Seattle Bound: Day 3

On day three, we ventured downtown. We walked around Pike Place Market, there was some sort of festival going on. Sarah finally went into the first Starbucks (although she didn't want to wait in line to get a coffee). After Pike Place, we walked down to Ivar's, the main restaurant was only serving Brunch until 3:00 pm, so we decided to eat at Ivar's Fish Bar instead.



I enjoyed it!



The seagulls enjoyed it!



Sarah, not so much. She was terrified that the seagulls would eat her hair...



After lunch we took the Argosy Harbor Tour. A young Captain Stubing pictured here, guided the vessel round Elliott Bay, it really was a nice tour. I learned many things on tour thanks to the narrator. Like the piers are at 45 degree angles because when they loaded the trains, its a lot easier for a train to turn 45 degrees, rather than 90 degrees. I also learned that Mississippi was a city, it's also rains more there than in Seattle. All this time I thought Mississippi was a state... silly me.



Ferries Abound!



We enjoyed the tour!



Downtown Seattle... on a beautiful overcast day.



Sarah being silly.



This was an artsy fartsy picture I took of Sarah and Sodo. You can see Safeco and Qwest in the background.

Seattle Bound: Day 2

So, I sit here on my rock hard bed at our lovely Motel 6. Nick's getting ready for the day in. Today we're off to Seattle to do Pike Place and have some fish & chips at Ivar's on the pier. We MIGHT ride the ferry, but I heard it's gotten very expensive, so we might not.

Yesterday morning started fairly early. We got up, grabbed some Starbucks and met George & Ashley @ Costco to fuel up. We paid under $4.00/gallon (I can't remember, but I think it was about $3.90 or something), which is so much better than what the gas station at the hotel offers us. Bummer is that we can't buy gas at Costco unless George & Ashley are there with us since my membership expired in March. Well, so far it feels like I've been measuring our trip in terms of Starbucks and gas prices. ha ha.


After we fueled up, we headed out towards the mountain. we did a quick detour past our old house - it's exactly the same. Weeds in the driveway, same dull gray, and even the recycle bin is parked in the same place. we would have gawked longer, but the new owner was peering out the widow, so we drove on.

Of course, it was overcast and the mountain was hiding. We all piled in George & Ashley's car (as is typical of when we would go camping w/ them) and explored the forest service roads & the conditions of some of our old camping sites. Some of the roads are in terrible condition - the forest got hit pretty hard with wind and snow storms again this winter.



After the day adventure was over we went out to dinner at a new (to me) restaurant in Federal Way called McGrath's Fish House. It was pretty good - fairly reasonable prices. Then we hit the EQC for some gambling (we all agreed that we liked Muckleshoot better, but the EQC is closer to where all of us live/stay). I lost all but 2 cents of my $20 to play in the slots and Nick won $115 off of his $20 on the blackjack tables.

Well, more to follow. I'm excited to get into the city and play tourist!

Seattle Bound: Day 1

We're off for our 5 day adventure to the Seattle area!

We arrived at the hotel in the GHETTO last night. The drive in wasn't that bad - it actually felt a lot faster than it really was. Okay, we're not really in the ghetto, but it's not the Ritz, either. We're at a Motel 6 right off of I-5 and Military Road. We've certainly stayed in nicer places, but we've also stayed in a LOT worse. We can actually, you know, sleep under the covers. :-)

Gas prices are insane here. We filled up in Pendleton and stopped for lunch at the Wendy's as seems to be our tradition. We forgot that in Oregon you have to let them pump your gas. Thankfully, we only needed about half a tank. Fortified up with some Starbucks and headed back out. By the time we got to the hotel, we were riding on E, so we put another half tank in. we paid $4.30 for REGULAR. Hopefully we'll find nicer prices at a station further away from the freeway.

Well, after we got here, we basically checked in and left again. Straight over to George & Ashley's to visit. Their little girl is SO cute! I got to hold and feed Abby - she's not that fussy at all for being only a couple weeks old. Lil George was already in bed, but we're going up to Mt Rainier today so we'll get to see him later.

