Adventures with Tommy

After 8 months of being here in Spokane Ryan and I had our first visitor! At the beginning of March my brother Tommy decided to take a long road trip and come up here to the Northwest to see what it had to offer...and of course, visit with us :) We had so much fun with him and loved having him be with us! Ryan had spring break so it was a perfect time for Tommy to come and relax from the stresses of life :) We were able to show him our little town of Liberty Lake, the Spokane temple, downtown Spokane, Lake Coeur d'Alene, Leavenworth and even Seattle. It was great to have someone here so that we could be creative and find entertaining things to do that we had never even done before.

The first weekend I was away in Missouri for work so Ryan and Tommy went downtown and strolled through the leaf barren Manito Park imagining what it would look like in the spring and summer. They also toured St. John's cathedral which they said was spectacular!

When I got home we took him to see Lake Coeur d'Alene. We took a cool hike on Tubbs Hill that takes you to a little beach or peninsula at the lake. The hike was beautiful! It was definitely cold, especially with the wind blowing, but it had been raining which made the hike even greener.

The boys were in deep meditation.

After the day at the lake we introduced Tommy to Paul Bunyan's Burgers where they serve the absolute best burgers and fries. Yes my dear brother in law Cory, I dare say they may even beat any of the hamburgers you have ever eaten...in your life :)

The next trip we decided to go on was to Seattle. None of us had ever been so we took a quick (quick equaling 5 hours one way) drive over to Seattle. We decided to take the scenic way over which ended up being a good choice. The drive was absolutely gorgeous! Even though the weather looks a little threatening in some of these pictures it was perfect. There was no snow on the roads and it was only raining a little bit. The drive was stunning. You get to drive through Wenatchee National Forest which is where these pictures were taken.

I think it had snowed a couple of days before because there was a lot of snowed piled up on the side of the road. The snow got so high it reached the bottom of most signs. The picture below puts the height of the snow into perspective. It was well over the top of the car.

Right in the middle of the forest there is this cute little town called Leavenworth. We had heard that it was a touristy town and that we should stop. We didn't think we wanted to take the time since our trip to Seattle was only a short two days. But when we actually arrived and looked around, we couldn't help but get out of the car and walk through some shops. We ended up being there for over 2 hours!

Leavenworth is like Midway Utah, only every shop, store, sign, and building has the swiss theme. Even the McDonalds and Subway went along with it. The town is in

a great location because you have the mountains in the backdrop which make you feel like you really are in the Swiss Alps.

The pictures obviously don't do it justice but give some sort of an idea of how quaint this little town is. There were a ton of different shops.

The Taffy Shop

The Kris Kringl shop which was a year round Christmas store, we spent a long time in there.

The Woodcarver shop. Tommy really liked this store. He took a lot of pictures of the different animals they carved out of wood.

The Hat shop. You can tell by Ryan's face that he obviously felt silly taking pictures of all the different kinds of hats.

These pictures make me laugh. When we were posing for the shot Ryan and Tommy really (accidentally) licked the sucker.

When we got to Seattle we stayed with my cousin Victoria and her husband Mike. They live forty minutes outside of downtown. Mike grew up in the area and gave us a personalized tour. He knew a lot of information including dates and history of the architecture and artwork. We covered a lot of ground in our day trip to Seattle. Our first stop was to a giant troll placed under a bridge located just outside of Seattle in a city called Fremont.

We went to the coast. These sailboats were practicing for an upcoming race.

This place is called the locks. This is where all of the boats come from fresh water and enter sea water. It is a really interesting process. There are a lot of people that come just to watch.

The infamous public market!

We went to the public market because we were going to get some lunch. Victoria then starts talking about needing to buy some bubblegum. Ryan and I were so confused as to why we were spending our time looking for gum when we were so hungry and just wanted to eat. We found some, purchased it, starting chewing. We were then led to this....

THE GREAT WALL OF GUM!

This "gum" wall started with a long line waiting outside to get into an improv comedy show. People just started to put their gum up on the wall which has now grown into what you see below. It was gross but fun to contribute!

We finally got our fish n'chips, clam chowder bread bowl and headed out on a one hour ferry ride. This was one of the most enjoyable things we did. It really showed us the city from a distance. Seattle is beautiful!

The seagulls are a prime attraction for the ferry boat riders. These seagulls have been trained very well. You take a french fry in your hand and hold it out. They eat right out of your hand! It made me super nervous and took me a while to do, but I can honestly say that I have now hand fed a seagull. I think these pictures are priceless!

Final stop was Seattle's great space needle. Cool attraction but it cost too much mula for each person to go to the top. We definitely enjoyed the view from the ground looking up.

Our trip was a blast! Beautiful weather, great company and spectacular sites. We enjoyed having Tommy up here in Washington with us. His presence was definitely missed when he left. Thanks for coming and visiting us Tommy!!!

Now we can't wait to have more people come to visit!