Seattle

Colby and I had a quick weekend away...It was lovely, no wedding stuff, no work, no people everywhere...just a nice weekend with us and his best friend and his wife.  It was FREEZING!  But, other than that great.  We went up so I could get his friend's "approval" before the wedding. Ha ha ha!  Luckily I passed because I'm not giving the ring back. :)

We went to Pikes Market.  Pretty much a swap meet with come really cool food stands thrown in...the had fish stands and fresh fruit and vegetable stands - I was drooling...there were fresh flowers and even a handmade pasta stand.

They seriously throw fish back and forth to each other... it's totally for the tourists, not sure getting salmon guts on me sounds like a fun tourist thing, but whatever.

At Pike's there is a Cheese shop called "Beechers" Worlds best mac-n-cheese...honestly!  Life changing almost.

We ate some seriously good food on this trip so if you're headed to Seattle and need a couple food suggestions let me know.

We also did the "Underground Tour" which is essentially a condensed history lesson of Seattle, but cool.  So, the long and the short of it, is Seattle had a rough go of it in the beginning and after a fire that destroyed the entire dowtown, they rebuilt - but on top of the city that already existed (they were below sea level and were getting washed out).  So, they added floors onto all of the buildings and then built the road to match and finally the side walk.  So, for quite a while you would drive to where you were going and then climb down a ladder to get to the sidewalk and the entrance to the store/building.  When they finally built the sidewalks all the legit business went to street level and the shady ones stayed in the basement. 

I thought it was super cool.

The picture below is of a sky light they built into the sidewalk - here it is in the underground...

and here it is street level.

There are tunnels and buildings under a chunk of downtown Seattle.

A entertaining way to learn some history.

Colby and his friends were so great to me... they even took me to a couple cupcake places I wanted to check out (I know - I'm a total nerd).  Trophy cupcakes (review: cake was good - not great, frosting was awesome) and Cakespy which is owned by a gal who does cupcake watercolors - a fun and funky shop. 

We also got to dinner with my aunt that live up there.  It really was a fantastic trip - thanks Paul and Racheal for letting us stay and being such great hosts.