Reality, Seattle, reality again.

Wanna see my vacation photos?!  Before you immediately click out of this blog and move on, consider this - I pared them down quite a bit and put only what I thought would summarize our trip the best.  With commentary, of course.

The first of many flattering self portraits.  Here we are in SF eating breakfast as we wait for our plane to board. 

I love how Virgin Airlines allows you to follow exactly where you are on the map, how high you are, what the external temperature is at that altitude, and how many miles you have to go.  I did nothing but tap that screen the whole way there. 

Mom and I checked into our hotel and headed down to Pike Place Market to walk around.  It was cold and rainy but it didn't put a damper on our adventure at all. 

Mmmmm.  Love me some pastry.

Such gorgeous produce. 

The very first Starbucks

May seem silly to some but between the two of us we keep Starbucks afloat in our respective towns.  This was a big deal. 

These guys were singing outside that Starbucks.  I loved them.  I want them to come sing at my birthday party.

The view from our hotel room

Dinner the first night.  What, apple crisp and ice cream and a big f'ing piece of cake and a bottle of milk isn't what you consider dinner?  Come to Seattle, my friend.

On our second day we went to a fabulous place called Wolf Haven International in Tenino, Washington.  Mom's 4th grade class has adopted a wolf from this sanctuary for the last 20 years of her teaching so we went to go visit and see the facility and the wolves themselves.  Here is mom at the wolf graveyard.  She recognized many of the names on the tombstones of those wolves that she had adopted.

Two of the many wolves we saw.

After our visit with the wolves, we drove into the captial of Olympia to have lunch.  Here we are at a swanky place which had free entertainment outside our window.  We watched this gentleman do crunches, squats, run in place, and push ups.  He burned off the calories as we ate them. 

2nd night on the town

On day 3 we visited the Space Needle.  I went to the top, mom stayed at the bottom.  She freaked that we were on the 10th floor of our hotel.  Going up 58 floors in a glass elevator was not. an. option.

The view from the top. 

Love this lady feeding the pigeons.

On our last afternoon there we had a lovely lunch on the 4th floor of a building and this was our view.  See the two window washers up there?  We watched them and it was fascinating.  What a job.  Again, we watched them burn the calories while we ate them.

The sky as we were getting ready to leave Seattle, I prayed to the lightening Gods to just leave us alone.

I had the best flight back.  I watched an hour of this...

...and the last part of the fight was this.  I know my New Year's resolution was to make more time to read but when faced with nearly 2 hours of kid-free time and these guilty pleasures at my disposal, it was a no-brainer.  And I do mean NO-BRAINER.

So, the sun set on our adventure just as we were landing back in SF.  We had such a great trip.  Can't wait 'til June when we head to Boston, this time with Drew in tow!

Good to be back!  One click to vote, that's all it takes!