More to follow! We have no real plans. I think we're going out tonight (apparently George & Ashley have been waiting for us to go "party" which makes us feel like their alcoholic friends), but that's it as far as plans go. We're pretty much flying by the seat of our pants & for once in my life, I'm not freaking out that we have no clear plan. :-) I must be mellowing in my old age. Nick, I'm sure, just died from hysterical laughter.

Carin's Pizza

Carin had the opportunity to make a pizza (free by the way). There a pizza company called Flying Pie Pizza (Whirled Famous Pizza) that has a promotion in which they choose a name, such as "Bob", and for that day you can make a pizza on the house(actually you make it in the kitchen). We had joined Jamison and Carin for dinner on Cinqo De Mayo and we went to FPP for a few drinks after dinner. It was Carin's day, and luckily we were available to play paprazzi for this event.

Connor's Birthday!

Well, yesterday was Connor's 10th birthday. He was way excited to finally turn a DOUBLE DIGIT. Yes, it's so important that DOUBLE DIGITS will appear in caps for the remainder of this blog.

He is such a cute kid. Literelly, he is cute - but his personality is so wonderful, too. I can't say that I know any other 10 year old boys, but I think he must be the greatest of them all. Of course, any Auntie bias is excluded from that statement. :-)

We all went over to mom's house for the celebration dinner...we were late. :-( To punish us for being late, everyone was standing out on the driveway, hands on hips, looking quite impatient. Nick backed out of the driveway and pretended to leave. :-) Dinner was spaghetti with salad, green beans and french bread. FINALLY it was present time. Connor got a boatload of cash - he'd been saving up to get a PSP. He got more than enough money to buy it AND get some games. He also got a big stack of really cool baseball cards from Nana and Grandpa. GG isn't able to get out and about much any more, so he received money from her as well. Nick & I got him a used X-Box - SO COOL! It was funny, because we also got him some games and made him open those first. He looked at us and said "but I don't have an XBox" so we said "oh man. I guess we'll have to take them back. Oh well, we kept the receipt." Then he opened the next box and was way excited.

The whole time we thought about getting him the games, when we went to get the games, wrapping it up and watching him open it up, I kept remembering one particular Christmas. It was one of the Christmas's we celebrated in Germany and we were all pretty excited because Jamie was coming back from the States to celebrate with us. He brought a Nintendo for me that I had no idea to expect. I remember just being so excited and in total awe of my big brother for this really cool gift that he gave me. It's still one of my more favorite Christmas memories.

After dinner & dessert (which I was afraid I'd light on fire - we got some party popper things that shot out plastic confetti which a piece of landed on his lit cake...yikes) we were treated to several performances by Hannah. She is so sweet - she makes up these songs and then comes to perform them to us with a dance. She is way braver than I am. She just might be a superstar one day.

All in all, it was a good day. I'm glad we moved here so that we can get join in on these family things. Nights like last night totally make the move here worth it. Even though I do miss "my" mountain. :-)




Fun Facts about March 11th:

1791: Samuel Mulliken was the first person to receive more than one patent from the US Patent Office
1847: John Chapman "Johnny Appleseed" died in Allen County, Indiana - this day has become known as Johnny Appleseed Day
1867: The volcano Great Mauna Loa erupted in Hawaii
1909: The first gold medal to a perfect-score bowler was awarded to on AC Jellison by the American Bowling Congress (yes! strike!!)
1930: Babe Ruth signed a two-year contract with the New York Yankees for $80,000
1969: Levi Strauss started stelling bell-bottomed jeans
1986: Popsicle announced its plan to end the traitional twin-stick frozen treat, for a more streamlined one-stick model
1993: Janet Reno was unanimously confirmed by the US Senate to become the first femail attorney general
1997: Paul McCartney was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II
1998: Connor was born!

Famous People Also Born March 11th:
Sam Donaldson (1934)
Lisa Loeb (1968)
Terrence Howard (1969)
Johnny Knoxville (1971)
Benji & Joel Madden (Good Charlotte) (1979)
Thora Birch (1982)