A few weeks ago we had the great privilege of going to Seattle for my sister's wedding. We had such an excellent time there. Almost all of my extended family came which was AMAZING!!! I love my family. While there we did many of the touristy things, took the ferry, visited Pike's place market, had delicious sea food, went to the art museum, and blew our kids minds by visiting the 99 year old Starbucks. The wedding was lovely in every way. The pictures of the wedding (on this blog) were taken by Jenny's friend Megan and my cousin Kristin. After the wedding we traveled down to Olympia to stay with our very hospitable, long-time friends the Penrods. We have always wanted to see their town! It was so chilly and rainy (it's still in the 90's here.) But we enjoyed doing some of the "fall" things we don't have here. Seattle is now on our visit again list. And I thought I would throw in a picture from my hike to the Grand Canyon. One of my best friends from the BYU-came to hike with me 1 week after the wedding. It was a bit crazy, and we had "mom brain" when Tara left her bag with all her things, and I left our hiking poles back in PHX. When we arrived at the GC the night before our hike and found we didn't have shoes for Tara, and no poles we thought we may have to throw in the towel and do the small hike and go to the IMAX. We were totally bummed. But we decided to go anyways even though we had a very late start. The general store opened at 8am so she was able to get some hiking shoes and a hat (luckily I had brought tons of extra clothing.) We didn't get on the trail until 10am so we booked it down in 2.45 hrs. My knees were not happy about that. Going down to the river and to Phantom Ranch was awesome! It was so beautiful down there, like a little oasis. Thankfully we were able to make it only having to hike for 1 hr. in the dark. And even more thankfully I remembered the head lamps. My legs were totally thrashed for a few days but overall it was such fun! I'm pretty sure we annoyed tons of people with our chatting but it made the time fly. Next year we are going to hike N. rim to S rim.
At the beginning of the hike, and right after we made it out.
