Weekend in Seattle

In an effort to convince Nate to accept the full-time job offer they gave him, Amazon flew the two of us out to Seattle last weekend. Nate’s parents were SO kind to watch the boys for us while we were gone! We flew out Thursday afternoon, and went to dinner with Nate’s mission companion & his wife that night, then hung out at their place for a while.

On Friday, Nate had meetings at Amazon all day. I went for a long run along the waterfront in the morning (it was overcast and had rained earlier, but it was still pretty to run along the waterfront and see the piers, boats, etc.), then went to an Amazon-hosted lunch for spouses and tour of the Amazon campus. We went to the top of one of the buildings, where you can walk out and see this great view:

After lunch, I went shopping with the other 2 BYU wives (reminded me that shopping can be fun…without kids!) then relaxed at our hotel (which was in a great location right downtown – we walked everywhere) before going with Nate down to a yummy Amazon dinner. We relaxed in the pool & hot tub after dinner, which felt great after my long run in the morning then shopping and walking all over the rest of the day.

Saturday morning, we thoroughly enjoyed sleeping in, then went to a “Savor Seattle” food tour of Pike’s Place Market with some other Amazon offerees. It was great! Our entertaining (if at times cheesy) guide told us some of the history of the Market as we tried samples from some of the many restaurants. Some of our favorites were the hot mini doughnuts, the clam chowder, Piroshkys, dried cherries and other goodies from Chukar Cherries, smoked salmon, Beecher’s famous Mac N Cheese, and crab cakes from Etta’s. Nate commented that trips to the market will now be much more expensive because we know where the good food is & will have a hard time passing it up.

us with Maximilien (who sits outside the Maximilien spice store); our guide with his pink umbrella

We went back to our hotel and relaxed / did homework / watched the BYU game, then caught an early movie before walking down to the water for a yummy dinner at Ivar’s. We planned on going on a ferry ride after dinner, but as we were waiting in line, it apparently broke down – they had been stopped loading people and when it started gong again, it made a weird banging noise and they stopped it, tried again the other direction (same sound) and eventually started unloading people. Since we didn’t want to get stuck on there, and didn’t want to wait forever while they fixed it, we gave up :( We tried alternative 2 to see a bird’s eye view of the city, but after walking all the way down there, the Columbia Center was shutting down. We still enjoyed walking around the city at night and getting milkshakes :)

 

We didn’t have time for too much on Sunday morning before we had to leave to catch our flight, but we enjoyed a wonderful weekend – the one thing we didn’t do in Seattle this summer was have a date night, so it was fun to have a full weekend to explore, spend time together, and enjoy the city at night without the kids!

The views of the Space Needle and Lake Union from our hotel room. And a lovely self-portrait :)

Whether the weekend was successful for Amazon in convincing Nate to accept his offer remains to be seen – we’ll keep you posted!