sleepless (well almost) in Seattle ...

After my amazing week with the P's Leslie and I caught an early early morning flight to Seattle (after staying up much too late finishing sewing a million aprons ... well it felt kinda like a million never ending aprons that late at night! And thanks Mr Nick for wrapping them up so nicely for us too - seriously! :)

We were pretty excited because this was the start of our bloggy meetup, which we had been planning for about a year. A fun time where we would spend a weekend with a bunch of fellow bloggers whom we had never met (well Leslie had been lucky enough to meet a few) but who we had prayed for, cried with, constantly emailed, had many hour long phone chats, facebooked and become dear dear friends and close sisters in Christ ...

and we were also probably exhausted from our week of fun and craft room mess making times as we both slept pretty much the whole flight! Although we did enjoy it when our hostesses sang "Goodmorning Goodmorning" to us and also sang goodbye as we landed (The same lady I mentioned in my last post) very funny + strange!  :)

Our flight was the first one to arrive into Seattle and we eagerly awaited the arrival of this lady and her littlest one. Excitedly trying to work out exactly what terminal she was coming from and standing at the top of the escalator and spotting her coming up it, waving and shouting was such an exciting moment!!!

Once again it was surreal standing there in the airport with these two amazing ladies. Trying to let it soak in that this was real!

Then we headed out side where it was cold and awaited 2 carfulls of very excited girls to arrive...
This one and this one and this one and this one too...

Chelley even tried to jump out of an almost still moving car and run across three lanes of traffic just to hug us. Crazy lady! :)

some fun Seattle moments:

- the start of Andi's standing on chairs to get our attention and organize things.
- Meeting Misha, her hubby and cute kids when they dropped her off at the hotel. 
- late night talks all cramped in one hotel room (we had to hire three rooms to fit us all in but couldn't be separated until it was very much bedtime and then we talked a lot once we were in bed too!).
- Staying in the classy 'Sheraton Hotel' and gazing out onto the famous city below
- Experiencing tipping a hotel bellboy - this was like another language for me :)

- My first PF Changs experience yummo! and trying to understand how much to tip - still Such a foreign thought!
-  a 3 storey anthropology!!! need I say more...

- Having Andi capture Fairlight's and my expression (we were the only two who had never actually been into a store before) as we first walked in. Andi - we need copies!! :)
- 2 yr old Rose 'buying stuff' at anthro - cutely walking up to the counter where her mum was purchasing a few things and putting her little stash of handles on the counter as if to say "Just these thanks"

 - Enjoying Seattle's pretty buildings and super clean streets (Sydney people you could learn a few things here!) with bare but pretty in season twiggy branches

- Pretty Pretty cherry blossoms lining the streets

- Experiencing Pikes Place Markets.

- oohing and aahing and buying flowers at the market (not knowing that they had something to do with me...)

 - Taking SO many photos of Pikes Place

- Getting asked what magazine/paper we were from because of all our big slrs and picture taking of the pretty colourful fruit and veggies. see? ...

- visiting the world's first ever Starbucks and grabbing a hot tea on a brisk morning.
- Fairlight and myself getting to taste a macroon for the first time from a cute and cozy bakery. (LOVE that we were able to experience a few 'firsts' together on this trip!)
- Having to take pictures of our macroons before we ate them - such a blogger thing!

- Receiving my first Martha Stewart wedding mags - yay!
- Sharing beds and stories and chats into the night with this lady.

 - Getting to help pick up Amanda and Miss Jilly up from the airport with Dawna and Misha - while the others went to finish some 'errands'. Little did I know that they were up to secret things that I wasn't to know about yet :D
- Letting the Aussie 'help' with directions on the i something er rather -  eek! :)
- Stopping off at another Starbucks (they closed all our local Starbucks over here now except one I know of in the city...) where we met up with the sweet fun and beautiful Miss Nikki - who completed our group.
- an incredibly fun and chatty trip with Niki all the way to Seabrook on the Washington state coast where we had hired a beautiful beach house for our relaxing trip together - This girl can SO do a better aussie occer accent than me :P !!!

And I guess some of us weren't all that sleepless :)