Discovering

This weekend was nothing but BEAUTIFUL! It seems like the city's population doubles when the sun comes out because everyone wants to get outside and enjoy it while it lasts. Lucky for us, the forecast is nothing but sunny the rest of the week. Luke and I walked to dinner at Ivar's on Lake Union on Saturday night and sat outside on the deck, watching all of the boats. It made me miss my Argosy cruise days - just a little bit :)

On Sunday we went to church, got coffee and spent the morning hiking around Discovery Park. It's a beautiful park in Magnolia, right on the sound. It used to be a military base (Fort Lawton), but now it's a public park. Here are some pictures!

  

A girl and her coffee...

A man and his walking stick...

Gotta love those mountains!

The flower child in me comes out...

After Discovery Park, we went over to the Elliot Bay Marina to grab some lunch at Maggie Bluff's. We got a prime patio seat and watched the sailboats come in and out. It was lovely!

That was our weekend - hope you had a great one too!

Super-Happy-Fun Weekend

This past weekend was full of non-stop baseball, friends and fun. We had so much going on, I feel like I could sleep all day. If you didn't know, the Twins were in town this weekend - so Luke and I made it a game on Friday night and Sunday afternoon. They won on Friday, but lost on Sunday (but the weather was perfect for baseball, so that made up for the loss).

Luke couldn't be happier!

We snuck down to the lower deck halfway through the game on Friday and enjoyed a closer view for the rest of the game :)

Luke with a mouthful of sunflower seeds.

Sunday's view

 Our friends Katie and Carolyn were also in town this weekend for the SPU alumni soccer game. So, we of course had lots of parties to celebrate their visit. That is one thing about our group of friends here - every occasion calls for a party!

We had a girls breakfast at Bethany's on Sunday

On Saturday night we went out to celebrate. I just thought I would share this photo of Minnetonka love - Jess, Ben, Nick and me all went to high school together in Minnesota. And here we are, all living in Seattle!

Luke Goes Hiking

One of Luke's favorite things to do (in life) is hike. So, since we've been back in Seattle, he's tried to go hiking on his days off as much as possible - especially with his friend Adam. 

I asked Luke if he wanted to blog about his hike to Lake Serene last week - but he said no. So, I am going to blog about it for him - even though I wasn't there. (Allows for lots of creative interpretation...) I have actually done this hike myself back when I first moved here for college - and it is probably the most beautiful one I've ever done.

Here is a typical Luke pose - King of the mountain!

Look at those trees!

Don't fall in...

Luke and Adam

I imagine Luke stopped this tree from rolling down the hill with his amazing strength.

That's one happy hiker :)

Date-Day Sunday!

Luke and I took advantage of our one day of the week where we get to spend the whole day together with nothing else to do - Sunday. We kicked off the day by riding our bikes to church. It's only about a mile or two away and we can ride around Green Lake, so it's a really enjoyable jaunt (minus the walkers who meander through the bike lane and make you swerve around them quickly).

After that, we watched the last half of the Twins game, and they even won, which is always a bonus. They are going to be in town playing the Mariners next weekend and we are going to go to a couple of games. Can't wait!

Then we took the bus downtown, walked around a bit, and took the ferry over to Bainbridge island. Once we got to the island, we walked around a bit and had dinner at one of Luke's favorite Mexican restaurants.  We went to this same restaurant on a date almost six years ago (holy cow!), before we were even engaged. And this time was just as fun :)

It's a beautiful city!

The ferry docking at Bainbridge

This Mexican restaurant has huge portions - and the food is actually pretty good. This is Luke right as his food arrived at our table...

And this is Luke after he ate all that he could possibly fit into his stomach... 

We had a great time riding the ferry boats and enjoying the scenery. However, on the way home, Luke dropped our box of leftovers on the ferry deck as we were pulling into the dock, on which the seagulls immediately descended, causing all of the nearby passengers to run away - quickly.

So that was our Sunday. We hope yours was great too!

To the Dalles We Go!

We spent the weekend in The Dalles, Oregon, celebrating a friend's wedding. The weather was beautiful, the scenery was amazing, and the company couldn't have been better. Here's a couple pictures from our weekend.

Luke and me :)

Me with some of my favorite ladies - Elise and Carly.

