Cara’s Mom and Grama spent Easter weekend in Seattle, and part of their whirlwind tour was a morning in the tulip fields with Josh, Cara and I. It was an incredible sunny day (one of the few we’ve had this spring) and the five of us talked and laughed and enjoyed the rural Skagit Valley scenery together before settling down for a country breakfast at The Farmhouse.

Gallery is here – slideshow button is at the top-right corner.

Finished off what is always a motivating, rejuvenating office visit with my team in San Ramon with a mini-vacation in the City by the Bay, one of my new favorite US destinations. Cara joined me just in time for the weekend, and Michelle and Brian generously offered to serve as hosts and tourguides, taking us through a sampling of SF’s exotic cuisines, dive bars, swanky patios and world-famous tourist attractions. The weather was in the 99th percentile, fantastic and sunny like the Fourth of July in the middle of February, and the city’s welcome was as warm as the sunshine, from the friendly local faces to the available front-door parking spots at seemingly every venue. Cara and I had an incredible time together, further cementing our shared belief that we would make excellent co-hosts for our own travel show, and Michelle and Brian kept us enthralled with their city and doubled over laughing until the moment we hugged them goodbye. It was an epic weekend, one I will remember fondly forever, and I hope the pictures capture at least a sliver of that feeling for everyone that flips through the gallery.

You can also download this Google Earth file to see all the places we visited.

Gallery is here – slideshow button is at the top-right corner.

One of Mom’s tulips right after the sprinklers turned off, Memorial Day weekend, May 2005.

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A tulip in Mom’s garden still glistening with the early morning’s rain. May 2009.

One of the more vibrant examples of the tulip’s diversity, Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, May 2009.