On Saturday, my friends and I drove up to Port Angeles.  We had already been through it to get to Forks, but we wanted to spend some time there too.

Some of us saw Mama Mia together.  The movie was a lot of fun because I was with my friends.  We laughed and had a great time.  However, I’ll never ever look at Pierce Brosnan or Colin Firth the same way again.

After the movie, we ate at Bella Italia, the same restaurant Bella and Edward ate at in Twilight.  Most of the group ordered the same dish (mushroom ravioli) as Bella did.

In between Forks and Port Angeles lies Lake Crescent.  You drive right by it for about 20 to 30 minutes.  It’s very large and the water is pristine and has the most gorgeous color.  It reminds me of Bear Lake, but with prettier surroundings.

The Hoh Rain Forest is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been in my life.  The trees are tall and very green.  Most of them are covered with moss.

My friends found a perfect place to represent the meadow and the Cullen’s driveway while in the Hoh Rain Forest.

On Friday afternoon, we went to Rialto Beach.  It’s the beach just north of First Beach, the beach mentioned in Twilight.  Rialto Beach is where the tidal pools are located that are mentioned in Twilight.  You can only see the tidal pools when it’s low tide, which is at its pinnacle around noon.  There’s a ton of driftwood on the beach.  It was so beautiful!

After Rialto Beach, we drove to La Push and First Beach.  It was a lot different than I expected, but it was really cool to see both places first hand.

We arrived in Forks around 5:00 pm on Thursday, July 24.  The first thing we had slated was a dinner at the cabin a few of my friends were staying at.

After dinner, we had a “Meet & Greet” party to meet all the other women who came to Forks.  It was a lot of fun to meet some of the people I’ve been corresponding with for a year.

The next morning, my friends and I wanted to get a picture of all of us together in Forks.  We all put on our “What Happens in Forks Stays in Forks” shirt and got a couple of pictures taken in front of the Forks welcome sign.

After our picture at the sign, we went to the Chamber of Commerce.  They have a whole Twilight tour and other things dedicated to Twilight.  The director said they get mail addressed to Bella and Edward all the time.

We then took a tour of Forks.  We saw the Forks City Hall, Thriftway, Forks Outfitters, Forks High School, and Forks Hospital.  The Forks residents dubbed a couple of places as Bella’s house and Edward’s house and so we saw them too.  We also saw a few Twilight-related signs in town.

We even found Edward’s car!

On Friday night, we had a girls’ night out and had a Breaking Dawn-themed party.  The decorations matched the cover of the book.  We had yummy food and played Twilight-themed games.  I also had my toe nails painted and got a Henna tattoo.

On the morning of Wednesday, July 23, my friends and I flew to Seattle, WA.

The official “Forks” activities didn’t start until Thursday, so we decided to spend the day touring Seattle.  Our first stop was the Seattle Space Needle. Some of my friends, not including me, went to the top of the Space Needle.  It was really neat to see it up close.

In the areas just outside of the Space Needle, we found an ad for Romeo & Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which we thought was quite appropriate (New Moon was loosely based on Romeo & Juliet and Breaking Dawn is supposed to be loosely based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream).  We also found some canned animal meat (really just a stuffed animal in a can), which we laughed about because it’s perfect for the Cullens.

After that, we rode the monorail, so we could go to Pike’s Market.  Everything there is so fresh and cheap!  You could buy a huge bouquet of flowers for only $10.

We went to our hotel after that so that we could get ready for dinner.  Half of my friends met some of the other ladies coming to Forks at the Olive Garden.  The other half, including me, went to the Rock Salt restaurant.  It was really good!

We also spent half of Thursday in Seattle.  We didn’t have to be in Forks until 5:00 pm, so we went to the Waterfront.

There were a lot of shops on the waterfront that we had fun exploring.  There was one called Pirate’s Plunder.  It had lots of fun pirate-themed merchandise.

We ate at a little pier fast food place called Ivars.  Because the place was right on the pier, there were seagulls everywhere looking for a free hand out.  I fed all my fries to them.  Some of them grabbed the fry from my hand, some would jump up and catch it in their mouth if I threw it, and one of them even swooped over my head and grabbed the fry from my hand while brushing my head with its wing.  It was a lot of fun!

After we spent a couple of hours on the waterfront, we rode the Seattle Bainbridge Island ferry across the Puget Sound.  When we got out of our cars to go up to the passenger deck, I didn’t realize the ferry had started moving yet.  I looked out the window and noticed us moving and a weird feeling of vertigo came over me.  I couldn’t look out the window the entire time we were on the ferry. When we went outside to the deck, I was just fine.  But, it was really windy and cold.

I had to post this because I thought it was really cool. My friends and I got our picture and an article about us put on the Forks Forum yesterday! Some of the info isn’t accurate (e.g. all 60 of us weren’t from Utah), but it’s still cool that we made it on there.

I’m not sure how long the article is going to last on the forum, so here is a screen shot. (Click the picture to view a larger version of the article.)

Happy birthday, Lori!

I had to post a link to this article about Forks I found on USA Today‘s website.  It’s so cool because all the places mentioned in the article were places I went to!

PS–I haven’t forgot about posting pictures from my trip.  I’m just waiting on a couple more photos.