Five Years....

Wow... time really does fly. Five years ago I was 22, newly married, and on a cruise in the Mexican Gulf... Now, I'm living in a home we own, pregnant with our first baby, and still (thankfully) happily married... Derek and I decided we needed to get away for our big day, not only because it was our anniversary, but also because it's the last time the two of us will really get a vacation alone for a while... we deliberated about going to the coast (too long of a drive and too cold this early in the summer) and going to Lake Chelan (spendy and not a lot to do for a preggie)... in the end, we settled on Seattle - we decided to shop, eat, and sight see at our own pace, so Friday morning we loaded the car (I don't travel any lighter now that I'm pregnant, much to our bellhops dismay) and headed West. We stopped in E'burg for lunch at the Pita Pit and started our five days of restaurant binge eating. By North Bend I had to pee again and we had been alerted to some baby sales at the outlet mall... we raided Baby Gap and Carters and made out like bandits... Derek found a couple pairs of shoes and I looked longingly at the Coach store but managed not to go inside (BIG kudos for me!)... After we had shopped out the mall we decided to get to the hotel - we stayed at the Westin in downtown Seattle. We told them we were celebrating our anniversary and they gave us a great room on the 40th floor with a view of the space needle and Lake Union. It was amazing!!

After we got settled in the room, we decided to go down to the pool for a pre-dinner swim... if I had known how much I would be eating in the next 72 hours I would have swam for a few hours!! After about 45 minutes we headed back to the room to get our showers and get ready for dinner. At 6pm a car came from the Palisades to pick us up and take us to dinner. I wish I would have taken some pictures inside the restaurant, it's beautiful and it sits right on the marina looking out at the water and downtown Seattle. We had a great view and a great meal (although, I have to admit, the food can't compare to Tony's here in town - but it was still yummy!) We stuffed ourselves beyond belief and ordered dessert to eat back at the room... we were back in the town car around 8pm and headed back to the hotel. We ate dessert and watched the sunset and then, like clockwork - I was asleep by sundown...

The next day, we got up and had breakfast and headed off to wander downtown. We shopped allllll day :) We had lunch at PF Changs and then went to watch "The Hangover" which was hysterical. After the movie, we headed back to the hotel to change and get ready for dinner (more eating!) and wandered over to the Cheesecake Factory. The wait was almost an hour but we managed to grab a seat at the bar after only a few minutes. We had dinner, ordered our cheesecake to go, and walked (okay, waddled) back to the hotel...

The next morning we hit Starbucks for breakfast and then packed up and headed South to Tacoma. We stopped at the Babies R Us at South Center mall to register for baby shower gifts and then proceeded to get completely lost on the backside of Auburn. Finally, we made our way back to the I-5 and made our way to Tacoma. We checked in to the hotel and got ourselves settled. Hotel Murano is one of my favorites because it's modeled after Murano, Italy. There is blown and stained glass all throughout the hotel and each floor has it's own theme. Ours (this time) was a glass corset...

We didn't do much Sunday evening - just headed to The Rock for pizza and to watch the NBA finals. We went back to the room and decided to order a movie... and it was AWFUL. Do NOT watch The Watchmen - it sucks butt. After suffering through the movie, I clonked out and got the best sleep of our trip...

On Monday we ran up to the Tacoma Mall to return a watch that I bought (it broke... within 3 hours of buying it.) Then we parked the car at the hotel and wandered downtown to check out the little shops and the glass museum. The museum was pretty cool - as we walked across the bridge we got to see over 2,000 pieces of glass work done by Chihuly (he's a famous glassy-guy) and we snapped a few pics. Then we went into the museum and watch them make blown glass art.

On our way back to the hotel, we discovered that the court house had a bunch of Chihuly glass in it as well, so we wandered in and snapped a few pictures - the lighting wasn't so good but it was a beautiful building...



After we got back to the hotel, we got ready for dinner and waited for Derek's friend Mike to arrive... the three of us went out to dinner at The Ram on the waterfront and (again) gorged ourselves... Afterwards, the boys had some drinks and I took a hot bath and went to bed early... The next morning, Derek and Mike headed off to their class at the Fort Lewis Clubhouse and I headed off to the spa... :D I had my hair colored, highlighted, and cut at Sublime salon - it was amazing (and expensive, but worth it...) After two hours at the salon, I wandered back to the Savi Day Spa (at the hotel)... I had an hour long pregnancy massage (heavenly) and a 90 minute facial which was to die for... I had so much fun but I think we're both glad to be home and back to our normal routine... I can't wait to see where life takes us in the next five years!