One more sunny day

I was really happy to be living in Seattle today. Before lunch, we went to a playground where we watched trains snake around shores of the Puget Sound and bald eagles fly above us on a warm, sunny February day.

In order to balance out our hamburgers yesterday, we went to Silence Heart Nest Restaurant in Fremont, a vegetarian restaurant, of course. Apparently all the employees are "students of meditation" with "Indian spiritual master Sri Chinmoy."  According to the website, Sri Chinmoy devoted his life to "harmony and oneness between people and between different cultures." And we definitely saw many of the cultures at the restaurant: the artist with his suitcase-sized yellow leather man-purse, the lesbian table enjoying their vegetarian curry, the Japanese college students who picked up their waffles and were eating it like a slice of pizza, the cross-dressing man wearing a sweater-dress with heals, and the family of four with the toddler throwing his mac-n-cheese (that was us). I'm not sure what I enjoyed more, people-watching or eating my tofu "neatloaf" sandwich. Noah ordered the (soy) bacon guacamole (veggie) burger. Even though I'm trying not to repeat restaurants in Seattle, I might have to go at least one more time to Silence Heart Nest before we leave Seattle. 

The popular Fremont neighborhood 

The Silence Heart Nest Restaurant

"Don't you even think about taking this toy away from me. If you do, I swear, I will have the biggest, loudest temper tantrum you have every seen. Don't tempt me."

I love how the restaurants here are so kid-friendly

My half sandwich and fries of neatloaf

Vegetarian bacon guacamole burger

Afterwards, we decided to splurge on dessert and went across the street to the Flying Apron cafe. I'm really not sure what's left when you take out all animal products and wheat from pastries, but that's what we ate. The kids didn't seem to mind and gobbled up their gluten-free, vegan chocolate cupcake. I, on the other hand, am thankful that my family does not have any allergies to wheat or dairy - not because I didn't like our dessert today, but I don't think I could handle going to that bakery again because our server had earrings that created a 1.5 inch diameter hole in his earlobes; truly the most disturbing body-piercing thing I've seen.  

Paradise for someone prone to allergies

Look at the line up of vegan, gluten-free, wheat-free pastries

You thought I was kidding with the vegan, gluten-free, wheat-free pastries. I don't even know what "alternatively sweetened" means. 

According to NOAA, the Seattle weather will be returning to normal grey skies tomorrow, so I suppose my blogs won't be quite as upbeat as they have been for the past couple of days.