Memorial Day Date Weekend!!

The last few weekends have been full of craziness, which is why I haven't posted in so long!  :)  So I'll try to play catch up, but they'll probably be short and sweet (strange for me, right?).  Erik and I went on an adventure for Memorial Day weekend, and it was a BLAST!!  :)  

If you're ever in the Seattle area, about an hour outside Seattle (by Eatonville), there is an AMAZING place called Northwest Trek--I HIGHLY recommend making the trip!!  Erik had heard about it and had been mentioning that he wanted to go for probably a year now, so since we both had the weekend off, I decided to plan a surprise.  I invited him to go on an adventure with me, and we packed for the weekend.

Saturday morning we met up and drove the almost 3 hours up to Eatonville.  It is an absolutely GORGEOUS drive, and we couldn't have asked for better weather!  It was glorious!  It's on the way up to Mt. Ranier--so awesome!!

Northwest Trek is basically a wildlife preserve for animals native to the northwestern US.  There is a tram ride that lasts about an hour where they take you through the open range where the animals can roam freely and you can see Bison (there were babies when we were there!), mountain goats, Bighorn Sheep (there were baby Bighorn sheep, too!), elk, deer, moose, geese, etc, up close and personal.  They are protected with no predators, so they are pretty brave--it was great.  They also have habitats where you can see predators and injured animals (foxes, wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, cougars, owls, eagles, otters, porcupines, etc).  It was a little like a zoo, but MUCH cooler.  It's VERY family friendly, and on a nice day, you could easily wander and enjoy the place for a full day.  We took a picnic, and totally enjoyed the sunshine and the day.  We even got to hear the wolves howling!!!  SOOOOO COOL!!

After we'd spent most of the day at NW Trek, we headed up to Seattle and went to a Mariners game!  It was a blast.  I found a deal on some great seats (right behind Ichiro in the outfield, about six rows from the field)--Erik's parents said they even saw us briefly on TV!!  :)  We had a blast.

My good friend Tana was visiting her fiancee in Colorado, so she offered her condo (right in downtown Seattle--Belltown, for those of you who know the area) for the night, which DEFINITELY saved us some money!  :)  It was great.  We walked to church Sunday morning right next to Seattle Center, then spent a couple hours wandering through the Northwest Folklife Festival before leisurely heading back to Portland.  It was a blast!

I must have been tired because that night I slept like 11 hours!!  The weekend was rounded out with a fun game of Ultimate Frisbee and a BBQ with some friends.  It was a BLAST!!  And one of the best weekends we've had in a long time.  :)