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.

August

I know it has been a long time since we posted anything. We went from 2 cameras to no cameras in a week so we haven't been able to document any of our fun activities. 

In August we took the Oakland youth (boys and girls) on a lake trip for the day. I don't think any of them had ever been on a boat before, in fact 90% of them didn't know how to swim. We taught some swim classes for the Wednesday activity before we went to the lake. We wanted to teach them to float and tread water so they wouldn't panic in the water. They all loved the water and did pretty good. At the end of the night we couldn't get most of them to get out of the water. 

Saturday morning we went to pick them all up and half of them came in their jeans and tee shirts (they don't own bathing suits). They assumed they wouldn't get in the water. I told them it was going to be 100 degress at the lake with no shade and I was sure they would be in the water by the end of the day. We had about 13 youth there which was a great turn out especially since they typically don't like water. 

We had two boats - a master craft and a ski sanger. Little did these kids know they were cruising around the lake in style with two top of the line ski boats. We found a beach area where we set up food and chairs etc. and then took kids out from there. We spent the day tubing and knee boarding. The kids had the time of their life. A few even tried waterskiing. Sure enough the kids who thought they weren't going to get in the water were tubbing in their jeans and shirts. They didn't want to get off the lake. We ended up staying on the water until about 7 at night. I took pictures with my camera (the non waterproof one) since our waterproof one was being borrowed. When I got home from the lake it didn't work, so sorry no pictures of the kids on the lake. 

The next weekend (labor day weekend) Rick's sister Jessica, Jeff and their 3 kids came to visit us for the weekend. We were excited to have visitors. We pitched the tent in our warehouse for the kids to sleep in but they didn't actually want to sleep in it so we used it to store bedding during the day. We have plenty of space for 7 people in our place, however, it is just one big room so there isn't much privacy. Good thing we all get along well. 

Things we did:

Met up with Ricky for lunch on Friday in the city

Toured Pier 39, watched the sea lions, went to the video game museum, enjoyed salt water taffy on the pier, went across the golden gate bridge, visited the army forts in Marin (by the bridge), ate at Ghiradelli square, had a bbq at Alameda beach and went to the Jelly Belly Factory.

Again no pictures - my camera was broken and Rick's was still being borrowed - sorry.

A few days later we went to Seattle. We bought a disposable camera for our trip so we actually have some pictures of this weekend. Post to come soon. It was pretty funny watching peoples response as we asked them to take our picture and then handed them a gray plastic camera.