Summer is beautiful yet short in Seattle, so it's important to make the most of it. Yesterday was one of those perfect sunny and 70-80 degree Seattle summer days. Lesley had chosen to work overtime on Saturday morning, giving me time to start our slow-cooker meal that we'd have for dinner.

I walked downtown and met Lesley there after she got off work. We took the light rail down to Columbia City, one of Seattle's more ethnnically diverse neighborhoods, where there was a "Summer Streets" event that closed the main street to cars.

When we arrived, people were lined up on both sides of the street watching a parade of marching bands, break dancers, and city council campaigners.

We were hungry so we stopped in at a Caribbean food place for lunch called Island Soul Caribbean Cuisine. It was happy hour so we had rum punch and an appetizer to start, then Lesley had the Jamaican Jerk chicken and I had the curry. We could see some of the parade from inside the restaurant, and the parade was over by the time we were done eating.

We then walked in the roadway, stopping to listen to music and then browsing through a local bookstore. On our way back to the rail station, we went to the historic public library building where we picked up a few brand new travel guides for our upcoming trip to Yellowstone and the trip we're planning to Europe for next year.

We then took the crowded train back home and rested there for a while, reading through our books outside on the deck.

Soon, the Sounders game was on and they were playing FC Dallas for second place in the conference. We ate our slow cooker recipe, which included potatoes, carrots, onion, butternut squash, and chicken during the game. The game itself was exciting as the Sounders went ahead early but Dallas had plenty of chances. In the end the Sounders won, so that was good.

After the game we walked to get a custard sundae nearby, which was very good. Then we decided to drive up to Kerry Park and enjoy the nighttime view of the skyline along with a mug of hot tea.

It was a beautiful day and it's a shame it had to end, but hopefully we'll have a few more great weekend days before summer ends.

Last weekend we hiked the Lilm Kiln Trail for the second time. We hiked it for the first time almost three years ago, in October 2008. I remember really liking the trail because of all the neat old artifacts and how it was relatively flat without much change in elevation. We also really liked sitting at the Stillaguamish River at the end of the trail.

Last weekend we had a pretty different experience. I didn't remember horses being allowed on the first part of the trail, but we found lots of evidence they had been there this time. The entire trail was overgrown too, with wild invasive blackberry in several places, which scratched us a few times. The bugs were probably the most annoying part though, which I never thought I'd say since we rarely see bugs in the Pacific Northwest. I guess a hike on a sunny, slightly muggy day in August is bound to include bugs.

It was a good workout and took about 3 hours to complete the 6 mile out and back trail. We sat at the end on the river shore again, which was really nice. Here's a video of the river.

Stillaguamish River at Lime Kiln Trail on Vimeo.

I turned 28 years old on Saturday. Troy took me to the Dahlia Lounge on Friday for dinner and the food was excellent. We started with a glass of wine each and some shrimp potstickers and bread. For the main course, I had the dungeness crab cakes with potato salad, tomatoes, pickles, and a few chips. It was put together very well and tasted great together. Troy had some sort of pasta with zucchini and sun dried tomatoes. Then for dessert I had the doughnuts, fried to order with vanilla mascarpone and apricot jam. Troy had the creme caramel. Both were so delicious! My dessert was free because they knew it was my birthday, so that was nice. Dahlia Lounge is one of the best restaurants I've been to in Seattle. Tom Douglas, the chef, definitely deserves the local fame he gets.

Saturday Troy gave me my birthday presents - Sim City 4 and a butterfly necklace. Then we headed out for the day to Mount Rainier. But first, we stopped to get bagels at Noah's on Mercer Island. We decided to go the opposite way we normally go to Rainier and went through the Northeast corner instead of the Southwest. We got a late start to the day, so we didn't arrive at our first stop until around 11. We went to Ohanapecosh and hiked about 1.5 miles to Silver Falls. The trail was pretty busy, but that was to be expected since the weather was perfect and it was a Saturday in the summer. The trail had a little elevation gain and wound its way through the old growth forest, with several creeks and small waterfalls along the way. We eventually made it to Silver Falls and it was just beautiful. The falls were rushing so fast with white foam and the water was a clear blue-green color.

We continued on another .7 miles to the Grove of the Patriarchs where we saw some old growth forest trees that were estimated to be over 1,000 years old. There was a neat small bridge over the river (the same river that continues down and becomes Silver Falls) to the grove. We were pretty hungry by the time we started to head back, but we forgot to bring a backpack and left all our snacks in the car. I guess we didn't realize how long the hike would take.

Anyway, we finally got back to the car and ate our snacks on a picnic table nearby. We had an apple, strawberries, trail mix, a granola bar, some cashews, and drinks. By the time we were done, it was after 3:00, so we headed out toward Paradise. We stopped at a few viewpoints along the way for some photos, but basically continued on without stopping very long. There were lots of wildflowers along the Stevens Canyon Road. I would have liked to do another short hike at Longmire, but it was getting late and we didn't want to be eating dinner at 9:00 at night. We got home around 7:00 and ordered Pagliacci pizza for dinner and watched Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring the rest of the night. We also had some chocolate cake with chocolate icing that Troy had made for my birthday.