Our good friends Kyle and Bryndee came out for a family reunion in the area and we got to steal them for a few days! It was so much fun to see them. They are some of our very best friends and we have really missed them since they moved to Wisconsin! Sadly, this was in my really sick phase so we didn't get to do a whole lot of playing. We met them at Gasworks Park and then went over to UW campus. I started feeling really sick and mentioned that I needed to eat something right away. Bryndee was six months pregnant at the time so she started getting suspicious, and we ended up telling them at dinner. It was exciting! Our first friends to find out. Later we also took them to the Mukilteo Lighthouse and beach and watched the fireworks over Everett Bay. Mostly we took the few days pretty easy and just spent the time talking with them and hanging out. It was so nice to get to spend some time with them!
We kept it simple and easy by doing things like going to the Lighthouse and Picnic Point Park a lot and seeing some Shakespeare in the park plays in Seattle. After the play (which was a really odd modern rendition of Caesar by an all female group) we walked around the park and saw some really cool water features and toys. We bought some ice cream and enjoyed walking around the park on a beautiful day!
Rusty also had his first race in a long time this month! He did a great job, especially for never riding the track before. We got there a little late and made it just in time for him to unload his bike and jump right into the first race-with no practice. Then we waited for all of the other races to finish thinking there would be a second round (like in Utah and Colorado) but when the last group came back it was all over! It was so much fun to get to see him doing something that he loves and is so talented at.
We also went to a Mariners game, which was a lot of fun! I always love going to those games and just having that culture and experience of being with so many people all cheering on the same team. It was an exceptionally good game to be at too because it was very close but we ended up winning! Those are the most exciting games to me. I usually get bored about the seventh inning and am ready to leave, but it helps when it is so close :)
Something that I had heard of and really, really wanted to do was to kayak around in Lake Union. Lake Union is right in the middle of Seattle so on one side you can see the skyline and Space Needle, on the other side you can see Gasworks Park. It is really popular and there are always a lot of sailboats and paddle boards and kayaks out there. Since we lived here before we had both really wanted to kayak out there so we decided to try it! We didn't know how I would be feeling, so we got a tandem one so that Rusty could paddle us back in just in case. Luckily, I didn't get sick! Towards the end I felt extremely tired and hungry/nauseous, but during the majority of it I felt great! And as a bonus we decided to grab some food at a restaurant that was right on the water when we finished, called China Harbor. The best part was the waitress (who was a hilarious Chinese woman) and the view from our table! It was right over Lake Union and the whole wall was windows. It was wonderful!
After kayaking we decided to go to the Ballard Locks, which might be considered kind of a touristy thing to do but I really love going and watching the ships and boats come in through the locks. It is so fascinating to me! And, during this time of year the salmon ladders are going which is also fun to see. It's just a nice thing to do to get outside and walk around a little bit. The funny part was that we had both got a little bit of water in our kayaks so it looked like we wet our pants the whole time were were walking around...
July ended with me taking a week off of work to go down and spend the time with my family in Seaside. Sadly Rusty couldn't take the time off of work because he was so new, so he was going to just come down for the weekend. It was really hard to be away from him for so long (something we had never done before) but it was really good to be able to spend so much time with my family. This time we really stayed in Long Beach, WA and so we spent our time in a few different places. In Long Beach we walked around downtown and got ice cream, drove out on the beach and got a flat tire, and walked along the beach a lot.
We also did something new and rented bikes to ride along the beach! Jessica's friend Matt knocked over all of the bikes at the shop just like dominoes haha. There was a really cool paved pathway that went through the tall grass on the beach that we rode through, and at a certain point we decided to take the bikes out onto the sand. Which was very difficult! We also did some hiking in the area after we rode our bikes over that way which was really beautiful and fun. I got sick on the hike and had to have my dad come and pick me up instead of riding my bike back the six miles, but after the rainy, cold day I was glad to be home with my mom and warm soup and a warm shower.
We also made a day trip out to Astoria to climb the column and see the house from The Gooneys. When we climbed the column my parents bought us these little biodegradable airplanes that you can fly off of the top! Mine did not do very well and just plummeted straight down to the Earth.
Obviously we also spent a good deal of time in Seaside! We ate breakfast at The Pig n Pancake and walked around downtown visiting the mall and carousel, hat shop, and Candy Man for salt water taffy. It was fun to think that next year when we go to Seaside I will have a little baby going on the carousel! Crazy! This year we did something that was new and went to the aquarium. It is small, but it has a lot of really cool things. AND you get to feed seals! Cute little harbor seals, and I just love them. They even do tricks to try to get you to feed them! There was a little baby who would get food thrown at him but other bigger ones kept coming in and taking the fish away.
When Rusty was there we went to Canon Beach and flew the kites and looked around at the tide pools. There were no sea stars this year and so we asked some of the people there why, and they said that there is a disease going around that is killing all of the sea stars all over the world but especially in the North West. That made me really sad and I hope that they figure out something to get them reintroduced again! On Sunday Rusty and I left when the rest of the family left to go home, but we still had some time to explore so we decided to go and do some of the hikes close by. We saw a lighthouse, some cool cliffs, and walked out onto a big spit where there were a bunch of fisherman in boats and on the shore.
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