** A Stellar Dinner for a Superstar Mom **

It's the Space Needle's 50th birthday this year. Seemed like the perfect place to take our mom for her birthday! What a night. What a view. What a meal. What great company! It was, in all honesty, just perfect...

Delores had no idea where we were going for dinner, so
imagine her surprise when we pulled up here!

The birthday girl, looking so pretty.

We ordered dungeoness crab fritters and a bottle of wine
while we looked over the menus. Then we gave Delores
little flip books of pictures from the kids' year in England.
Here, she and Ollie look through the books. The Puget Sound
is in the background.

Papa looking through the photo albums. The city of Seattle stretches out below.

The sun was beginning to set. We all had fun
watching sea planes swoop right past the Space Needle
and land in Lake Union far below.

While we waited for our entrees, we soaked up the surroundings. What a
view! We could see Mt. Ranier, Mt. Baker, the Olympic range and the
Cascades. There are, according to our waiter, only about 60 days a year
that you can see Mt. Ranier, so we considered ourselves lucky to have
booked our reservations on such a gorgeous day!

This was a special treat for us, too! It's probably the most memorable thing
we've done since we got to Washington!

Papa and Merrit watch a sailboat race (that takes place every Thursday
during the summers) 605 feet below.

Ollie and I got goofy.

  

And goofier...

Hahahahaha!

This boy is such a little ham.

And such a little love.

As the restaurant revolves (it takes 54 minutes to go around once), the outer
wall stays in place. People put notes, cards, and drawings on the wall.
Ollie and Merrit enjoyed picking them up, reading them, and putting them
back. Next time we come, we'll bring paper and pencil to leave out own note!

Dinner was awesome, but I didn't take any pictures until dessert. I had sea
scallops, Delores had tilapia, the menfolk had steaks, and the kids had mac
and cheese. The star of the show, though, was the Lunar Orbiter Sundae,
which we ordered for the kids. It comes on a dish of smoking dry ice! 

And creme brulee was had by all.

After dinner, we all walked up to the next level to the open-air observation
deck. It was hard to beat having your own private revolving sit-down spot
for two hours--not to mention, a waiter who points out spots of interest
and knows all about the area. Our waiter had actually worked at the Space
Needed for over 30 years! Needless to say, by the time we got to the observation
deck, we were thoroughly spoiled! But it was still nice to walk off dinner a bit
before heading back down to the city below.

WHAT A SPECTACULAR NIGHT!
...HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DELORES...WE LOVE YOU...