And year six goes to....

For those of you who don't know, Ken and I have an anniversary tradition. Each year we take turns planning a trip for our anniversary. But the one who is planning the trip doesn't tell the other one about it. Everything is a total surprise until the day of the trip. This year was Ken's turn. He did a great job keeping it a secret from me. I had no idea where we were going. And Julia proved to be very good at keeping secrets. She had been telling me for quite some time that she had no idea where we were headed and she had known for awhile.
We left early (very) last Friday morning and flew to Seattle. We met Randy, Delia and Brynn for hamburgers at Red Mill (I think). They are listed as a top 10 burger joint by someone important. The hamburgers were very good but the company was better. This was my first time to meet Brynn. She is so cute. After lunch, I went back to the room to take a nap while Ken exchanged our car because the radio didn't work...only to get a car that the tire was flat. So...while I watched HGTV in the room, Ken took the car to get the tire fixed...welcome to Seattle. Then we met Randy and Delia downtown for dinner at this great Fondue restaurant. Well, I am assuming it was great. We didn't have reservations and were told that we couldn't be seated for three hours. No big deal, we were just happy to get away. PF Chang's sounded good anyway. So we went to PF Chang's. They didn't have any tables available, or pagers for that matter. But we could come back in an hour and 15 minutes and get our pager to wait for a table. At this point we were all chuckling a little bit. So we all went and shot a couple of games of pool and came back to eat dinner. It was a fun evening.
On Sunday we spent the entire day shopping. We went to the world famous Pike's Market and I got to see the guys throw the fish. It was so neat! The market was a really neat experience. There was tons of food, flowers, local artwork and even purses made out of nothing but duct tape!
On Monday we drove a hour or so from Seattle and went on the Northwest Trek...somewhat of a Seattle safari. We rode on a tram through a 435 acre wildlife park. We got to see grizzly bears, moose, elk and other great wildlife native to the area. We even got to see a skunk, which we wouldn't get to see again until...well, we got home (that story coming right up).
Tuesday we went back downtown and rode the 520 ft (I think) Space Needle. Thanks, but no thanks on that one. Holy cow that thing is so high. I was getting sick from feeling the movement at the top. They said that it only moved an inch for every 10 mph of wind...that was enough. After coming down (not soon enough) we headed back to the airport and home to see our girls. It was SO hard to be away from them.
About the skunk...we were so tired from our trip and looking forward to just coming home and relaxing, which we did. Then right before we went to bed (so we thought) Ken let Madison out to go potty. Before Ken realized that she was trying to make friends with skunk, she had already been sprayed. It was the most disgusting thing I have smelled in my entire life. We spent the next hour bathing her (I quit counting after the sixth bath) and trying to get the smell to go away. It didn't work. I think I finally got the smell out last night. Gross. The Seattle trip was great fun and I so enjoyed getting to spend time with Randy and Delia. I wish that we could see you guys more often. We miss you! Seattle is a beautiful city and has breathtaking scenery. Thanks for the surprise, Ken. Happy anniversary, I love you.
Here are some pictures of our trip.



For any of you keeping up on our anniversary tradition, here is our count so far:

First: Gatlinburg, Tennessee
Second: Ashville, North Carolina and the Biltmore Estate
Third: Napa Valley, California for a wine country tour
Fourth: Tampa, Florida Busch Gardens and the Tampa Zoo
Fifth: Ft. Worth, Texas
Sixth: SEATTLE!

We have so much fun with our anniversary tradition. I am not sure which one is more fun, planning the trip or being surprised. Either way, we both enjoy getting away and hanging out together by ourselves.