Seattle, WA

I am on my flight home from Seattle, WA as I type this. I spent last week there at the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Conference. It was great conference for networking with other pharmacists and physicians in practices just like mine. I was traveling with two physicians from our practice. These two also came to Jamaica with our team this year, so we’ve done the travel thing together already! Seattle is a fun city, we got to get out of town just a bit before the conference started and took a drive to the Olympic Peninsula. Unfortunately the weather was horrible, cold and rainy. We couldn’t do the scenic hurricane ridge drive because it was all fogged in. 😦 But we made the best of it and still went out to Rialto Beach despite the rain and fog. We did see Lake Crescent on our drive and the beach was black stand/stone with HUGE trees lining the coast.

Carrie and I in front of Lake Crescent:

Rialto Beach:

The next day the conference started in the morning, but in the afternoon we did have time to check out a neighborhood called Ballard, just north of downtown Seattle. The Theo chocolate factory is located there.

It is all organically grown and fair trade. Learning about the chocolate making process was fun. I discovered their version of milk chocolate in % cocoa is most other companies version of dark chocolate. We tasted lots of flavors and there were a few yummy ones! Most were too bitter for me. Then we checked out discovery park, i was a bit warmer this day and the rain held off….for most of our visit! We hiked most of the park….I think it was abut 4 miles. Once we got down to the beach we could see Mt. Rainer off in the distance…and had it been clearer we could have seen the Olympic Mountains too.

Photos from the beach at Discovery Park:

It did start raining when we were about 1 mile from the car. Oh well….We didn’t melt. 🙂 I was glad we got to see a bit of the area while we were there. I love exploring the coast…the ocean always reminds me of how BIG our God is…and how small we are in the perspective of time, yet our Savior has such an abundant love for us. I was sad the weather didn’t allow us to watch a sunset on the coast…but I guess I’ll have to come back to Seattle on a real vacation sometime..maybe in the summer.

Thursday we were up bright and early for conference activities all day, and then again on Friday and Saturday. Saturday we did our poster presentations and roundtable discussion.
Kali and I at our poster:

On Friday during a break we did make it to Pike’s Place Market only a few blocks from our hotel. What a great place!

Although I’m not a huge fan of most types of fish, the smell of fish in the air wasn’t too bothersome. The rows of tulips lining the market brought better fragrance.

And there were at least 2 vendors there with lavender grown in Washington. It smelled amazing! There are multiple lavender farms in that area. I bought a lavendar heat wrap for my Grandma for Mother’s Day. She was recently diagnosed with endometrial cancer and is having surgery this Wednesday (May 2nd). I hope it will help her get comfortable in her recovery. Your prayers would be greatly appreciated. I also bought Dustin a present….3 types of freshly made pasta. One kind is chocolate pasta! I tasted it there dry and it was awesome, I can’t wait to cook it then have it with raspberries and whip cream. The original Starbucks is right across the street from the market. Of course we had to check that out. I didn’t get a drink (it was the middle of the day) but I did purchase that location’s exclusive Pike Place roast for Papa for his birthday.

Well the flight attendants are cleaning up and electronics have to be stowed….Prayers for a VERY productive 3 days….I have one fairly big project that needs completed by Tueday night. And of course I’m working Mon-Wed. We leave for Europe on Thursday…stay tuned! We can’t wait to share our journey with you.