Seattle

We got good prices on tickets to Seattle so we decided to take a short visit. We left on Thursday and came back Monday night. We celebrated my 34th birthday and possibly our last weekend getaway before we have ourselves a little bun. 

We stayed in downtown Seattle at the Hotel Monaco. We ordered a pet fish for our room which was kinda of fun. Her name was Christine. We were hoping for a little more comfortable bed for the price we paid but no such luck. We were both very excited to get back to our own bed and decided that it was a great purchase and worth every penny we spent on it. However the location was great and the morning breakfasts were great. One of the great things about downtown Seattle is that they have a ride free zone on their bus line all day long. We took the bus a lot. We also walked a lot up and down those hills - being a tourist in a city with hills while pregnant isn't easy, that is for sure. 

Things we did: 

Pike Market - Rick enjoyed fish and chips and I enjoyed some chowder. We also enjoyed some hazelnuts from a booth in the market. We spent a lot of money on hazelnuts but we couldn't help it. They were so delicious. They weren't the typical round ones they were oblong like an almond and had a swirl of colors on the outer skins. 

We went to an author's reading at a bookstore. It was kinda fun. Neither of us have done anything like that before and Seattle is a good place for that since there are bookstores on every corner. 

We went to the Experience Music Museum and Sifi Museum. This was fun. They had a tribute to Jimi Hendrix, a guitar statue and displays, the history of grunge, and a play room where you could learn to play all the different instruments, sing , pretend you are in a band and learn to mix music. Rick loved it, we spent lots of time there. 

We spent some time at the mall shopping around. It isn't as fun to do birthday shopping for cute clothes when you have a big belly and can't wear most of the stuff. I did find a cute red sweater at motherhood, and some tummy butter. Rick bought a little book called Father to Son. Each page has advice for a father on raising his little boy. He really wanted it, it was so cute. We also bought our little bun the booked called Weedle in the Needle. Both Rick and I grew up reading the Serendipity books and that one specifically so we thought we should get it for our little guy. 

We toured the library which is super high tech and was suggested in the tour books. It was cool. We cruised around pioneer square and hit some specialty shops and museums. 

Of course we went to the space needle. We were hoping to get dinner reservations there for my birthday, but the whole weekend was booked. We went up at sunset and watched the sun go down and saw the view at night time. It was beautiful. 

We took a ferry ride over to Bainbridge Island. We loved it there. It was so beautiful. We sat on the grass in town square and relaxed a little. We walked around downtown and enjoyed a nice Italian meal. We headed back to Seattle at sundown. It was a nice ride. We both said we wouldn't mind living there (only if it never rained). 

We went to the Asian market (the one that is famous and starts with a U). Rick loved this. We grabbed a shopping cart and filled it up with random Asian treats. I was excited that they had some of my favorite Filipino treats and Rick just liked the fact that every thing was new to him and he got to experiment.  We ate a delicious Vietnamese meal there that was great and very fresh. 

We went to Olympic Sculpture Park along the water to see the sculptures. By this point I was getting a little worn down so I decided to relax on the grass in the shade for a little while. Rick walked the rest of the way. As I was resting I noticed this cute little red headed girl who looked a little familiar to me. Sure enough it was Blake, Leslie and their 3 kids. Blake is one of Rick's best friends from growing up. They just moved to Spokane about a year ago. We were thinking about seeing if they wanted to meet us in Seattle for the weekend while we were there but decided it would probably be too far for them and the kids to go so we didn't. They had been camping in the San Juan Islands and decided to spend the night in Seattle before they went home. It was so fun to see them. We hung out with them for awhile in the park and then we had dinner with them that night. 

We enjoyed our weekend in Seattle but were excited to get back to our bed. To our surprise we had a difficult time finding good food. We would wander the streets on Friday and Saturday night and all the restaurants were closed. We tried several areas and still couldn't find a good place to eat. Even the streets at night we empty, we couldn't figure out where all the people were. We even ended up eating at the mall in the food court on time. Kinda strange.