Brendan`s family flew out for a surpise visit this past week. Our first day together we rented a mini van and headed to the Oregon Coast. We hit the Pig-N-Pancake in Cannon Beach, took a hike on the beach, drove through Seaside, stopped at Costco in Warrenton, took the big bridge over from Astoria into Washington and drove on part of the costal Hwy 101. After a long day we watched the classic movie `The Goonies` - which was filmed on the very beaches and towns we visited.
Taco, Margaret, Geoff (Marisa`s boyfriend), Marisa and Erin in front of Haystack Rock! 
Brendan walking down the beach towards Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach, Oregon Coast.The middle of their visit was great, and I have lots of fantastic photos of Tumwater Falls park and the Capital building in Olympia, WA - but all these pictures are on my cell phone and I haven`t figured out how to retrieve them yet.
The last day we had together we went to Seattle for the afternoon. Since we only had an afternoon there, we had to choose which great Seattle attraction to see. Our visitor chose the Seattle Aquarium and hour long boat tour on Puget Sound - since it was such a fantastic day.
Seattle as seen from our Argosy boat cruise on Puget Sound.
Majestic Mt. Rainer - according to the cruise tourguide, it`s only visible 96 days of the year from Seattle. Today was our lucky day!
Brendan and I on our boat cruise! Seattle behind us - even the Space Needle made it in the photo!
A large boat getting loaded at the Port of Seattle - you can see the city behind the cranes.
Brendan at the Seattle Aquarium on pier 59!
At the Seattle Aquarium there are a couple of exhibits were you are under the fish looking up! It`s kind of a cool feeling.
We had one of these fish at our aquarium when I worked at O`Farrell Financial! His name was Pong.
No trip to Seattle would be complete without a visit to the famous Pike Place Market!
I love all of the flowers and Pike Place Market... Too bad you can`t smell the fishy market smell that goes along with the photo! After the Market and another quick look around the Seattle Aquarium we went to ``Steamer`s`` for a seafood dinner down on Pier 56.
Our last tourist attraction was a last minute decision - A Seattle Mariner`s Game at Safeco Field! They were playing the Oakland A`s. I saw more foul balls than I`ve ever seen in a game, but in the end the Mariner`s won! GO Seattle! :) 
After we said goodbye to the our visitors, Brendand and I stayed the night in Seattle (surpise get away for Brendan!) and used the our City Pass ticket to get a whirlwind tour of some of Seattles best attractions. We first went to the Pacific Science Center where we took in a 3D Imax fill about critters under the sea, then we toured all the science centre exhibits, went up the Space Needle (above photo) ate lunch at the Seattle Center food court and headed off to our second stop!
Our next stop was the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle - we only got to spend 1 hr there, but we really covered a lot of ground. Brendan took lots of great animal shots. This one of the brown bear is one of my favorites as well as the Eagle below.
This is for your Mom and Dad VanderVelde! We`re sorry that you missed the Bald Eagle at the Zoo! 
The last stop of the day on our whirlwind City Pass tour was the Boeing flight Museum just south of Seattle. We really wish the visiting VanderVelde`s and Geoff could have see this! It was fantastic and even though we only gotr 30 mintues there we were given free passes to come again for a longer visit!
Brendan really wanted to see the Concorde - so in our 3o minutes at the museum, we ran to the Concorde which closed 2 mintues before we got to it - however they let us see inside this one plane and one of the museum attendants kindly snapped our photo just before they locked the gate.
My favorite plane - I think that if it were Brendan`s plane it would have been named O`Neill`s Daughter. :) 
