Weekend Wonders

I wrote this on Monday night...but for some reason it wouldn't let me post pics...so it was a bit delayed.

Joel just arrived back in Chicago :(. We had a great weekend hanging out in Seattle-even if he did miss his flight out here! On Saturday we got up early and went up to the Farmers Market and picked up some broccoli, green beans, a few really yummy pastries and some fruit (particularly good were the donut peaches-I'd never seen them before but they were tasty). It was fun to show Joel where I'd been going the last few weekends.

Then we headed to the capitol hill neighborhood. It was a pretty long walk but we got to watch the Blue Angels along the way because the Seattle SEAFAIR was happening (an air and water show) all weekend. Capitol hill neighborhood is on a hill...a really BIG hill so we walked around checking out some really awesome houses and walked to Volunteer Park-which is on the north end of the neighborhood. They have a conservatory with some really gorgeous flowers. check them out! Then we walked down to the main street in Capital Hill and stopped for some coffee (of course!) and then walked up and down looking at the shops. Finally, dinner at the Coastal Kitchen-which was excellent. It was recommended by a few interns and Joel had the herb-encrusted salmon and I had the ravioli fresca-excellent. I even ate some salmon-which was good!

Sunday we had brunch with some old friends at our favorite cafe and they suggested we check out the Ballard Locks-the Army Corps of Engineers run the locks going from the Puget Sound to the lakes around Seattle. It was really neat. They had a brass band playing Big Band music and they had some really pretty gardens and the locks themselves were pretty cool to watch. The highlight was the fish ladder. It's spawning season for the Chinook (King) Salmon and they are moving from the ocean to the freshwater to spawn. Watching them move up the ladder was amazing. Some of them were just jumping out of the water. It was amazing to watch. Then they have a place to watch them "resting" in a small pool that's part of the ladder.

We also watched V for Vendetta-both of us thought it was generic and the characters were flat...