Catching Up!

It's been a busy week! My parents got here last Wednesday evening, and they just left this morning. While they were here, we were busy playing tour guide while also taking care of some house stuff. I'll try to do a brief recap of the things that we did with Mom and Dad.

On Thursday, we had our inspection in the afternoon. But before that, I took my parents up to the Boeing Factory. They went through the Future of Flight museum (while I ran a quick errand), and then my mom and I went on the Factory Tour. The factory is the largest building (by volume) in the world, and it's pretty impressive. This is where they make a lot of the Boeing jets, and it was fun to see them in the various stages of assembly. We saw the first ever Boeing 747-8 (which is a 747 converted to a freight plane), and we also saw some of the new 787s.

On Friday, while Shawn was at work, my parents and I drove all over. I took them out to West Seattle and we ate fish n' chips at Alki Beach. Then we drove over to Ballard. We went to the Ballard Locks, and we were able to watch quite a few boats go through them. The main reason I took them there, though, was for the fish ladder. When salmon spawn, they go upstream to the place where they were born. Because the Locks have been built, the salmon can't get back, so a fish ladder has been built. You'll find these in lots of places in this area, but the Locks have one of the ladder sections glassed in. We saw a number of HUGE salmon in the ladder! It was pretty cool. My dad also really liked the gardens here. When we were done at the Locks. Of course, no visit to Ballard is complete without a visit to Cupcake Royale, so we stopped there before heading home. Friday night, we all headed back downtown to watch the Mariners/Yankees game.

Hm. As I'm typing this, I've realized that this is getting to be a huge post, and I still have 3 days of my parents' visit. I think I'll end this one here, and I'll write another one later. :-)