Belated Vacation Recap: Seattle

As time goes on and I get further and further away from the acceptable week or so in which one traditionally posts recaps of trips, my motivation to write-up an extensive recap of my awesome trip to Seattle fades.  So that I don’t actually ignore it completely I am going to finish off with two uber photo heavy posts.  Besides, doesn’t everyone just look at the pictures anyway? 🙂

What better way to start off a vacation recap, than with a picture of a doughnut the size of your face. Okay, it wasn't really quite that big, but Top Pot knows how to make some incredibly delicious treats. David, Becca and I went there our first Saturday in Seattle, before meeting up with Miriam, Ellen (her sister) and Katie for tramping around downtown and the obligatory trip to Theo Chocolate.

On Sunday, Katie rented a zip car and we all (minus Meryl, who was in San Fransisco at the time) headed over to Vashon Island. David took this photo on the ferry ride over and I think it is definitely one of my favorite Miriam/Abby pictures ever.

Once we got to Vashon we drove around the island for a bit to get our bearings and then promptly got lunch at The Hardware Store. I had heard about this restaurant on one of the food blogs I read and we were all quite happy with the choice. While we had originally wanted to order non-brunch food and were disappointed to see only burgers as our option, we quickly changed our tune. These were incredible! All of them made with sustainable, local beef, they were juicy, tender, flavorful and just out of this world. Plus mine had bleu cheese and bacon, which I found out causes heaven in your mouth!

After lunch, we wandered around various fun shops before heading to the south point on the island where we climbed the lighthouse and got a great view of Mount Rainer.

I have a bad habit of making people pose for group shots wherever I go. This is mainly a bad habit in that it involves me rigging tripods for my camera using tree branches, rocks or in this case driftwood.

After the lighthouse we went to a nearby lavender farm, where we relaxed with some lavender lemonade lavender earl grey iced tea.

As a through and through lavender lover, Becca was in her element here and picked a large bunch which later played a key role in an INCREDIBLE dessert.

We ended our great day trip to Vashon with a stop at a local winery where we sampled a few wines and even a very petulant (their description, not mine) hard cider. Here David demonstrates effective tasting technique.

After we got back from Vashon, Katie's roommate surprised us with an amazing BBQ feast (it was quite the day for good food) and we also got to meet a few of Katie's other friends who happen to have one of the world's cutest babies.

The next day we had lots of grand adventures and then Becca and I prepared a birthday feast for Katie, housemates, David, Meryl, Miriam and ourselves. I made a smoked mozzarella, chicken sausage, herb & tomato pasta dish and Becca made this fabulous lavender creme brulee. I should note that she is now hooked enough that Jess and I felt required to get Becca her very own butane torch for her birthday.

Tuesday night we met up with Katie, David & Meryl post work for a picnic in Gasworks park.

It was a beautiful evening and Seattle got to show itself off a little bit.

David, Becca, Meryl and I ended the evening by playing 2 Truths & A Lie (much harder when you are playing with old friends and not new people) and watching the sunset.

The next day, Miriam, Becca, Katie and I had a highly indulgent afternoon at a local tea shop that serves high tea. What a delicious tower of food! Also I was not actually grumpy that day, I just didn't know that Katie was taking a picture 🙂

Oh and we also got pedicures, crazy good day. Can you guess which foot belongs to which friend?

To finish up this recap, I figure I will include one more picture of amazing food. This is in Meryl's apartment where she and her roommate cooked us up an amazing feast of summer squash, corn, fava beans, tortalini and pesto. We also had some incredible cherry/mint mojitos. There was a lot of amazing food on this trip.

Well that ends this recap, only one left! Vancouver weekend, here we come!