Explore Seattle: An Underground Birthday

Twenty -seven years old. Feels old to me. I am pretty much thirty now and then next thing you know Ill be 40 years old with a fourTEEN year old. Not cool. Despite wishing I could just stay 26 forever, my birthday was very nice. So thank you for all the wishes, cards, calls, text, etc. I spent the day at work and the evening at home with Leighton.  She is pretty good company. 

enjoying girly activities such as curlers and nails

Wes was at a service event for church with local elementary school. Dont be mad at him for not sitting home with me. He gave me flowers and a card on Thursday and it would have only been selfish for me to tell him to sit at home instead of helping the community. I thought the card L picked out was pretty funny....

Then on Friday we went to a new friend's house (which my other friend, Kim, had to keep reminding me not to covet your neighbor) for dinner and Wes surprised me with my favorite cake, orange- pumpkin with cream cheese frosting from Simply Desserts. 

Drew and Heather had a great backyard for entertaining and they made some delicious food! 

surprise birthday cake! 

Then on Saturday he planned a date to take a tour of Underground Seattle and go out to dinner for sushi. Melissa graciously kept Leighton for us and taught her to raise her hand and say "me" and whistle. Im sure these skills will come in handy at some point. 

 I would recommend the Underground Seattle tour to anyone coming to visit or if you already live here. I found it very interesting to learn about the history of Seattle in the late 1800s/early 1900s and how/why the city is built the way it is now. I love history so learning about things like why the bathrooms were placed where they were and how they had sewage issues was interesting. I am always blown away how unsanitary things used to be....

toliet was elevated to help prevent back flow #gravity #gross

the water pips were made from wood

old stain glass windows allowed light to enter the underground area...downtown Seattle (aka 31 blocks around Pioneer Square) was built with side walks and streets raised up a story due to sewage issues and the city originally being built on mud flats and saw dust. This idea came to the early pioneers after the Great Fire of Seattle in 1889. 

We spent time walking underground on the old sidewalks that were in front of the stores prior to the raised street being built. While construction was going on you would have to use ladders to climb 25 ft walls to cross the street. Construction only lasted about 4 years, but once the old first floor became the basement, it was still used for businesses (some legal and some illegal for the loggers and shipyard workers: alcohol, prostitution, opium dns, etc)

our view eating outside of Japanessa downtown.... if the buildings would move we would have had a nice sunset over the water...

 I can not explain it well so just take the Underground Tour. It was interesting!