Trip to Seattle-Day 2

The second day to our Seattle trip was probably my favorite.  We woke up and headed to the Aquarium, that turned out to be so awesome!  We walked in and there was a HUGE tank full of fish and there was a diver in it feeding them and talking to someone on the outside of the take through a microphone in his mask, telling her and the audience all about the fish.  It was really neat.

They had tide pools that the boys could get a closer look at all of the marine life and even touch star fish. 

There was this crazy octopus that would swim around a clear tube and the boys were absolutely fascinated with it. 

Hunter requested this picture :) 

The best part about the aquarium was all of the volunteers they had there with fun things for the kids to do and little interesting facts about the fish and plants we saw there.  It was so great!

The boy really loved everything we saw.

I love the above picture.   Hunter is just sitting there staring up at all of the fish.  I have to say, I definitely got a lot of pictures of fish...

The aquarium was on the pier and had some fun pools outside full of marine life as well. 

This little fish dome was really neat.  There were all sorts of fish in it that the boys loved looking at from sturgeon, to a fish that swam on it's side. 

This isn't a very good picture, but there is a baby sleeping on it's mama's stomach while she floats on her back.  It was so cute. 

After we finished up at the aquarium, we headed across the street to Pike's Place Market. 

I have always wanted to see the shop where they threw the fish that people bought.  Well, this is it.  It was fun to see them do it.  They are doing it in the picture above, but you can't really tell.

Although this day wasn't as rainy as the day before, it was definitely colder.  We headed to Starbucks to get our favorite gourmet hot chocolate. 

The boys thought this was great. 

After the market, we headed down the street to our tour of the sound.  While we waited, we checked out a little shop that had some very fun hats that I just had to buy the boys.  They looked so cute in them, and kept them a lot warmer.

They boys were pretty good and patient as we waited in line...especially since it was pretty cold. 

We loved this tour!  It was fun to be on the water (although I was really dying to be on one of the thousands of sailboats that we saw at the marina. 

You can see what a cold and dreary day it was, but really we didn't care at all.  We loved the whole feel and energy of Seattle.

The boys were dying to see some real ocean life especially after seeing so much at the Aquarium.  They really wanted to see whales, and Palmer's swears that he did see one.  We did however see these California Sea Lions that had headed up to Seattle to feast on fish.  Every buoy in the sound was covered in them. It was really fun to see.  I guess the water is a bit too cold for them.

This ship just took my breath away.  It was enormous and made me feel like an ant.  It was loaded with train cars full of "stuff" to be shipped across the ocean.  We were in total awe of this monster.

After our tour we headed to Dukes for dinner (a good tip from my friend Lisa who is a Seattle resident :)  Thanks Lisa!).  It lived up to all we had been told about it.  We had the clam chowder, which normally I just think is okay, but this was heavenly and I have been craving it ever since!

Again on Lisa's recommendation I got the mahi-mahi tacos and sweet potato fries and it was amazing!  So so yummy!  Palmer and Josh got fish and chips and Lincoln and Hunter thought they would stick with chicken strips. 

Right across from Dukes was a quaint little beach that we decided to go check out.  Lincoln had started to not feel very good and was pretty cold, so he let us get one picture of him and he and Josh headed back to the car. 

The boys and I played in the water for a while, which was especially fun with our rain boots on because we could feel the cold of the water, but not worry about getting wet and sandy.  It was a good memory for me watching these two laugh and chase the waves.

One of my favorite moments from the trip

Our last adventure of the night was taking the boys to see Star Wars Episode I in 3-D.  They didn't seem to care that they had already seen it, they thought it was great.  

It has been fun reliving our trip as I have been posting it.  I am so glad that we got to do this with the boys.