Spring has Sprung

Hello all! Spring has sprung in Seattle for the most part. The cherry blossom trees are blanketing the neighborhoods and the grass is green! We have been having our fair share of both rain and sunshine - so Luke and I have been trying to enjoy the sunny days whenever we can. Luke has been riding his bicycle to work whenever it's not raining (a mere 15 miles each way) and has even been able to take his motorcycle out quite a bit. Myself - well, I work from home for the most part, so sometimes I walk down to the coffee shop :)

We have been keeping busy with work and definitely finding lots of time to play. Luke's sister and her family made a trip up to see us last weekend, which was lots of fun. Our niece Claire is talking like crazy and definitely has a lot of spunk :) However, I realized immediately that our house is nowhere near baby-proof right when she walked in the door and went straight for the wine rack. Luckily, it was a beautiful weekend, so we made it to the park, where Claire ran wild, the boys played frisbee and I took a nap. (See below...)

Something tells me that when Claire stops being afraid of Luke, that they will be quite the mischievous duo...

We've also been enjoying some fabulous dinners on our deck. It's so perfect!

We also have been cooking a lot. (For example, on Easter we made brunch AND dinner - ham and all.) One weekend we went to the Ballard farmer's market with our friends Elise and John and got all sorts of delicious local fare for dinner. Luke and Elise both love oysters, so they shucked and grilled them. I even tried a grilled one and really liked it.

And I will leave you with this. The view from our deck on a sunny Seattle afternoon. Enjoy!

Everyone loves a lazy river...

We made it back safe and sound from Mexico - though we did spend a lot of time contemplating how we could end up getting "stuck" there for another week or so :) We had a great time exploring Puerto Vallarta, lying in the sun and relaxing as much as possible. And luckily, we only had one travel mishap, which is good for us!

Thanks to my parents' timeshare, we were able to stay at another fabulous resort. Our room was huge and even included our own private plunge pool on the balcony. Luke was a fan!

And even though we didn't have a beach view, we couldn't complain. It was perfect!

Possibly the best thing about this place was the lazy river at the pool! Luke and I spent many hours floating around aimlessly...

Well, maybe Luke spent a little more time floating :)

The beach was also beautiful. Cheers!

We also spent a day out on the ocean and boated to a small town called Yalapas that you can only get to by boat. Now, here's where the travel mishap comes in ;) We realized as we were leaving to go to our boat trip one morning, that Luke had left his credit card in the ATM at the hotel the day before. We ran to the ATM, but of course it wasn't there. We talked to concierge and they said that it most likely got sucked up by the machine, but it could have been taken also. So, Luke got on the phone with the bank right away, while I called the boat company to say we would be there shortly. However, the not-so-friendly lady at the boat company said that no, they would NOT wait for us and that if we could get there in six minutes, that we would still make the boat. So, we made a split decision to drop everything and catch that boat! I ran through the hotel, stole someone else's taxi (whoops!) and we rushed to the boat. After running in frantically like a crazy woman on vacation (with my ever-so-calm husband trailing behind), the same lady I spoke with on the phone told us that the boat had already left. And then I almost started to cry. Luckily, Luke was thinking clearly and asked if there was any way we could catch the boat. She made a call and rushed us out the door, where we got on another boat that took us to the port in Puerto Vallarta, where we would meet our boat, which would be stopping to pick up more passengers. Phew! We made it! And I'm so glad we did, because we had a fabulous day of boating, snorkeling, kayaking and enjoying Yalapas.

(And not to worry - Luke was able to get in touch with the bank later that afternoon. There were no charges to his account and they were able to cancel the card.)

Walking through Yalapas

Beach this way!

On our last full day, we signed up for a canopy tour. If you're not familiar, it's basically a tour riding zip lines through the jungle. It was amazing and we loved every minute of it. It felt like we were flying!

After zip-lining, we had some brunch at the restaurant there. We tried chilaquiles, which are a traditional Mexican breakfast. They take tortillas, drench them in a type of salsa, then bake them and serve it with beans.

It was delicious!

However, the ride back to our hotel was just as eventful as flying through the jungle. The guy brought us home in a pickup with a big open air trailer with seats on the back. Don't worry, it was very safe :)

We will miss you Mexico -- until next time!