our bug is cute!

Jackson family visit

Sarah's sister and her family visited for a few days. Azrael (3), Aria (10 months) and Addie and Nora had a lot of fun together.

Cute cousins


We took the metro to the zoo - on the way home Azrael had the whole car laughing.

Explorer Azrael tracks the Kamodo dragon with his "nocalers."

Fascinated by the elephant

Azrael's birthday at Elevation Burger, where the clientele sang to him -
he didn't know what to do!

Something sweet at Dairy Godmother. Aaron and Andy were away so Steph and Sarah hauled the kids around for a few days. One parent for 2 kids is hard. One would think two adults for 4 kids would be easier, synergy and all that. Wrong.

Addie's crafts

Addie's pretty serious with her crafts and will paint, color, etc, for hours.

It's official - Nora's mobile

Nora can sit up and crawl and has even pulled up on occasion. On Sept 2 she turned 8 months old - hard to believe!

Seattle - the city

We had such a great time - 1 week in the Emerald City while the girls stayed at Aaron's parents' house. We walked around, saw what we could, and ate and drank more coffee than we should have. But it was so good!

This was taken from a hill in the Queen Anne neighborhood.

We were getting ready to share almost $30 worth of cheese items while watching them make cheese at Beecher's Cheese storefront at Pike Place Market.

Ahh, tourist attractions. Pike Place Market.
Yeah, they throw fish here, too.

We had an appetizer at a restaurant near our B&B that we decided is how our restaurant would look should we ever own one.

The city was clean, easy to navigate, and not too big. Will the East lose us to Seattle one day?

The foyer of our B & B, in the Capital Hill neighborhood. It was perfect.

Seattle - Mt. Rainier

What a beautiful park. We started the day like a good east coast tourist should; a trip to the REI flagship store for fleeces, and macchiatos at a Seattle coffeeshop across the street from it.


We chose a trail because it was a little shorter and we didn't want to spend the whole day hiking. We didn't realize it was straight up - like climbing stairs for almost 2 miles.

Grey water like this is from glacier runoff.

Clear water is from melting snow.

Big trees. Not redwoods, but big.

At the top was a 300 foot waterfall.

Oh my. We finally finished!

Peak view from the south of the mountain.

There were lots of glacier paths. They almost looked like construction zones full of gravel.

Not the 300ft falls

View from above the falls in the previous picture.

Seattle trip - Islands

Part of our weeklong trip was spent exploring the surrounding islands. So different from anything here in DC, it made for an amazing trip.

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND
View of the city from the ferry to nearby Bainbridge Island

One of Aaron's top five all time favorite meals was here, at the Harbor House, on the patio overlooking the marina. Aaron later hounded the chef until he gave us the recipe for his Killer Shrimp.

There were whole hillsides covered with blackberries. We foraged in public - it was fun!


The north side of Bainbridge is a beach reserve that offered one of our most memorable moments of the trip: We had been walking a while and turned around to walk back to the car and saw Mt. Rainier hanging out in the background.

MERCER ISLAND

Mercer Island is a suburb with beautiful homes, impressive water views, and walking trails. Oh, and slugs almost as long as Sarah's foot.

ORCAS ISLAND

The ferry to the SanJuans offered even more beautiful scenery - it was almost mountain/water view overload.

This building welcomes ferry riders to the island.

A side patio of a downtown building on Orcas Island.

Yay - Ice Cream!

Dairy Godmother in Del Ray is our go-to ice cream place.

Don't worry, we share a lot - this isn't just Addie's ice cream.

Addie's new haircut