Seattle

We had a great vacation in Seattle this past weekend. We arrived Thursday morning and Jason was immediately busy with wedding-related activities such as picking up his tux and attending rehearsal. I walked around the downtown area for a bit before meeting up with the wedding party for a surprise group activity that was scheduled to take place between the ceremony rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. The surprise ended up being a water-and-land tour of Seattle in one of the famous "duck boats."

The tour was a lot of fun and we got to see some great views of the city from our excursion into Lake Union. We also saw some house boats and floating houses, including the house that was filmed for Sleepless in Seattle.

Friday was a great day. I slept in, ordered room service for lunch, and watched TV before meeting up with some other friends of ours (Jenn and Grady) who were also in town for the wedding. The ceremony was outdoors at Gas Works Park, and took place near the water. The reception took place at Ivar's Salmon House; after dinner we spent several hours sitting outside on the deck, drinking wine and watching the sun go down over Seattle.

On Saturday we met Jenn and Grady at the Experience Music Project (EMP) museum, which is located right next to the Space Needle. I thought this shot underneath the Space Needle, with a metal wall from the EMP on the left side of the frame, looked very futuristic:

The four of us went our separate ways after lunch, and Jason and I took a walk through the "Belltown" area of Seattle and down to Pike Place, which is basically a giant farmers market. Then later that night, we met my old boss Tina and her husband Tracy for dinner at a great little tapas restaurant and wine bar called Black Bottle (which I highly recommend if you're ever in Seattle). It was great to catch up with the two of them, as we haven't seen them since our wedding.

Sunday we made our way home, which is normally depressing after a fun vacation but this time we had a smiling baby waiting for us. Isabelle was very excited to see her mom and dad and show us all the new tricks she learned while Grandma Koski babysat...