Forks and La Push

So for those of you who don't know what Twilight is, it takes place mainly in Forks WA. But the main character has an Native American friend that lives on a reservation in La Push. So we thought while we were out in Seattle visiting Yury and family that we might as well go visit the hot spots of these books.

We began our drive from Port Angeles to Forks which ended up being about an hour. We got to Forks and almost drove through it, it was such a tiny city. Good thing there were signs :) and Twilight stuff everywhere. Here are some pictures from Forks:

This is supposed to be the truck that Bella drives. But I don't think that it would look like this.. But let's remember the actual Forks WA is basing everything off the book not the movie :)

The town deemed this Bella and Charlie's house. There is not sign and people actually liver here so when you go to ask where it's at, they tell you to not knock on the door. We were not the only Twilight freaks visiting Forks. It was basically a caravan or visitors from all over the place. CRAZY!!

Carlisle Cullen even was issued is very own parking spot. In the spot was a motorcycle, which I really don't think Dr. Cullen would've driven, but whatever. You can tell that the town is pushing the limit on this thing to try and drive as much tourist money as they possibly can. Not that we had to pay to see any of this stuff, but they reap the rewards in other ways I'm sure. It's good for their little economy :)

This is supposed to be the Cullen's house. The only problem I had with it was that it was in the middle of forks and not in the mountains or hidden away like the book describes it. This house is actually an Inn and I'm guessing that they get a lot of business claiming to be the Cullen residence... Good thinking on their part!

The next pictures are of La Push, the Indian reservation where Jacob lives. Bella visits him often in 'New Moon'. The movie for this book is due to come out this November!! yayay... but putting the book aside, La Push has some really awesome beaches and is a really cool reservation.

Here's what you see right when you get there :

Can you see the wolf howling at the moon? SOOO Crazy that this is actually on the La Push - First Beach!! Irony, it's a killer!

We got some Vampire Vanilla ice cream cones on the way back in to Port Angeles. The girl at the register freaked out when the boy helping us with our order got us large cones instead of smalls (we had a coupon for two free small cones). She was so angry with him.. hopefully he didn't get in trouble... what a stupid thing to get mad about.

Rainforest of the Northwest

This was our hiking day. It was slightly overcast with a breeze which felt good while hiking. The drive into the Olympic Peninsula was breath taking. The trees just kept getting bigger and bigger the closer we got. It was like you were being swallowed up by a big green monster.. and no kids, we're not talking Oscar the Grouch hahaha. We drove around Crescent Lake which is where one of our hikes started up to Marymere Falls. It wasn't a long hike but it was so beautiful. If you do go to Seattle I would highly recommend the 3 hour driver to see the Olympic Peninsula!

We then went on another hike which took you to the back side of the Hoh Rainforest, which is the most beautiful place in the world (well of what I've seen of the world, which isn't much yet haha) It was so green and beautiful.. Moss cascading off the trees and little animals all over the place and it just seemed so untouched, even with a trail. The two hikes were probably my favorite part of the trip.. soooo beautiful, like you walked into another planet. Check out the pics

I thought that this looked kinda like the tunnel in the Harry Potter movie and so I told Andy to act like there were dementors after him - that's why he's looking like he's scared/shocked/screaming hahaha - he needed a little inspiration for the picture :)

Vampire Andy

Arriving in Port Angeles - Vampire territory!

We've arrived in Port Angeles, WA - getting closer to vampire and wolf territory by the minute and still not sighting.. WAIT a sec... as we head up to our room at the Tudor Inn, we see them.. Waiting... Longing... Smelling our blood... could it be?!!??!?! have we found them? VAMPIRES!!!! hahaha.. so the place that we stayed at in Port Angeles had a Twilight package.. I love the Twilight books and the movie, pretty much everything that has to do with Twilight and I love it.. and I'm lucky enough to have a husband who loves it just as much as me! It was so fun to start the climb up the stairs to our room and to see Edward and Bella standing at the top with cut little apples at their feet. On our bet were vampire mints and no they didn't taste like blood or even minty blood haha and there was twilight chapstick and a twilight magnet. We were in heaven :) Not only was the Tudor Inn the cutest place in the world and the owner, Betsy was the nicest most welcoming person that I've meet in a long time, we had Twilight stuff all around us.. Books and pictures and a picture book.. it was really cute. We really enjoyed our stay and would highly recommend staying there if you want a relaxing place to crash and amazing breakfast served to you in the morning.

