Welcome Back Emily and Jesse!

Ok, so this post is more than a month too late, but better late than never! :-)

We were SO happy to have Emily and Jesse come back to visit over Labor Day weekend. This time we took the pace a little slower, but still saw plenty of cool stuff.

They arrived on Wednesday August 29th, late in the evening. Thursday morning we got up early and put the boat in the water. It was beautiful and sunny - we headed to Port Townsend. On the way we spotted a harbor seal on a buoy and another trying to get up. They sure can jump!! The harbor seal already on the buoy was not happy about a prospective companion. We stopped for awhile to watch their antics before pushing on. The water was so smooth - Emily and Jesse enjoyed taking turns as our Captain. :-)

Once in Port Townsend we walked through the historic homes area, then into a park along the Strait of Juan de Fuca (ocean), walked the beach and then back into the marina area. We went back to the boat for a picnic lunch of sandwiches (turkey or roast beef), chips, alcohol (of course!) and brownies. After lunch we walked around the downtown area of Port Townsend and ended with dessert in an old fashioned soda shop overlooking the bay.

On our way back since it was still early we wanted to try heading North of our starting point, but the water (pretty suddenly) got really rough... we were experiencing chop of about 2-3 feet. Since it generally gets worse in the afternoons we decided to just bring 'er in for the day.

Friday we went to (our favorite breakfast place) Maltby Cafe before heading on to the Chateau St. Michelle winery for a tour. What a beautiful place this is! It just so happened that Stevie Wonder was playing a show there that night, but tickets were sold out so we couldn't attend. (They actually sold out in 18 minutes). We experienced good wine and a nice tour, then off to another tour....

Red Hook Brewery - for fine crafted beer! $1 gets you 5 samples, totaling almost 2.5 pints! Now this is the way to drink! We had a blast, but now it was time to find some food. We stopped at the local farmer's market for fresh vegetables and then on to the store for steaks to grill up.

Saturday morning we took off early driving down to Mount Rainier for the day. Wow, this place is breathtaking. It is just stunning - the pictures I'll post below don't do it justice!!


Sadly Sunday it was time for us to part - but we did spend the day walking around downtown Seattle... another amazing visit with such wonderful friends. We miss you and can't wait to see you again. I'm already gathering a list of new places to take you...