Our 10 Year Anniversary Trip to Washington State: Day 1

So I know this trip was taken way back in July, but I took so many pictures that it was just really overwhelming to think about going through them all and writing a post about our trip. However, I knew I wanted to document it so I'm going to try and keep the pictures to a minimum as best I can.

I have to start this post by saying back when Jake and I got married in 2007, we went to Maui on our honeymoon. Then for our 5 year anniversary, Jake found this super cute island up in Michigan called Mackinac Island. The fact that we went to an island for our honeymoon and again to a different island for our 5 year anniversary, unintentionally started a trend of going to an island every 5 years and we knew we wanted to keep that trend going for our 10 year anniversary.

Jake completely surprised me with where we were going. He originally said we didn't have a lot of money to take a big trip, so he found this little island off the coast of Wisconsin called Washington Island and even sent me a picture of this cute house we were going to stay in right on the lake. It looked very relaxing and I was just happy to be getting away for a week, just the two of us. He also told me we would just be driving there. However, a couple weeks before we were leaving, I found out from a couple of different people that slipped up (since everyone we knew was in on the surprise) that we would actually be flying. I still thought we were going to Wisconsin though, but thought it was a little suspicious that he would hide the fact that we were flying instead of driving. I've flown many times and it's nothing new to me so not really a thing you would surprise someone with.

So the morning we were leaving, we got up early and Jake's mom took us to the airport. At that point I told Jake I had known we were flying, but didn't want to spoil the surprise. So when we got to the airport, Jake finally told me where we were actually going. He showed me our flight itinerary which was a short layover in Salt Lake City and then on to Seattle. I was so excited and surprised. We've been wanting to go to Washington State for a long time. Whale watching, mountains, the beautiful evergreens and the cooler temperatures had drawn us to Washington for a long time. It was on our bucket list of places to visit, but I hadn't ever thought it was a place we could go for our 10 year anniversary because I hadn't thought about there being islands there.

After a long morning of travel (our plane left at 5:30 a.m. from St. Louis), we finally made it to Seattle. We rented a car and started driving. Our destination was a surprise to me. In fact Jake had the entire trip planned out and every day and destination were a surprise for me. I had no idea what was on the agenda for each day. We drove a few hours North to Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Forest. To say it was beautiful would be an understatement. Pictures definitely don't do it justice.

The deer were just right out in the open, right near where all the people were walking. You could go right up to them and take their picture and they didn't seem scared at all. It was so cool.

Our rental car for the week was a Cadillac!

We spent a couple hours there (not nearly enough time) and then headed to Port Angeles where Jake had made dinner reservations for us at Bella Italia. I was ecstatic to finally get to eat there. (If you were a Die-Hard Twilight Fan like I was, you know how exciting it would be to eat there!)

After dinner we drove on to Forks, WA and my life day was made. The drive to Forks was so pretty! You drive around Crescent Lake which could be a vacation in and of itself. It's so beautiful.

We checked into a super cute bed & breakfast (which was a first for us since we've never stayed in a bed & breakfast before) and then drove around the little town of forks and then to LaPush Beach! It was so cool to see all the sights from the Twilight stories.

LaPush Beach was so cool. It was quite the hike to get down to it and then there was a ton of drift wood to climb over, but so worth it. People were down there camping and having a great time.

It was the perfect end to an amazing day full of suprises. Although, I was so excited to be in Forks, I was definitely wondering where our island trend was going to come in to play. Day 2 answered that question and brought several more surprises!