Saturday, September 26, 2009

Seattle/Ferry Ride

Ok, so I'm back to catching up again on our vacation to Montana/Northwest. I think in the last post about the vacation I mentioned us heading out Thursday night the 18th of June for Ft. Lewis, WA to visit some old friends, Nils & Scarlett and their girls. We arrived in Washington, after an all night drive at 6 in the morning. Scarlett was waiting up for us, as Nils was at PT. Unfortunately, even though mommy and daddy didn't sleep much, the boys did, so they were ready to go once we got there. I let Chris nap since he did most of the driving, and stayed up watching the boys and talking with Scarlett. When Nils got home I woke Chris up, and he stayed up so that I could nap with Ben. Most of that first day was us swapping naps with watching the kids. Surprisingly it worked out well.

Saturday we decided to head up to Seattle and see the sights. I had never (or at least didn't think that I had) seen Pikes Place Market, and thought the kiddos and Chris (we tried to go see it when he graduated from LDAC, but it was closed) would enjoy all the sights. I always thought Pikes Place was a place full of fish, but had no idea it was a huge market area, where people were selling everything from paintings, to t-shirts, to jewelry, to flowers, to honey/jams, to amazing (delicious) fruit, to the fish that I had envisioned. It was nice and crowded so it was a little hard to navigate two strollers and 4 people. Chris bought us some raspberries and strawberries. I miss the northwest so much for their yummy (and inexpensive) raspberries. The strawberries were as big as John's fist, and delicious too. He enjoyed an entire pint of them. Boy we regretted that decision when we changed his diaper the next day!! Ben spent a good portion of the morning looking around before being lulled to sleep in the sling. I was pretty shocked as he doesn't usually fall asleep in the sling anymore. My favorite part of Pikes Place was the infamous Fish Market where they throw the fish that is purchased back and forth from customer to the wrapper, to the guy weighing it, back to the guys out front, and back to the customer. It's especially exciting when they throw a big fish. It was a lot of fun to watch, although John had more fun watching the doggies that surrounded him, and like I said, Ben was asleep, so he missed the whole ordeal.


Walking up to the market. We parked a few blocks away!


The original Starbucks. Nope didn't even stop to get coffee there. Chris was determined to make it his entire trip without drinking any Starbucks coffee. He almost made it except the day before we left Montana to return to Texas we went to the mall, and they had no coffee shops, except for a Starbucks in Barnes and Noble. He was disappointed.


The Seattle skyline with three of us.

And now with the 4th one!!


I just loved this "park" with all the pretty flowers and the ocean behind it.

Starting into Pikes Place.

Ben was fascinated


Not sure if you can tell how ridiculously large the strawberry is that he is eating. I love the Northwest! Yep, one of the ones out of the pint we bought.

And he finally fell asleep


Making sure we got a pic with the sign in the background to legitimize that we were actually there!


The fish throwers. Unfortunately we didn't get a video of them throwing fish, b/c we just forgot to turn it on. When we did,nobody wanted to buy anything they were just standing around waiting for someone else to buy so they could get pics of the flying fish.


We decided not to do the Space Needle as the boys wouldn't enjoy it very much, and we didn't want to pay boocoo bucks for scared boys! The other thing that we knew the boys would enjoy was a ferry ride, so we decided to ride one on the return trip. Not before we had stopped and eaten some of the famous fish (or chicken for me) on the Pier. Nils & Scarlett wanted to take us to a restaurant where we could eat overlooking the water and watch the ships come and go, but the wait there was over an hour, and the boys were getting cranky, so we decided to see what they had along the pier. Funny cuz it was deja vu from when my family had gone to Seattle for a missions trip over Spring Break back when I was in highschool. I ate at the exact same place as I had back then. (We had a free night where we rode the ferry, and ate at the pier). Brought back so many memories of the homeless shelter we helped at, the people we served, the group, the lessons we learned about serving and loving people. I want my kids to have the same experiences I did, and learn how to love people and serve those to whom others wouldn't even give a second glance.

Chris & John walking up the pier

After lunch, we hopped in the cars and drove to the ferry dock. Of course John fell asleep on the 10 minute drive over there. We decided to let him sleep as long as possible and then wake him up with enough time to enjoy the splash. Nils & Scarlett and their girls went up to the main deck and watched everything while we stayed in the car. I think we were in the middle of a discussion about discipline and kids. Yay. Ben enjoyed playing with his daddy and pretending he was driving.

The many faces of Ben

Yay toes!

We felt bad that he had to sleep sitting up, so we laid him down on the floor and let him sleep. Still doesn't look that comfortable!
Seagulls hoping for some food.



A view out the back and the Seattle skyline!

Playing with daddy

Let's see what does this do?

Hmm,and this?


AAaaah watch out world here I come!


Some of the sights we saw on the ride.


We woke John up and he was fascinated!

Another family pic


John pointing out the splash to Kaitlyn

Aren't they cute?

Like I said he was fascinated!


By the end of it all we tuckered this little guy out!

1 comment:

Jennifer Owens said...

Looks like a fun family get away. And bummer - I would have loved to see the flying fish!!! (o: