The rest of Seattle

Lots of fun on the rest of the trip too. Our hotel was the nicest I've ever stayed in: separate bedroom with 2 queens, living room with pull out queen, kitchenette, and balcony; free breakfast and dinner; wonderful 4ft heated outdoor pool shaded by surrounding buildings, but was still somehow beautiful; awesome game room with free pool, pinball machine, electronic golf, pacman, etc. I hope the pictures capture everything so I don't forget something big...

Atop the Space Needle

Harry's Invisibility Cloak at the EMP museum *snark*

Inigo's father's sword and the six-fingered man's glove

 at the EMP museum

Outside of the EMP

Great playground out here

We got kicked out of the museum for a false-alarm fire and had a good time.

Pilot Jim at the Museum of Flight

Hurricane!

We could have played with this thing for 30 minutes straight, no problem. I need one in my house for stress relief.

President Laura descending from Air Force One

Jim finally boarded the Concorde

salmon, thinking about swimming up the fish ladder

They are much bigger than I expected!

Postcard-worthy

the kids were sleepy a lot due to the time change, but they handled it all very well

Funny truck and boats on top of the barge

Its a BIG barge headed to Alsaka

The Mountain was out every day except when we went up in the Space Needle

I think this guy on the jet ski is named Orca Bob or something? Apparently he's a regular site on Harbor Tour

Hey Babe!

At the science museum


 

Pike's Place Market

 

I guess this is becoming her thing? Actually, I had to kinda force her to play so I could video it. Geez, mom...

Sorry it's sideways.


And then we spent 2 lovely days with Michelle, John and Odin on their brand new farm. It was awesome seeing them again, enjoying the goats, horses, and dogs, and I even got to supervise some fence building. :)

Awesome way to end our crazy busy summer. Now its two weeks of total laziness and then school starts!

Our picture, 10 years later

San Diego Harbor Cruise, 2005

Seattle Harbor Cruise 2015

Second day in seattle

Today, we went for a swim, picked up Jim at the airport, went to the Museum of Flight, checked out the fish ladder and locks, swam again, and went on a harbor cruise.

Most of my pictures were on my camera today, not my phone. So I'll leave you with this one and will post the other ones later. You're welcome.

First day in Seattle

The kids and I beat Jim to Seattle by one day. We walked a TON, ventured thru Pikes Place Market, added to the Gum Wall, rode the ferris wheel on the waterfront, and went swimming at the hotel. Fun fun so far! Also, here's the picture I drew during the flight. I think it's funny that the treat the kids wanted at Pikes was a granny smith apple each :)

Camp Waub-o-jeeg

Finally, we went camping! It has been way too long. The kids and I headed to Taylor's Falls, about 1 1/2 hour away from home.  Its gorgeous country and I can't believe we haven't gone there sooner. It was the kids' first time to stay in a tent more than one night. I forgot to take pictures of the first half of the trip, but we made a list of our adventures. My favorite thing is that the kids came home raving about how all the things that went wrong were the best adventures. They were so incredibly involved and helpful and competent. We had talked about the fact that they were going to have to be responsible for helping with everything along the way since it was just me (without Jim), and they took that very seriously. They took turns being charge of the fire, delegating jobs to the fire "helpers". They did dishes, cleaned up, cooked french toast one morning almost all by themselves and we all were so glad that we went. I'm a very proud momma.
Our list of memories that we made last night:
Adam got a bee sting and 29 mosquito bites and dealt with them very well
Kids ran from another wasp
We had 4 fires and each one got easier and easier to light
Kids made french toast for breakfast
We claimed the campsite, several islands, and a small swimming hole in the name of Laura, Adam and Jenny
We lost Adam's shoe in the muck, never to be found again
Laura rode her bike once in her swimsuit, just to prove we were glad to have brought our bikes
We took the longest canoe ride ever, 4 hours, and were very proud of ourselves at the end.
We love our swimming hole on the St. Croix river that is very hidden and no one else know about it
It was HOT, in the 90s and I think Laura got a bit of heatstroke, so we skipped a dinner over the fire that night and went swimming first, then came back and ate cold food and she felt better
We hiked a bit and saw one really cool, deep, smooth glacial pothole that some girls were hanging their feet in so I couldn't get a picture.

We stopped at several spots along the canoe ride and this is on of our islands that we claimed. 

The kids set about making our version of a inukshuk, using sticks instead of rocks.

Laura had this awesome plan to use sticks held by pressure instead of gravity. I love it when the kids come up with things I hadn't thought of.

Can you see Laura's sculpture between the two trees in the middle?

itchy and scratchy

Franconia Sculpture Garden