A beautiful weekend

I love Seattle. I love Seattle in the summer. I love drinking local beer on a patio in the cool Summer evening in Seattle. I love weekend getaways without the kids. I love traveling with my husband. It was a perfect weekend.....

Steve spent the week before July 4th in California on business. We decided we would take a weekend getaway to Seattle over the long weekend. Kari stayed with Mimi and Pop. I flew out on Thursday afternoon and met Steve in Seattle.

Friday morning, Steve and I and our friends, Sheldon and Susie, ventured down to Mount St. Helens to take in the sights. Our first stop was at the Mount St. Helens visitor center....

We walked around a 1 mile trail to look at Silver Creek Lake....

The next stop was the Johnson Ridge Observatory to get a closer look at Mount St. Helens....

Halfway back down the mountain, we stopped off at a restaurant to get some lunch. We sat on the patio overlooking this.....

All that gray is leftover ash flow from when it erupted in 1980....amazing!

That evening we all headed back to Seattle and went out to dinner at The Melrose Grill. OMG....to die for food!! Seriously, the best steak I have ever had!!

After dinner, we went to The Dog and Pony for a couple of beers on the patio....the weather was incredible!!

Our friends, Sheldon and Susie....

My sweet hubby and I....

Saturday morning, Steve and I headed for the Boeing plant to take a tour. It was a great tour. I would highly recommend it.

After the tour, we headed to the Ballard Locks. The locks maintain the water level of freshwater Lake Washington and Lake Union 20-22 feet above sea level (Pudget Sound). This is the coolest place....I could have hung out there all day long. This is pretty weird considering there isn't a whole lot going on and they don't carry local beer :) Since it was July 4th....this place was busy with boats going from the Sound to the lake for the fireworks later on in the day. Here is a view of the larger lock....

Here are a few of the adorable passengers on the boats....

I wouldn't mind having one of these.....I'm just sayin'

So here are all the boats coming in from the Sound to go to the much higher level lake...before the water started to rise.

Gettin' higher....

Almost there....

Ready to go.....

For dinner on July 4th we were looking for a great local restaurant.....you know seafood or something of the like. Something unique, something we can't have at home. What did we decide on????

Olive Garden

We didn't quite anticipate that most of the local restaurants would be closed for the 4th. Thank goodness for the Olive Garden.

SIDE NOTE:

This is a picture of a coffee place by Sheldon and Susie's house. We stopped there for some coffee on our way out of town to Mount St. Helens.

Looks so cute and sweet, right??? Here's the catch....the girls serving coffee are in bikinis. Yes, seriously. It is called Cowgirl Espresso. Must be a lucrative business....the girl working the morning shift drives a brand new BMW. hmmmm.....

We flew home on Sunday.....what a weekend. I had a blast.....

Until next time....