My oldest brother Tyrone sent me an email mid-June
saying he was surprising his three oldest girls with a trip up to Seattle the
following week and wondered if I would want to meet up. Um, heck yes! We were just wrapping up our final week of school and didn’t
have any big plans for the week. I
told him we would be happy to see him anytime/anywhere and that they were more
than welcome to stay with us. They
arrived in the area the following Tuesday and we made plans to have them over
Wednesday evening for dinner.
After dinner we’d planned to take them to Snoqualmie Falls, but they had
already stopped there on the way to our house. So… we made the rash decision
(at 6:45pm) to hike Rattlesnake Ledge instead. So Rattlesnake isn’t a super difficult hike, but we hadn’t
taken Katie and Drew on it before – it’s a 4 mile hike with an elevation gain
of 1200 feet. We knew we’d be
cutting it close to make it back down before sunset, but it really does offer
some of the most beautiful views.
Tyrone
took this on the way up
Drew did awesome in the backpack and being out
hours after his normal bedtime – he’s seriously such a great kid.
I busted out the flashlight on my phone during the
last bit of the hike down. It’s
wasn’t too much past sunset, but being under the tree cover made it pretty
dark. Katie was pretty exhausted
by the end, but she managed to hike the entire thing on her own. Tyrone’s leg
was making the hike pretty uncomfortable for him, but he toughed through it –
turns out he had a stress fracture in his leg – oops!
We must have passed the test because they wanted to
hang out with us again on Thursday.
It wasn’t the nicest day weather wise so a day trip to Whidbey or
spending the day at the beach was ruled out and we decided to hang out downtown. I picked up Justin at work around noon
and we met Tyrone and the girls at Pikes Place Market. First things first were fueling our
bodies with freshly made donuts – we ate our first three dozen in no time.
We headed down to show the girls the gum wall in Post
Alley. I was prepared with gum for
everyone to add their own contribution to the wall. I was all ready to take a picture of Drew sticking his gum
on the wall, but he totally took me my surprise when he stuck it on the wall
with his tongue! Just building up
his immunity I suppose – yuck!
We spent some time walking around the shops at
Pikes. It had been years since
we’d walked to through the shops below the main level. Tyrone was particularly interested in
the fresh fish, his girls picked up a pretty bud vase for their mom.
We ate lunch at Pikes Place Chowder and a
pasta/pizza place next door. The
line was the longest I’ve ever seen for the chowder. Ty’s girls are all into drama and theatre so they couldn’t
pass up an opportunity to mimic the sign at the restaurant next door. It was fun to watch these three sisters
interact with each other during our few days with them.
We walked along the pier, picking up a few pounds
of fudge to enjoy later. Before
leaving I just had to get another three dozen donuts and I always like to
purchase flowers at the market – before we left I picked out some beautiful, fragrant
peonies to take home.
Tyrone wanted to check out the locks next.
Then since we were so close – we had to check out
the Fremont Troll
Tyrone and the girls spent that night at our house
before continuing their road trip into Oregon the next day. The plan was to head back to our house that
evening and cook up some fresh salmon for dinner, but by this time it was
already after 7pm so we picked up some Papa John’s on the way home
instead. We got the three youngest
to bed and then the rest of us stayed up late playing games. This was the first
time they’d come up to Seattle in the 15 years we’ve been here and we loved the
time we were able to spend with them and enjoyed getting to know the girls
better. Such a fun few days!
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