As the summer is ending and wedding season is starting to slow down a bit, I took this opportunity to go on a getaway with my friends! We left late on Thursday evening and drove 11 hours through Northern California and Oregon until we reached the Queen Bee Art Cottage & Retreat in Olympia, Washington. This quaint cottage is nestled on 26 acres of the Pacific Northwest countryside and looking in it’s just adorable, isn’t it? I’ve heard of the beauty of Oregon and Washington but I never imagined it to be this beautiful!

As we parked our car and entered the porch, we found this sign “Queen Bee”, and instantly we knew this was the perfect touch for this getaway trip!

We entered the “Queen Bee” and Kim received us with such a special welcome where she made a personalized sign just for us! How sweet!!

The cottage was filled with so many hidden treasures, decorated in a Paris, France them and was very French country chic! I loved how every time we looked around the room, we found something new!

Once we settled in, we continued on for more adventure where we stopped to eat at Moon Cafe, where I order the Monte, which was a french toast bread stuffed with ham, egg and cheese and deep fried. Soooo good!

After eating the good meal, we drove for an hour and half to the Quinault Rain Forest where we found beautiful trees and great big black beetles!

I loved this picture (below) where the trees were growing around the trees that had previously died. It was so amazing!!

From left to right: My friends Sheila, Dannesha, Morgane (back), Taquita & Tasha. We had so many amazing laughs and good times on this trip!

I think Dannesha might be attempting to surf the tree!?

My friend, Morgane – On the drive up, we all named ourselves after the 7 dwarfs and Morgane didn’t fit the bill for any of the dwarfs so we named her “Artsy Dwarf” 🙂 She is no doubt loving the scenery!

After spending some time in the rainforest, we drove to Seattle (which was about an hour and a half away) and we visited the Space Needle and walked around visiting the city lights at night. We stumbled upon a thai restaurant that was AMAZING! I wish we had that restaurant in the Bay Area!

So after exploring Seattle, we ended our day and drove back to the cottage to catch some Zzzzz’s for our Saturday adventure!

On Saturday, we were headed to the Multnomah Falls but as we were on the way, the roads were shut down due to a forest fire in the area so we stopped in Portland, Oregon where they were celebrating Mexican Independence Day. We stopped at a Spanish restaurant and ate papusas and tacos and listened to the live music of Spanish singers and instrument players.

We stopped and got a pina colada drink that was served out of a pineapple core; it was pretty tasty!