The Great NW

The reason I've been scarce lately is that we had a big conference for work in downtown St. Louis last week. Then on Friday, I flew to Seattle. The original purpose of the trip was to see Nate's friend Dave get married. Then just recently I found out I needed to be in Bellevue for some work-related activities, so I also ended up tacking on a couple of days to the end of the trip (Monday & Tuesday) to stay and accomplish some work.

The wedding we attended was a casual affair. It was at a venue called The Attic. The room consisted of hardwood floors, huge windows, and exposed brick, so it really gave the wedding a cool setting. Dave & Carla (the couple) did something different in that they had cocktail hour start an hour before the wedding. So when we got there, the couple was at the door greeting people. Carla was wearing a colorful dress--not her wedding dress--to start off the evening. Then an hour later when the ceremony was to begin, she ran off to change. They got married in front of the fireplace in the room, with a very casual ceremony and beautiful vows.

We had a nice buffet dinner--the food was good and the cake...fantastic! I do have a sweet tooth, though. It was simple white cake with a whipped icing, but was really made it great was the lemon filling between the layers. Yum. They also had mini cheesecakes, which was Nate's dessert of choice. He's thinking of getting a cheesecake for his "groom's cake."

We didn't stay too long into the night as we found their mix of music was a bit hard to dance to. In fact, Nate and I didn't even get to dance. I hope that we do a better job of music choices! Besides being a bit unorganized, overall it was a good wedding. It's always fun to go to other people's weddings when planning your own. You notice little details that you probably wouldn't normally and can get ideas of what to do and not do.

So besides the wedding and work (which I will not talk about...boring!), on Sunday we did a little sightseeing. Nate drove us up to Snoqualmie Falls. It was a beautiful drive as everything in Seattle is blooming. It was a bit chilly and wet, but that didn't stop us from taking in the beautiful falls.
The waterfall itself is 270 feet high, which is 110 feet higher than Niagara Falls. If you are interested in more of the history, you can read about the falls here. As you can probably see in this photo, there is a fine mist in the air swirling around created from the force of the falls, and if the wind blew in just the right direction, it sent the mist toward the crowd.
As you can tell from this picture, the wind was definitely blowing in our direction that day. I look like a wet dog! There's also beautiful Salish Lodge right next to the falls--you can sit out on your own private deck and take it in.
Quite the view from the rooms, I'd say. And I doubt it's cheap either!!

After visiting the falls, we kept driving up the pass so we could get high enough to see some snow. Nate drove up to one of the Snoqualmie ski resorts called Apental. It was still snowing there, and let me tell you they had a lot of snow! People were still skiing, in fact. This should give you a general idea:
Yep, that's snow alright! Nate said he had been up there a couple of weeks ago and a lot of the snow had melted since then. Uh, really?! I've never seen so much snow, but I guess I am from MO. It was really pretty up there.

We ended our excursion with some nice warm hot chocolate--mine with an addition of yummy butter rum flavoring. It really was a great day and weekend. We were able to relax for once since we weren't at home and preoccupied with all the things we should be doing!