Seattle Trip

Geez I haven't blogged forever it seems like!! I have a few to catch up on so hopefully I can get that done this week. It's so hard to blog a whole vacation we had so much fun!! And took quite a few pictures. I am not sure I can get them all on here so I'll do my best to keep it short!

In mid September we took our family on a vacation to Seattle. It's one of our favorite spots and we can do it quick and a little less expensive since we have family we can stay with. We left on a Wednesday right after the kids got home from school, we went through Pocatello to Boise and on to Baker City where we spent the night in a motel that was a little scary!!! The thing looked like it was built in the 50's but the sign on the front called it the newest Motel in town...yikes!!! But it was just a nights sleep and on we went. We grabbed breakfast by the hand (its what my dad always called breakfast at mcdonalds) and headed out. We drove up through the tri-city area (Yakima and such) and stopped for lunch in Ellensburg. Its a really cute town. On our way out Bill said to the kids we'd better make sure we're headed to Seattle and not Yakima. And Cierra pipes up and says "Yeah, we don't wanna go to some place named after PUKE!!!!" It was funny at the time! We arrived in Seattle, Kent actually, that's where Bill's Aunt Mary lives, around 3pm. We visited, and the kids looked in every nook and cranny of Mary's house (much to my horror!). She fixed dinner for us and since the kids didn't want to be in the car much longer we decided to go and see a movie with Stan and Mary. We saw UP! It was very sweet, I recommend it to everyone!

Friday we got up and had breakfast and head up to Seattle. We drove to the Fremont District and saw the Troll under the bridge. Very Cool! Then when and watched the boats go through the Chittenden Locks.

We went into Seattle and parked, it cost us a ton of money to do so too!, down by the pier and had lunch at Ivars, another favorite, and fed the seagulls our fries. The kids had chicken of course!! Bill had clam chowder and I had the Cod fillets. I love it! Walked up to Pioneer Square to do an underground tour but it was sold out and we would have had to wait 2 hours for the next available tour so we decided to nix it. The last time we went to Seattle we took the kids to the top of the Space Needle, this time we thought we'd take them on a different perspective. We walked up to the Bank of America tower and went to their observation deck and looked at Seattle from the highest building in the city. For the price of one admission to the space needle we got our whole family to the observation deck. I really liked the view it was beautiful, only the day was a bit cloudy so you couldn't see Mt. Rainer very good. But you could look right down into the Mariners and Seahawks stadiums. Which was way cool! After that we walked down to Pikes Place Market. On our way Abbie ended up as part of a street show, it was so cute and she was completely embarrased!!

We went and bought our Medium Salmon and some flowers for Aunt Mary and then headed back to her house to have fresh salmon for dinner!!! YUM!!!! Then relaxed there for the rest of the evening. Whenever we've gone on vacation the kids are just as content to sit back at the hotel room or the family members house were staying at rather than go site seeing! This makes me grumpy!

On Saturday morning we woke up to rain, but if you don't do stuff in the rain when your in Seattle you don't do much!! Uncle Stan fixed us pancakes and eggs for breakfast, thank you Stan it was yummy! First we went to the Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent. It was very neat to see. It hasn't been there long, but there were still a lot of military buried there. Then our plan was to go to the Seattle Center and take the kids to the hands on childrens science museum. We parked and of course paid to do so, and walked over just to find out that it was closed for the week. They had another childrens play museum type thing, if you've ever been to the treehouse museum in Ogden its very similar. The girls played in that for a while. Bill and Jesse sat and listened to a Spanish game/performance that was going on that day. Then we left and drove around Seattle for a bit. We then went to a Japanese market, Uwajimaya, and looked around for a bit. It was time to head back to Kent and pick up Stan and Mary and bring them back in for the game, on our way back we stopped in Renton and checked out Jimi Hendrix's grave then headed back to Stan and Mary's house. They ordered pizza for dinner, we watched a little football...Washington Huskies won...BYU lost. Then headed to the game. The mariners were playing the yankees. It was very fun, it started to rain so we got to see them close the dome and that was pretty cool. The kids got cotton candy and I ate kettle korn for the first time in my life...and I liked it!!

Sunday morning we got up, had some breakfast and headed home we left around 8:30am (9:30 idaho time). This time we came through Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, and down through Montana getting home about 9:30pm. It was a very quick trip, but a very fun one. And we appreciate Stan and Mary for letting us use their home as a hotel!