Josh had a conference, Gnomedex, to attend in Seattle the weekend of August 21-24, so I tagged along and left the kids with my wonderful sister Rebecca. Thanks, sis!!! It was a great weekend for both Josh and I. He got to hang out with his cool geeky crowd and I got to relax! Thursday the 21st: We left for Seattle on Thursday afternoon. On the way up we stopped at the Tacoma Art Museum so I could look at the Illuminating the Word exhibit. It was incredible. Illuminating the Word: The Saint John’s Bible presents the only handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned since the advent of the printing press more than 500 years ago. I've been working on my own calligraphy skills, so this was a great artistic inspiration for me. I might have drooled a bit. After the exhibit, we drove to our hotel on the Seattle waterfront, checked in, then went to the conference opening reception. Josh was on a high. His face just lights up when he's among his geeks. Friday the 22nd: Josh left the hotel early and I slept in. Aaaaaahhh. I ate a yummy room service breakfast, read the paper, watched a little TLC, took a long shower and a short nap. It was divine. Around noon I decided to venture out and headed to the Seattle Art Museum. I spent most of my time there at the Inspiring Impressionism exhibit and loved it. That evening I met up with Josh at the Ignite Seattle segment of Gnomedex. Dancing at Gnomedex We skipped out on the party that night and went out on a date instead. After a yummy dinner at a restaurant in the Queen Anne neighborhood, we spent some time at a cool used bookstore and headed back to the hotel. Saturday the 23rd: I attended the first couple of Gnomedex sessions in the morning with Josh. He introduced the Ignite Portland speakers, which were just awesome. I particularly loved the talk about David Hasselhoff. After the following session, I took a nap at the hotel and then headed out for shopping at Pike Place Market. I ended up with a few gifts and of course, some beautiful flowers for myself. View to Harbor Pike Place sign Chinese Calligrapher at Pike's Flowers for me Saturday night we attended the speakers' dinner at the Edgewater Restaurant. There were some really cool speakers at this year's conference. Talk about smart people. Although some of the geeky tech stuff just goes over my head, I try to look like I know what's going on. =)