The night that we arrived, we had dinner reservations at the Bella Italia, which is the same restaurant that Edward and Bella ate at when Bella (from my perception) fell in love with Edward. It was an amazing restaurant with great food.. I got the lasagna..mmmm tasty! and there was garlic bread and a salad and then there was a desert at the end.. a sundae I believe.

We stayed there for two nights while we traveled around hiking and checking out the cities of Forks, Port Angeles and La Push. I would love to go back there again and visit with Betsy...

In Port Angeles they had a ship called 'Dazzled by Twilight' where people in love with Twilight could easily walk out of there spending 200 dollars... eek! We did pretty well and walked out with a shirt each and two glasses that say 'Got Twilight' haha cute huh and a sticker and I think Andy got a magnet or something. Anyways.. it was a really cute store, decorated in all Twilight stuff with a tree and apples and all kinds of stuff symbolic of the movie.

Before we left we simply had to pose with Edward and Bella :)

Touring Seattle

On this day we went into downtown Seattle to see some of the Museums ans the Space Needle. We got a late start and so we didn't get to do as much as we had planned to do on this day, but oh well, it was a nice day anyway! We went to the Space Needle first and didn't really take any pictures while up in the observation deck. Up on the observation deck we called Yury (at work at the time) and told him where we were.. He had is binoculars with him in the office and was able to see us waiving at him from the Space Needle.. haha how cool is that. After being on the observation deck of the empire state building, the height of the Space Needle wasn't all that impressive. But it was an interesting building and there was a really great view of the city from the observation deck.

After the Space Needle we then met Yury and Caryn and family for lunch at a tiny Pho resturant. I had never had Pho before and it was extremely good.. I got Curry and Andy got the Pho and then we shared our food so that we could have some of each. After lunch we headed to the Science Fiction Museum A.K.A. nerd heaven!! There was so much stuff there and they wouldn't let you take pictures of anything so that's why there nothing but the cool outside of the building on this blog. But there was a ton of stuff to see. Another part of the same building was the Music Project. There was this huge sculpture in the middle of the Music Project building made out of every kind of guitar ever made... it was sooooo cool - I wish I couldn't at least taken a picture of that. There was an area that went through the musical history or the Northwest and who came from Seattle and what they did and how they contributed to the music stylings of the generation. There was also this really awesome room that went through the life of Jimmy Hendrix and showed clips of him playing and different things that he accomplished in his life as well as old guitars that he used and outfits he would wear to his concerts.

There was a Jim Henson section where they went through the initial drawings and ideas that Jim had before actually making Sesame Street. They had some puppets that the kids were able to play with, but other than that, it was a lot of seeing what he did and how it all came to be.

We were all so exhausted after walking around all over the place that we went home rather early. It was nice, we relaxed and watched some TV before bed and visited with everyone.

Bainbridge Island WA

We took a ferry out to Bainbridge Island, it was about a 30 minute ferry ride out to the island. Once we got there, we found this nice seafood resturant overlooking the marina. It was so pretty and we had so much fun exploring, eating, visiting, laughing. It was a really good trip and I already miss hanging out with Yury and Caryn and their family.. I hope that we'll be able to go visit them again soon.

We stopped at this little bead shop in town because Isabelle and Emma are way into beading right now. All of us girls kinda went crazy in there looking for cute little charms and unique beads it took me back to when I was like 11 or so and I used to beg my mom to take me to the bead shop. The boys sat in the corner and talked baseball haha.. It was a really great trip and as you can see, really pretty and fun ;)