Seattle Washington

I just had an amazing trip to Seattle to see my good friends Maren & Stephen! They were such wonderful hosts and tour guides showing us everything they could in one day! We drove up there after work on Saturday night took about 4hrs stopping in Kelso, WA for a bite to eat! They have done such a wonderful job of decorating their rental, Maren has real taste for it, its small kinda European set up but such a cute place! We started of our day with Coffee and croissants @ home than got ready & took off for our adventure. Mike started his morning with a cat cuddle..animals just love him!

These are the cats who are afraid of outsiders lol!

The morning was a little chilly but by 10am the sun started peeking out and it was one of the most gorgeous days I have seen in awhile! it ended up being 63 degrees and sunny with no wind, clear as day! We started our tour walking to Nordstrom Rack just cause we're in downtown Seattle so you cant not shop!

Walked our way down to Pike's Place Market somewhere neither Mike or I have been too! It was so much fun to walk through and look at all the artist work, there were some amazing flowers in all colors and I wanted so bad to get some but they would not have made it all day and home :(

Mike, Me, Maren & Stephen going to market!

After walking the market we started walking down the water front, it was so gorgeous out you wouldn't even believe it.

waking to the water frount! we forgot our sunnies :(

Had to have a pic w/the blue trees!

city scape in the park

 Ate at this yummy fish & chips place were the best thing about it was the feeding of the seagulls lol! Yes you save some extra long french fries and than after your done you hold them out and segulls come by & snatch them from your fingers!

This one ate our fries!

Me feeding seagulls..

Mike feeding seagulls...

Maren feeding...

Stephen feeding birds..

After our entertaining lunch tour guide Maren took us on a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island!

Maren teaching me how to do a jumping pic

view from the ferry of Seattle

1st ferry ride

us with Seattle in the background, beautiful!

Maren & Stephen jumping!

Maren & Stephen enjoying the romantic view!

Land on Bainbridge where we did Mike & I's 1st wine tasting at Eleven winery! We tried 7 different wines and ended up taking home one called Elevate balance funny thing is not till we got home did we realize it was an Oregon grape wine lol so much for liking other states wines..Oregon snobs lol!

Oregon Wine form Washington

Mike sipping on his chocolate wine cup!

My chocolate wine cup with Sweet Sarah dessert wine!

A toast to our 1st wine tasting!

It was just a wonderful trip, ended up cramming so much into our day doing so many things that after our wine we were all pretty tired & sun soaked ( but i am not complaining about that one) took the fary back home for some pizza & beer from the Magic Pizza Train (aka me & Mike still have no clue of the actual name lol).

after wine tasting

after wine tasting waiting for ferry

long day, sleeping on ferry

That's were our amazing adventure ended than it was back home to Oregon!

Driving home! Finally got our sunnies back!

An exrta day at Home!

I had today off which is a rare thing now a days so its kinda like my spring break! What did I do with my day off? Well I made taco soup in the crock pot, baked lemon blueberry crumble muffins using my own version of Oregon Transplant recipe! She inspied me to make them!

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cups sugar
1 tbsp lemon extract
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/3 cup canola oil applesauce
1/3 cup milk
1 egg
1 cup blueberries

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, mix flour through lemon zest. In another bowl, mix oil through egg. Add liquid into flour mixture and mix until just combined. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin pan 3/4 full (I recommend using liners on this recipe).
3. Bake 18-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool on baking rack until muffins are completely cool.

Topping-
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp flour
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp butter, cold
To make topping, combine brown sugar through cinnamon. Cut in cold butter until it resembles coarse sand. Fill cups 3/4 full. Sprinkle topping over batter.

Lets see what else..Oh yes I read while bubba napped in the sun..

I know its a hard life for us lol! It just felt so good not to have to go to work today! I got all my work papers organized for the past 3 months cause I have been bad and been behind. I just needed a breath and to step away from the shop for a bit! Having your month by month planed out into the fall can be a little over whelming for a 25 year old. So I have to take these random days when I can! And today has been lovely!