Simpsons in Seattle

Last weekend I had a chance to do a long-awaited girls trip with my tribe of HS friends! It was such a fun weekend to reconnect with them since the last time we got together was pre-pandemic when we had a lovely time enjoying Palm Springs . This time, we chose to explore Santa Fe mainly because it was a destination that was a short flight away and not a place that any of had been to before! I flew out late late Thursday night and met Way at the airport in Albuquerque. We stayed at a hotel nearby, and then spent Friday exploring ABQ. We walked around the lovely little square in old town Albuquerque, drove around and checked out the city a bit, including the Rio Grande, and went to the Albuquerque Museum. After that, we picked up Becca from the airport and since Sayo's flight was delayed, we stopped to grab a drink at the upscale food hall Sawmill Market. We finally grabbed Sayo around 6pm and then boogied over to Santa Fe (about an hour's drive) to make it in time for our dinner

Ice cream treat at Molly Moon's last week. I was sad they didn't have my fav (Strawberry balsamic) but their Mocha Chip was fantastico! The girls both opted for blackberry sorbet. Judging from their grins, I'm pretty sure they loved it.  

Since we had 3 whole days without any major plans over Labor Day Weekend, we each picked one family activity and one meal. It was actually a pretty fun and action packed! Can you guess what we each picked? What we ended up doing: - Hike to Mt Fremont Tower in Rainier National Park - Cat Cafe - Crystal hunting/mining - Dutch Baby - TJ's orange chicken - Szechuan fish in chili sause - Banh Mi Sandwiches If you noticed that there was actually only THREE activities listed, you have a sharp eye! Scott wanted to do a family bike ride but it was negotiated away because he tacked on a few extra miles to the hike. No worries, he still got a solo bike ride in.  Family photo on our hike to Rainier. My choice! Petting cats at the Neko Cat Cafe. Evie's choice! Diving into the chilly lake to check something under the boat. No one's choice! Banh Mi. Evie's choice Crepe's! No one's choice but delicious anyway. Thanks Scott! The crystals we found while crystal hunting. Nora'

 It wouldn’t be a Seattle summer if we didn’t make the trek out to lovely Mt Rainier! We left pretty early and drove 2 hours to check out the north side of the volcano, Sunrise visitors center. Armed with plenty of candy, treats and PBJ, we took the trail up to Mt Fremont peak where you can check out an old fire lookout shelter perched on top. I can only imagine how intense that place would have been in a summer storm. We were equally concerned about not seeing a restroom for the caretaker either! I forgot to mention, on our hike up to the peak we noticed a big black bear scampering by a couple hundred yards above us towards the top of the mountain ridge. Pretty exciting! As you can imagine Nora had lots of questions about black bears and wanted to triple check that they aren’t as aggressive as grizzly bears. After that she made me practice how quickly I could whip out our bear spray can. The girls batted away aggressive squirrels during our mountain top picnic (hours after recounting