Hey, hey, hey! Who-ho-ho! We got married 11 years ago, and that is something to BRAG A-BOUT. So I will, mostly in picture form.
Joe and I planned out a lovely 2-day trip to Seattle! Although not far away, it does involve traffic, which makes it feel roughly similar to going to the moon, and you just don't want to pan trips to the moon all that often. Let's face it, I can hardly make it to the library to get my books back on time. But our anniversary seemed worth the trouble, so we booked a hotel and staked out a few "great to visit if you have kids" kinds of things to do.
Out first stop: a baseball game! Mariners versus Rockies, aka Our New Home Team versus our Old Home Team. We loved it! We got there early enough for the anthem and first pitch and everything. We ate hot dogs, chicken strips, drank loads of Dr Pepper, and ate ice cream. Quite frankly, it was wonderful and awful at the same time! The kids did pretty well during the game, there were 2 home runs and some fireworks, a couple foul balls our way, and we had splurged (just a touch, nothing too crazy) for some decent seats so they would be more "in the action." I loved being 6 rows back! And I love watching baseball, so it was all very dreamy for me, but the point was also to keep it exciting for the kids.
Safeco field, the baseball stadium, is right next to CenturyLink field, the football stadium. We took the picture with Russell Wilson behind us to make Kari mad. We're SO hilarious!
Boys in front of the sign.
Arriving inside the stadium. The weather was supposed to be overcast, maybe rainy, and 65 degrees. We regretted the sweaters, and lack of sunscreen, because it was hot and sunny the whole time!
Our seats - oh, la, la!
Look at that baseball feast! I think Ethan has an entire footlong hot dog in his mouth right here.
For reasons that remain unclear, the Mariner's mascot is a moose. Their symbol is a trident. Who thinks this nonsense up?
View from our seats onto the field
I loved that Eli wore a hat! Eli also loved that he wore a hat, it was protection from the sun
(when he wasn't wearing it like a dork)
After the game we were still SO STUFFED from the food we ordered in the first inning we took a nice walk to the famous Pike's Place Market. Sadly, they were closing as we got there so we didn't get to look around as much as we had hoped, but actually it was GOOD they were closing up because the kids found plenty of things they *wished* they could buy, but the stores were closed. PHEW! Saved! We did see lots of fresh seafood and beautiful flower bouquets, which are the primary charms of the market, and we visited the "World's Largest Shoes" museum, which is a wall where you can pay a quarter to look at shoes that once belonged to famously giant people.
The best part of the market is that it's right next to the giant Ferris Wheel! I didn't care one way or another about Ferris Wheels until I read "Devil in the White City" and it's interesting tidbits of the history of the first ferris wheel at the Chicago World Fair, and now I find them quite interesting! The kids find them interesting because they are kids.
Eli is a cutie
So up in the wheel we went! Each compartment held up to 8 people, but it wasn't crowded on a Thursday evening so they gave our family our own compartment, and let us ride around 6 times instead of the promised 3. Really gave us our money's worth! (Which is good, cause it was more money than I thought I'd ever spend on a Ferris Wheel)
The kids kept wishing we would get more rides, it was so fun that they got their wish! On the 5th and 6th times around we saw the Ferry pulling into the harbor, and that was awesome too.
The city behind us
My sweet girl <3 p="">
(and a better view of the city)
We walked home from the Ferris Wheel and Pike's Place Market, which was about a 20 minute walk and the kids, with the exception of Ethan, all thought they were dying. Happily, the city is interesting, there is always something to look at - this vista was outside our hotel! And like the Ferris Wheel was built for a World Fair, so was the Space Needle! Now it's suddenly was more interesting to me, and I'll have to read a book about it before we go again, so I can appreciate it before I pay gobs of money to go in an elevator to the top.
The boys refused to pose for more pictures around this point, but Caroline was happy to oblige, and gave me this gem where she looks like she's plotting to murder Ethan, and Ethan's a bit nervous because he knows it.
Then Caro wanted to swap, so she took our photo.
Back at the hotel Thursday evening we went swimming with the kids from 8-9, watched TV from 9-9:3-, then yelled at them until 10 until they went to sleep. We are amazing parents.
Friday morning we decided to hit the Pacific Science Center. It had ho-hum ratings from the site I was looking at to plan our outings, but quite frankly it was one of the less-spendy things available and was RIDICULOUSLY close to our hotel, so we walked on over. Lo and behold, the Science Center is in a whole campus of cool spots, including another Children's Museum, the Armory, a Chihuli Gardens and Glass, the Museum of Popular Culture (or MoPoP), and the space needle itself.
Awesome climbing structures! They were challenging and fun and HUGE
The slides were impressive! I saw more than one adult go screaming down them
This was there by-far-favorite part of the part. What is it about spinning that is amazing when you're a kid, and absolute death when you're an adult? Blech.
We eventually left the playground and made it the 500 feet to the Pacific Science Center. We finally convinced them by promising there were dinosaur exhibits
There were indeed dinosaur exhibits! They moved and everything.
There were also oceanic exhibits, solar exhibits, health and fitness exhibits, and an entire half of the museum that we missed even though we spent 2 hours there! Happily a family membership was just $20 more than daily admission for us, so we got a year pass and we'll go again some time this summer.
Everyone agreed their favorite part of the museum was the Butterfly exhibit, where the butterflies were all free to fly around and land on you.
Ethan was real ticked the butterflies wouldn't land on him
Also in the campus area was the monorail! Not a terribly effective way of getting around, as it only has two stops, but it sure was fun to ride.
Again with the murderous squish
We had to make use of that one monorail stop, so we walked around a shopping square - it had this cool water sculpture you could walk through...
...and public foosball and Ping Pong! We enjoyed a close game.
After the foosball game we hopped back on the monorail, to scoot back to the campus, to walk back to our car, to drive back to Olympia. Lots of travel for two days, but even BETTER was lots of FUN in two days.
We had a really, really, really wonderful anniversary trip with the kids! I was so happy to see everything go smoothly, and the kids have fun at every stop, and we adults only lose our cool a time or two while having as much fun (if not more) than the kids themselves.
