Trip to Seattle-Day 1

Josh has traveled a lot in the past for his job, which hasn't always been my favorite, but one thing that is my favorite is all of the frequent flyer miles that he accrues.  This past year Josh and I have been able to go on four trips together without the kids.  We went to D.C. (see here, here, here and here), Florida (See here, here, here and here), Las Vegas and Phoenix.  We figured that it was high time that we took the boys on a trip (we left McKay with my wonderful parents.  He still has to have a nap and the weather wasn't going to be conducive to a happy 2 year old).  We had a four day weekend last week and decided that would be as good a time as any.

I have a passion for travel.  I love to see EVERYWHERE.  I have lived in a lot of different states in my life and experience a lot of different kids of people and I just think people are wonderful anywhere you go.  There are also fun things to do most places.  I have wanted to see Seattle, Washington for a long time.  I served a mission for my church on the other side of the state in Spokane while a good friend of mine served hers in Seattle, and I guess I have always been curious about this beautiful place in the world.  My friend Kristen told us about City Passes (Serious MUST!) and we were excited to find out that they had one to Seattle!

The boys were absolutely ecstatic to go on an airplane for the first time (Palmer has been on one before, but he was three and doesn't remember much about it). 

We ended up sitting next to one of our friends from our old ward in West Valley and it was fun to catch up with her (she was also nice enough to let Hunter watch a movie on her phone :)  Thanks Catherine!)

The boys each thought it was a great experience, and were excited that they got to ride one again on the ride home!

I was so proud of them! They each were so good to be in charge of their own suitcase and backpack.  They were really great travellers. 

Palmer was pretty obsessed with the luggage belt and was determined to get all of our luggage for us :)  He even brought us back the booster seats we had brought!

Our first visit in Seattle was to the Space Needle. 

Going up in the elevator.

It was really fun to learn about it (did you know it was built for the 1962 World's Fair that was held in Seattle and was once the tallest building west of the Mississippi.  Now it is the 7th largest in Seattle alone). 

It was fun and the boys liked being able to see all over Seattle (especially through the telescopes).

Lincoln especially was excited about Seattle, as he is going to give a report on it to his school class in a few weeks. 

Really incredible views.

 

The boys loved all of these information touch screens and spent more than their fair share of time on them.  I was excited that the remembered some of the stuff they learned.

As our first day was supposed to be the nicest day there according to Josh's weather app, we headed to the zoo so we could get that in before the rain came...it beat us there.  It POURED on us the whole time we were there. 

The penguins were the favorite animal we saw.  They were so cute and playful that day.  The boys were pretty enchanted with them.

The tank was made so that you could see them swimming under the water and there were a lot of them swimming!  It was so amazing to watch. 

There were these fun windows that actually bulged into the tank.

They were also a good way to just relax :)

A very tired Jaguar.  A lot of the animals that we saw were ones that our zoo doesn't have, so the boys were pretty excited about everything they saw.

Toucans.

The gorillas had to be my favorite.  There were quite a few of them and they were very playful that day, especially a baby gorilla that was terrorizing the rest of them.  He was so funny!

He found a sack and just kept playing with it.  He would put it over his body and run around bumping into the other gorillas and then do somersaults while wearing it.  It was under a little pavilion and was pouring outside, so we stayed a while and watched them and it was so worth it!

Finally the rain beat us into the gift shop where we bought some cute umbrellas for the boys that popped up into animals (can you see how soaked Lincoln's coat was?)  At the beginning of the trip we had given the boys each an allotted amount of money for any souvenir they bought and they all pretty much blew it in here.  I couldn't bring myself to buy an adult umbrella (and why did we not bring some you might ask?  I was asking myself that same question the whole trip) because I didn't like them and they were way expensive, so I decided to brave the rain...with my leather boots, and purse, and my camera...we didn't end up staying long after that and headed to Target to buy rain boots and an umbrella for Josh and me (we never ended up using the umbrella because our first day actually ended up being our worst day for weather and the subsequent days were all much better).

That night Josh took the boys to the hotel pool, while I stayed in our room and read.  I read Wuthering Heights while on this trip...has anyone read that?  Such a strange...good...but strange book.  Our first day was so much fun!