Love and Life

Let's Start at the beginning. Seattle.

I decided I had better start at the beginning of our trip; which was an early (6am) flight to Seattle. We got to Seattle city center by 9:30am, which meant a full day was available to being complete tourists. Of course we started with the Market, which I found to be completely enchanting--however, I do have to say, I am still waiting for a market to top what I found while living in London. Nothing can quite compare to Portobello Market or Borough Markets I found in London.

Anyway, I love love Pike's Market and we had a blast sampling foods and eating anything our hearts' desired.















Of course I was completely obsessed with all of the flowers.



After circling Pike's a few times we decided it was time to explore. We headed toward the City Library, which turns out to be the coolest library I have ever seen! The whole thing is glass so there are some really great views from the inside.


Next we decided to get out of the city center and go up to the Queen Ann neighborhood. We had some great Thai food and enjoying seeing where people like to live in Seattle. This neighborhood is up on a big hill-- one of the city's biggest, so we started looking for the old mansions that were built there. Luckily it didn't take us too long too find one ...


But we soon discovered the treasure in this journey was not the cool big homes, but THIS:










The most amazing view of the water and of the city. We were not the only one's to have discovered this awesome park, but we were so excited to have found the best picture spot of the city in all of Seattle (so we were told by a local).

(Ok, so the person who took our picture was clearly not the one to ask, but let's just say you have to be there to capture the beauty and romance of this park overlooking the city).



We even took a little break here and laid down on the grass for an amazing nap. An old dating tradition of ours to do...

By the time we got back into the city, it was time to meet Ryan's family and his long-time friend Nate and his family for dinner. It was so much fun to get to know one of Ryan's oldest friends and his family. (this is Nate training Ryan on how to be a good dad)


For our last night in Seattle we went exploring down to Pioneer Square. This is the old historic part of the city, with the old buildings dating back to the fire that burnt the city down. It was fun just to walk and explore some more, we took Ryan's mom, Jeralyn and brother, Ty with us.





Sunday morning we took a bus up to the University and went to church. It felt kind of weird to be in a singles ward...and we didn't miss it much :) It was freezing on Sunday morning so I hijacked Ryan's jacket. We went back to Pikes for a delicious lunch and for a sweet surprise---





After Pike's we changed our clothes and took a quick bus ride to the port for our cruise. Along the way we met some of the ship's musicians, who were really great and helped me with my bags. With my flowers in hand, they all assumed we were on our honeymoon...we tried to correct them, but this soon became a theme for us on the trip.

Goodbye Seattle, Hello Alaska!