We have totally enjoyed so many areas of the city of Seattle, but we were happy to call West Seattle “home” for a month. It was a quiet place of retreat, while still providing enough variety of parks and beaches to explore.

One of our favorite places was Alki Beach. Despite the cold, the kids loved building sandcastles and playing in the water. They’d tease the waves and run back to the shore before they were soaked.

We had a great view of the city and the Sound and loved watching ships travel in and out of the harbor.

There’s a great boardwalk where people were running, biking, or just taking a romantic stroll. There are tons of restaurants and coffee shops along the beachfront, including Tulley’s, where Don and Gabe worked one afternoon. Although it was even colder and more cloudy than our first visit, Isaac and Jadyn withstood the cold as long as they could. It took several minutes for their pink hands and feet to defrost!

And if you take just a little drive around the bend, you’ll hit a fantastic Asian Fusion restaurant called Marination Makai! We met this amazing mom who worked there who invited us to hang out in her neighborhood with her son sometime. Can’t wait to visit. We heard that West Seattle is “Young People who are Down to Earth,” and we’ve experienced that many times. Glad to be here.