Seattle Day 4: The Pacific Ocean

Our last day took us to Target where I bought "Twilight" because it had a free movie download for iTunes (I was going to buy it anyway). Eric didn't want to spend 3 hours sitting at a Starbucks waiting for it to download (I mean really? What a silly guy!) so we decided to head to the Pacific Ocean.

Apparently it is about 3 hours away from Seattle. That rules out Seattle as my dream retirement location, well that and all the houses/people/wow!

We couldn't get close to the ocean at the state park we found but if you look closely you can see the white caps of the waves in the background.

Aeden is thrilled to be on his way home, he was exhausted!

Seattle Day 3: We hit the tours...

On Sunday we headed out early to do the walking food tour of Pike's Place Market. I think it is a great way to see the market with a 7 year old in tow.

We rode the monorail downtown.

Aeden found the idea that a pigeon was in the market amusing. The pigeon flew off right after I snapped the picture, apparently he didn't want to be photographed.


We went to Market Spice and Aeden enjoyed trying some smoky type of salt.

He enjoyed tasting the smoked salmon and salmon jerky even more.

Although I didn't get any great pictures of the flying fish, Aeden did enjoy touching the fish that were stationary.

The pig seems to be much like the horses here in Saratoga. Spirit Bear and Aeden posed for us outside the market.

All-in-all we sampled donuts, fruit, tea, hot chocolate, cherries/nuts, salmon (3 types!), cheese, piroshky and coconut cream pie. All was delicious!

After the food tour we headed to the Underground Tour. I must say, the history of Seattle as told by the tour guides was really fascinating.

In true 7-year-old style, Aeden loved the historical parts about poop.

Of course we had to stop at Starbucks often! Especially given our permanent state of jetlag. ;)

At the end we took the monorail back to the hotel.

Seattle Trip Day 2

Day 2 and Papa brought us to Vancouver. Thank goodness he was there because driving through Vancouver was an absolute nightmare and I was very happy to be in the backseat!!

Before we got to Canada Aeden got into trouble and lost his electronics. Here he is trying to sweet talk me into giving back his DS. It didn't work.


Yay! We arrived in Canada, my first visit to a foreign country.

Here I am in Canada, Tigger took my picture for me.

Lots of birds by the harbor (port?) in Vancouver.

When we weren't taking pictures of the birds, I was attempting to photograph us via reflections in the building.

The Peace Arch on our way out of Canada.

Self-portrait of me leaving Canada.

Aeden got up at 4:30 a.m. Seattle time and absolutely refused to nap. It wasn't until we were back into the United States and all his electronics had run out of power that he finally gave up the fight and fell asleep.

We spotted a lot of wildlife on our drive through Northern Washington. We spotted several hawks and various other birds. In addition, we saw at least four different bald eagles.

Seattle Day 1

We spent the weekend in Seattle to celebrate Eric's and my 10th Anniversary (last January). I must say, as much as I enjoyed the visit, I have changed my mind about retiring there. Too many people and hills!!

I took over 156 pictures on the first day, here are some of the highlights.


We started off the trip by going on a duck tour, one of the tours on the vehicles that let you go around the city and then into the water.
Aeden's school Spirit Bear joined us on our trip and enjoyed Aeden's duck sounds made with the quacker Tigtigs and Papa bought him.

Eric attempted to get some decent shots of me. I looked pretty much the same the entire trip, my hair was pulled back in a barrett to avoid being whipped around in the wind. No picture for you though as they are all on Eric's camera.

Seattle has a lot of "art work" according to our tour guides. Apparently (no fact verification was done, all is on the word of the guides) businesses have to donate money for artwork. Here we have a steel tree.

We have entered the water. Aeden was a bit disappointed that the water didn't come into the vehicle.

After the duck tour we ate at Sky City, the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. Before dinner we went out on the observation deck. The west side was VERY windy!

Aeden really enjoyed the rotating restaurant. Some people had left notes against the windows earlier so Aeden continued the tradition. It kept him busy for awhile.

By the way the seafood pasta dish is divine!

Although we had been up since 4:30 am NY time, we headed back to the observation deck for some more observing. The history of the Space Needle was very interesting, as was the view.

We left before sunset because we were getting really really tired! On the way back to the hotel we got to see some more artwork. Metal grass...

The Space Needle looked particularly cool against the darkening sky.

Obviously my pictures are out of order because this sky shot is lighter, or maybe it is just the reflection, who knows. In any case I thought this was a cool angle of the space needle, Eric's shot is even better!

We headed out in time to watch the sun setting and the clouds turnin colors.