#2HoursInSLU - Lifestring Photography

For our third installment of #2HoursInSLU, we asked Aaron Briggs of Lifestring Photography how he spends two hours in SLU with his family.

As a family living in South Lake Union we have many two-hour recommendations but most involve walking to a park or plaza and one of our daughter’s favorite restaurants. That’s true too for when I have two hours to myself and what I often recommend to families I’m photographing.

One evening last week while my wife was working late, Veronica and I started an adventure to, as she calls it, pokey stick park (Denny Park), to play in the recently built toddler playground. It’s a great space because we almost always meet other parents in the neighborhood there, the structures are simple and age appropriate and it’s shaded. The bark, covering the play area, occasionally stabs one or all of us, but that’s a small price to pay for the benefits of burning toddler energy. The dog park provides additional entertainment and so do the talking squirrels.

Next we meandered to the meatball place (Tutta Bella) for pizza and, obviously, meatballs – Veronica loves them, which cannot be overstated. Tutta Bella has been very good to us the last few years, remembering what we like to order and accommodating Veronica with pizza dough to play with or swizzle sticks. So too has the quesadilla place (Cactus) the cookie place (La Toscanella) and especially the biscuit place (Serious Pie & Biscuit). The restaurants moved in around the same time Veronica was born and the people working there have watched her grow as their restaurants have. We’re grateful to share the community with them. Actually, we send some of them Christmas cards. Tutta Bella also has a chocolate gelato we eat with the grace of barnyard animals. It’s good.

Finishing our two-hours, just a few blocks from home, we stopped to watch a kickball game on the field adjacent to the Discovery Center. On other days, the three of us might as easily have gone to Lake Union Park to watch seaplanes and geese, or to one of the courtyards at the Amazon campus to people/dog watch and drink espresso. We’re happy to watch the neighborhood growing, adding to the possibilities.