Happy July! I love this month. It's the best of the year - summer is finally here, the sun shines daily, the water glimmers, and most importantly, it's my birthday month! 30 this year, can you believe it!? I can't. I have spent all of my "29's" dreading this month. Now it's finally here and I'm thinking, hey, this isn't so bad afterall! It really is going to be a great month.
To kick it off, we had a visitor! Brian Mitsch, an old friend of mine from high school made the journey to visit us! Brian and I have many memories together - good and bad - that we laughed about during his stay. I love old friends - they have seen you through so many different times in your life. It's great to have those people who really know you. Needless to say, we had a good time. Here is what we did!
Celebrated the 4th of July on Hartley's rooftop overlooking Lake Union. Hartley and Mark are always great hosts and we had a great time, BBQing, eating vodka gummy bears, and sitting by the bon fire.
Just before the fireworks display Ben noticed billowing black smoke coming from across the shore. We saw huge flames. It was quickly put out by several police/fire boats (?) or something like that. A couple days later when we were in northlake we went to figure out what happened and saw the aftermath. A boat dock had gone up in flames and several boats were torched. You can see it here.
So that was crazy....not to mention earlier that day we had gone downtown to spend some time at Pike's place market and literally drove right by a guy on roid rage yelling "Who's the boss!?" in the middle of the street. He ripped off his shirt, threw his phone, and lastly punched the hood of someone's car before the entire Seattle police dept showed up to stop the guy.
Brian met nearly every police man we've got in this city in just one day. Lucky guy.
The next day (Friday) we decided to get out in the wilderness and take a hike! We tried out a new trail to Tenerife (aka Kamikaze) Falls. It was a nice trail, though the top got steep and rocky. But the waterfall at the end was well worth it! Stay tuned for pictures of the falls from Ben. We were pretty beat after the hike, so we got dinner at Cactus and decided to call it a night.
On Saturday we got breakfast, and then headed out on the RED HOOK BREW TOUR! This is always a crowd pleaser and it did not disappoint. The beer is always free flowing, and the tour guides are a hoot.
That night we kept the party going and went to the Beverage Place for more drinks and Cards Against Humanity! The Beverage place is one of the best spots in West Seattle. They only serve drinks so you can order food into the establishment from the neighboring restaurants. It is set up like a living room with couches, and tables to sit and hang out at, or play games. It's quite fun. We spent several hours there having a wonderful time!
The next day was a bit of a recovery day. We didn't get out of the house until 1:30pm. We headed out to get some lunch at King's Hardware in Ballard. Brian's friend had recommended it, and we were excited to check it out. It was a total hipster bar, with real stuffed animals all over the plaid walls. There was even this nice scene above the bar. Really yummy food, and I tried this Ginger beer that tasted kind of like a spicy lemonade. Tasty.
After, we went to the Ballard Locks to see the Salmon jumping the ladder and proceeded to stop at all the other 'Hot Spots' around town for Brian's last day. We stopped at the Troll, Gasworks park, Alki beach and ended at Duke's Chowder house for some soup!
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| Duke's Chowder House |
We had such a great weekend! Come visit us again soon :)
