Sleepless in Seattle?

Taylor had an internship in Seattle this summer with Moss Adams, an accounting firm in the northwest. Devin and I decided to fly up to see him the last weekend of his internship. I'm not sure how appropriate the title of this blog post is, but we did burn the candle at both ends so we could see and do as much as possible while we were there. Many thanks to Ali and Justin for hosting us at their beautiful home in Renton. Taylor's apartment was about as big as my bathroom and was more like a dorm room so there was no room for us. 

We arrived on Thursday night so on Friday, Taylor's last day of work, Devin and I headed over to the University of Washington so we could check out the campus, football stadium, etc. 

The library looks like it belongs at Hogwarts

Go Dawgs!

It is a beautiful campus

Football stadium

After touring campus, we found the troll that lives under the bridge

Taylor was finished with work at noon so we met him for lunch.

He took us to a great Dominican food restaurant downtown

It was delicious!

We walked through Pioneer square and then to Pike Market where we sampled a 

crumpet with maple butter.  Yum! Highly recommended!

The view of the harbor from Pike Market

and we sampled a ginger beer, not highly recommended.

We added ice cream to ours and that made it a little easier to drink. 

FYI, it is a soft drink kind of like root beer but with ginger instead.

After touring Pike Market we headed over to the Seattle Center and the EMP (Experience Music Project) museum.

Taylor had two free tickets to the museum so Devin (having just been there last year) 

let Taylor and I use them.

They had a Star Trek Exhibit.

It was fantastic and I may have geeked out a little bit.

Taylor regenerating with the Borg

Sevin of Nine and Captain Janeway's uniforms.

Tribbles

Jordy LaForge and Jean Luc Picard's uniforms

The captain's chair!

They also had a myth and magic exhibit with some Lord of the Rings weaponry.

Taylor may have geeked out at this exhibit.

The alien!

We were ready for dinner after our museum tour so because it was Devin's birthday, he got to pick where we ate dinner.

We found a sushi restaurant that has the track that goes around the room with plates of sushi and you choose the plates you want and then they add up the plates at the end of the meal.

Before

After

It was really good!

We headed back over to the Seattle Center to visit the Chihuly glass sculpture exhibit.

It was amazing!!

And so cool to see at night

We dropped Taylor off at his apartment and checked out the view from his roof.

Pretty impressive.

Saturday morning we got up early and picked up Taylor and headed for Vancouver Canada.

It's about a two hour drive from Seattle if you don't have to wait long at the border.

We ended up waiting about 45 minutes to get through the border because it was a Saturday and lots of people were headed up north.

Our first stop was Granville Island.

There is a market on the island, bigger and better than Pike Market.

It was awesome.

We ate lunch outside at the market

The view of Vancouver from Granville Island

We checked out the Olympic torch

and the waterfront park around the torch

Beautiful! There were seaplanes, taking off and landing.

We then headed over to the Capilano Suspension bridge park

Wow, it was amazing!

The pictures don't do it justice, but it reminded us of the Ewok land in Star Wars.

Vancouver is truly a beautiful place!

Downtown Vancouver

Gassy Jack, a local hero?

 

Our Canadian treats.

We went to Taylor's ward at the Institute building on the University of Washington campus on Sunday and got to hear Taylor speak in church. The ward loved having him there all summer.

They recruited me to play the organ for Sacrament meeting.

Taylor also had to teach the Elder's quorum lesson so he was put to good work during his time in Seattle.

Devin and Taylor are big soccer fans so for Devin's birthday we had to attend a 

Seattle Sounders game, the professional soccer team in Seattle.

The Sounders fans meet at Pioneer Square before their games and the volunteer band leads the fans 

to the stadium for the game.

Of course we had to experience marching with the fans

My two boys!

These guys knew all the cheers and FYI, the fans stand the entire game.

The Sounders won and beat the Portland Timbers, their rival.

Devin flew home that evening and Taylor and I went to 

Gasworks park for some more beautiful views of Seattle.

We lucked out and had beautiful weather all weekend.

Dick's a Seattle favorite, for dinner.

I stayed at my friend Mary's house in Redmond Sunday night, and Monday morning, Taylor picked me up after getting his car all packed up and loaded and we drove to Poulsbo, Washington, a Norwegian fishing village across the bay from Seattle.

We had a seafood lunch at a restaurant on the water.

We then drove south to the Oregon Coast.

It was so fun to see the ocean

Haystack rock at Cannon beach

My parents loved the Oregon coast and one of my Dad's favorite places to eat was Mo's.

It was so fun to eat dinner at Mo's and have a bowl of clam chowder in honor of my Dad.

It was delicious!

We got an awesome table with a view of the ocean

(too bad that with the light behind us you can't see it)

We got up early on Tuesday morning, drove to Portland so Taylor could check it out ,

stopped at Multnomah falls, and then drove home to Boise.

It was a fabulous sleepless weekend exploring the beautiful northwest with my boys.