Well, now that the effects of the travel trauma have fully worn off I’m I’m finally ready to share about our Seattle trip. I’m half joking. Which means that I’m half serious. You guys, the highlights we’re seeing one of my oldest friends marry her best friend, watching Elouise as the cutest flower girl, and eating at Biscuit Bitch. So, basically we could have done our whole trip in 48 hours instead of the 5 days of madness. I was so stressed most of the time that I hardly took any photos but we have a few winners, and I’ve put together some of my favorite moments from my Instagram stories, including her walking down the aisle, into a little video of cuteness.
So we started off our trip in Tacoma, and stayed with a friend of a friend that Christian had made through social media. This was a huge gamble, on our part and on theirs. Bless their generous hearts for opening up their home to a strange family. As you can see from the photo above, they had the abolsute cutest little home that was decorated to vinatge perfection. It made sense since they own the hippest thrift shop in the heart of the downtown area, where we took the cute little trio of photos below. Honestly, I am not cut out for travel unless I am in a hotel, I already knew this about myself, but my pregnant self with a teething toddler just confimed that.
The second day we headed out to Downtown Seattle to Pike’s Place Market. This photo at the gum wall is the only one we took because that’s how stressful it was. Navigating the busy crowds and streets with a cranky toddler who only wanted to walk was nearly impossible. I did however get my fill of treats that made it all worth it. We started with breakfast at Biscuit Bitch, snagged a cup of coffee from the flagship Starbucks store, got a honey walnut rugala from a tiny bakery, and ended with a family sized helping of mac ‘n cheese from Beechers. My pregnant heart, and stomach, were completely full. After that we tried to go exploring Daddy style. See, I like the food and the city experience and he prefers nature and climbing and jumping off things. So, we planned to go to a park with a really pretty lighthouse and lookout over the Puget Sound. It turned out, after driving almost 20 minutes deep into the park area that we had to have a permit to park in the lot. The permits were given out at the entrance, and by the time we got there out poor girl had fallen asleep cold in her carseat. So we hightailed it back to Tacoma for some time at the park and some greasy burgers from a local hot spot. Again, I wasn’t complaining.
The next morning we left for our hotel, but made a quick stop in downtown again to visit the headquarters of Moment, a company that makes lenses for your iPhone camera. Christian has worked with them for quite a while so it as super fun to get to meet them in their neat little creative space. They also had a big “office dog” which was the second big dog that Elouise met and fell in love with on the trip. She also loved the dog that lived at our first place and she said their names the entire trip, asking where they were. In fact she didn’t stop talking the whole trip. It was like a switch was flipped and her brain finally connected to her mouth. Ever since we’ve been home she hasn’t stopped signing or talking from the time she wakes up until she goes to bed. That night was the rehearsal dinner which gave me major anxiety that my child was going to ruin the entire wedding. But, after that we had sweet hotel sleep in a giant bed with super cold air conditioning, so the next morning I woke up refreshed.
That rest of the day was fun, even though I chased a toddler around a hotel for most of the day desperately trying to keep her happy and clean. Daddy was the photographer for the day so it was just me and her flying solo most of the day. She loved seeing Auntie Sommer in her sparkle dress and asked where Sommer was almost all day. The wedding was absolutely perfect and Elouise actually did the sweetest job as the flower girl, which you can see in the video below. After that she partied hard and finally crashed on a couch in the lobby until it was time to go. The next day we left to head home, and you all know how that went, if you don’t you can read about it here.
