Post wedding adventure east.

The morning after the wedding in Arlington, we all got up a little, um, groggy. Certainly NOT hungover. No way. We had to wring ourselves out of our tents from all of the water that had pooled up around them after the massive monsoon that had come through during the night but we did so and eventually around 11am that morning, packed up all of our tents and camping gear and made our way out of the wedding venue and on to bigger and better things. Justin's mom had rented a cabin for the week in the surrounding area so we headed there first to drop off Bailey and Oliver... and to shower, eat and just generally do things so that we could all feel just a tad bit more normal...you know, to get rid of that grogginess. That may or may not have been induced by bourbon. WHO KNOWS.

After spending some time at the cabin snacking and getting clean, we decided to take Ashley east of the mountains to Leavenworth. It's a little bavarian/german town about 1.5 hours away from Seattle. I've been there before, a couple of times, and am always in awe of how cute this little town is... and how picturesque it is. It's right at the base of the cascade mountains, on the sunny side. This was the perfect time of year to go and it was a great thing to do with Ashley so that she could see a different part of the state. AND, bonus, turns out that this special guy in my life is FROM Leavenworth so we had our own personal tour guide. In the few times that I have been to Leavenworth, I don't think I quite saw it in the same way that I saw it with Justin- someone who knows the town innately.

Our first stop was at sleeping lady, a resort just outside of Leavenworth. I had never even been to this location, never even knew it was here, even though I'd driven by it multiple times on the way to Icicle Creek, a place I have camped and hiked before. But Justin used to work here when he lived in Leavenworth so he showed us the whole HUGE resort, which was built on the principle of sustainability. I was completely blown away. We ate at a little cafe there before exploring the grounds where we got the MOST GIANT monster cookie EVER. I think it weighed 10 pounds.

Eating the giant cookie. Yum.

After lunch, we started to explore the grounds. This is Justin walking through the garden where the resort grows all of their own vegetables.

And a shot of the mountains, the "sleeping lady"... Kind of hard to tell from the picture but literally the mountains look like a lady sleeping. Kind of cool. Sidenote: look how sunny it is here!

And, another shot of the garden. We had great plans to hike while in Leavenworth but I think all of us were feeling rather tired from the wedding the night before so instead, we took it easy and just explored.

After leaving sleeping lady, we took a tour through Leavenworth and saw where Justin used to live and then headed to the main drag... at which point I stopped taking pictures, though I'm not sure why. We stopped at Justin's friend Damien's chocoloate shop and got little gourmet, handmade chocolates which were TO DIE FOR (not kidding), then went wine tasting, then ate dinner at a local restuarant in town where Ashley and I split a bottle of sangria. Because we are intelligent like that. The food (and sangria) were all fabulous. After all of that, we had to get hot chocolates for the road (because we needed more to eat and drink) and we were on our way. We made it back to Seattle around 10.30pm at which point I have no memory as all of us promptly passed out. It was a great weekend.