Seattle

Last week was Alex's spring break so we decided to take a little trip up to Seattle with our friends Sarah and Brandon Ritchie. It was about a 5 1/2 hour drive from Moscow to Seattle. We left last Tuesday and drove 3 1/2 hours to a little town called Cle Elum. Sarah's Grandparents have a cabin up there and we stopped and spent the night. They have a small pool that they keep very warm and a theater room in the basement. So we went swimming and watched movies. I forgot my swimming suit though so Alex took Abby swimming without me. She seemed a little bit nervous, I think it was because it was dark outside and there were jets making a lot of bubbles in the water.

Sarah's grandparents threw a bunch of old apples outside so that we could see the deer, it was cool to see so many up close.

The next morning we drove an hour and a half to Seattle. The first thing we did was go to the top of the Space Needle. Before you go up the elevator they take your picture in front of a green screen and email you the picture for free. So that is why the background looks pretty fake :)


After the Space Needle we went to the Pacific Science Center. We watched a movie on the IMAX screen and looked at all the cool things at the science center. It was actually a really cool place.




They even had a butterfly room that had hundreds of butterflies flying around, it was really neat to see them up close, one even landed on Brandon's head and did not want to get off.



Next we went to the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum. It was alright. I think it would have been a lot cooler if we were really into Battlestar Gallactica and playing the guitar and stuff. On one of the floors though they had this huge tower that was made out of guitars, that was cool. And Abby had fun playing a giant drum with Alex


The next day we went to the Seattle Aquarium, it was fun but I was thinking there were going to be some cooler things there, like penguins and stuff. It was mostly a local sea life aquarium, but we still had a good time. Abby got to play with some life like Octopus tentacles that she loved.


After the Aquarium we stopped at a little place on the pier to eat lunch, they had a carousel so of course we had to let Abby have a ride.


After lunch we went on a harbor cruise tour of Seattle

After the harbor cruise we went to Pikes Place Market. It is a huge marketplace where people are selling all kinds of things from clothes to jewelry to food. There was this one place selling fish and whenever someone ordered something they would do this big show and throw these huge fish around. It was pretty cool, I didn't get a picture though :(
That evening the boys took Abby back to the hotel to go to bed and they watched basketball. Sarah and I went shopping with our friend Carrie. Carrie and her husband were in our ward last year but they moved to Seattle. It was fun to see her!

The next day we went on the Underground Tour. Back in the late 1800's there was a big fire in Seattle and it destroyed a lot of the town. When they rebuilt the town they built the new town right on top of the old town. It was really cool to take a tour underground and to see all the old buildings down there.

After the underground tour we went to the flight museum. There were so many cool planes that we got to see. We even got to take a tour of one of the old Air Force One Jets.

After the museum we drove back to Cle Elum to pick up some stuff that we had left at Sarah's grandparent's house. We were planning on spending one more night there but we decided that we would rather just drive the rest of the way home. We ended up getting home around midnight, but on Saturday morning we were really glad we already had the drive over with. Overall it was a really fun trip, we were so tired but it was worth it. I was kind of worried about Abby and how she would hold up through all of our running around but she actually did great! Each day she took a short 30 minute nap in our arms which helped her get through the day. She was pretty tired by the time we got home though.