A Perfect Seattle Weekend

My mom and little brother, Scott, are visiting from China! {My dad is an engineer for a big oil company and was temporarily transferred to Shanghai. Fingers crossed, they should move back to the states when my brother graduates from high school.} 

On Saturday, we took them to see Snoqualmie Falls, one of our favorite Seattle spots. It's a half-hour drive from our Eastside suburb. 

Amazing, right? Although they're obviously not as wide, these are actually taller than Niagara Falls.





After taking in the falls, we like to have lunch in the nearby town of Snoqualmie. Our favorite spot is the Woodman Lodge. They have ridiculously huge portions, so I'd definitely recommend sharing!

After lunch, you have to walk around the cute little town. It's right between the falls and Mount Si, at the foot of the Cascades. If you feel so inclined, you can take a historic train ride up to the top of the waterfall.



We like to end our walk at the riverfront park. Before heading home, we usually stop for ice cream at the old-fashioned soda shop, but we were still stuffed from lunch.



Instead, we stopped at a roadside stand for some locally-grown cherries. Yum!

 

After Mass on Sunday morning, we headed downtown to Kerry Park for the awesome view of the Seattle skyline.



We met our friends from Pittsburgh, Joe and Alex, there! Joe is interning at Adam's company for the summer and his fiancee, Alex, is in town visiting him this week. We are majorly rooting for them to move to Seattle permanently after they graduate next spring!

 





Claire had a blast playing on the metal sculpture in the middle of the park.





Kerry Park is in the super fancy Queen Anne neighborhood. If you walk a few blocks down {past some gorgeous $10 million homes} you'll come to another outlook with a view of Puget Sound and the Olympic mountains. You can also see all the cruise ships getting ready to set sail for Alaska! There's a really pretty public garden across the street too.



We had lunch at Pike Place Market. Our favorite spots are Beecher's Cheese and Pike Place Chowder. It can be kind of tricky to find seating, but there's a little area indoors behind the chowder place that's never too crowded. And even has high chairs!



Although the prime attraction is the seafood booth famous for their fish throwing routine, I just love browsing through all the flower stalls.



We've never braved the crowd of Asian tourists to get a drink at the very first Starbucks, but if that's your thing, more power to you!