back to Seattle on the way to the airport (their flight wasn't until that evening) to see some of the rest of the sights. This time instead of driving, we took the ferry to Seattle. Luckily we got one of the big ones with the open walkway on the top floor. Tom and I took one of these big ferries one night a few weeks ago. It was so cool to stand on the top floor and look at the open water in the dark night!!!! Beautiful!

For lunch we went to the world famous restaurant Ivars, my Dad has ranted about their clam chowder since he went to a business school here years ago. I wouldn't know though since I don't like clam chowder so I didn't try it. Tracy did though and said it is the best clam chowder she's ever had.

After dinner we went to the aquarium. It's a really neat aquarium. The coolest part was when we saw a octopus. We only got to show them the Space Needle from a distance because downtown was shut down for a yearly event they have every Labor Day. But it was close enough that they got to see it really well. Maybe next time we'll go to dinner there! We also went to see the Troll under the bridge that Tom tells me is in the movie "10 Things I Hate About You". I don't remember it. I guess I'm going to have to watch it again. This was also the day Tom got starstruck and saw his celebrity sighting. See his blog for more info!

That was the end of our sightseeing, but we have enough things to show them to last us maybe the next 3 trips they come to see us!!! We had a lot of fun and I hope they come again soon!