Washington...the state this time!

So my little weekend excursion went well and was very enjoyable. It was nice seeing and spending time with my brother A and sister in law S, especially since I hadn't see S in a little over three years! I liked the Seattle area, a lot actually! (The good weather we had all weekend probably helped that!)

My brother lives right next to Lake Washington so Friday S and I went to the park next to Lake and got milkshakes and walked around the coastline. The island you see here (I forget the name) but it's the "rich people's" island....as in Bill Gates lives there.

If you look carefully to the center of the picture you can just make out a water plane landing on the lake. I got really excited and was trying to watch it and take a picture at the same time...so the picture didn't come out so well. I'd never actually seen one in person so it was pretty cool! (And I instantly missed D, a lot, 'cause he would have loved to see it too!)

Saturday we headed off North a little ways to see some Tulip fields...the first fields we saw, though, were Daffodils. They were so pretty and had a very "romantic" feel about them. S and I are actually standing over one of the few Tulips we saw in this particular field.

A and I in front of the Pinwheel tower at the main Tulip "farm" we visited. This place had tons of Tulips in bloom and it was hard not to want to pick some! Of course you could order bulbs to be delivered at the perfect time of the year to plant but who wants to wait?? :-) I did not pick any, just took too many pictures to post!

Of course I had to take a picture of these type of Tulips!

I bet the next weekend all of these were open...

They were still so beautiful and peaceful looking with the mountains behind them!

This was my brother's first attempt at taking a picture of me and the Space Needle...which I was apparently wearing as a hat! It's much more a picture of Baby T's first "visit" to the Space Needle!

There we go!

At the top...and just for those of you out there who may have believed the Space Needle was actually tall enough to be in a part of Space...clearly I'm still on Earth. ( ;-) You know who you are and I just had to give an anonymous shout out to you.)

For you Grey's Anatomy fans out there. This building was used in the first couple seasons as the hospital and the helicopter landing spot. It is not a hospital, rather a news station.

Seattle and Mt. Rainier. I was trying all weekend to get a good picture of the active volcano...that's not so active...thankfully!

The original Starbucks! Notice the change in the logo?? Sorry it's fuzzy!

Pike Public Market...such a cool market. Aside from milk and eggs you could do just about all of your food grocery shopping here; and the bouquets of flowers were amazing for only $10 - $25, simply amazing!

YUMMO!! ha ha ha ha this fish stand was crazy fun!

Our very funny "helper" just threw our crab to the dude in the back who's nonchalantly walking by with his hand out...and dude in the back totally caught it without any problem! Then our very funny "helper" turns and says, "Okay, I've got to go meet my parole officer! Have a great night!" S and I figured it was totally possible he was telling the truth!!!

So like I said, I had a great weekend and I can't wait to go back with D and visit the area some more. Maybe check out some of the mountain trails or even venture into Canada. I finally got the "money shot" picture of Mt. Rainier when I was leaving Seattle and it dawned on me that we'd be flying right over the mountain! Sadly my camera was stowed away out of reach, but I had my cell phone and thankfully the picture came out pretty well! It definitely ended my trip on a very happy note.