My first weekend in town, I played at Potlatch. You can see some more pictures here, but here's our team, Melon Meat (notice the watermelon themed shirts).

I did catch some fireworks on Seattle's east side from the deck. These were over off Mercer Island a few days after the 4th.

My second weekend in town, I went on a hike in North Cascades National Park.

There's a reason they're called the American Alps. We camped there Saturday night, and were treated to a nice sunset, even though the mountains block the horizon.

All around were glaciers dangling from the mountainside. We heard a few rockslides, but none very close by.

Tons of flowers were in bloom, including the heather.

Here's Abby near the top of the climb, which, incidently, gains 3000 feet over the 5 mile hike up to the Sahale Glacier.

On the way up, we ran in to this blue grouse on the trail.

Then we saw a couple mountain goats (no question on whether these ones were sheep or goats).

And then on the way down we saw a momma blue grouse...

...and her chicks. Cute!

Also very cute were the small animals - we saw marmot (no decent pic) and this pika.

I don't think the North Cascades stole the title of "best park visited yet" from Teton National Park, but they came awful close. It's a much bigger park, though, so I'll definitely be headed back to see more.