Washington Fun: City

The last two-weeks of the trip we spent more time in the city of Seattle than I think we ever did in such a short period of time living there. We showed the kids the sights, played a bit of tourist, and did some Seattle-specific things. Although I've been to the city a good deal in my life, it was fun to get out there so much and experience some old, familiar adventures, and some new ones!

One of our "tourist" activities was to ride the Ducks. They are the land-water vehichles used in WWII, seen most often in footage of D-Day. The tour takes you through some of the highlights of the Downtown area of the city, then out for a little float trip in Lake Union. An awesome tour, with some WAY-over-the-top cheesy jokes told by our WAY-over-the-top driver...non-stop...for the whole trip. We went with a group of folks from my Tutu's (grandmother's) retirement community, so the boys were well loved by all the grandmas and grandpas. And really, the boys loved the lame jokes, they were just the sort to appeal to 4-, 6- and 8-year-olds, so my guys had a great time; and that is what makes it so we all have a great time! First we toured through the city...

...then out onto Lake Union, where you get this view of the city. Yowza!
And Zach was the fortunate "chosen one" to do the duck dance for us all. Did I mention that I am still waiting for the lice to propigate? While I shuddered as he put on this over-shared duck head, he such did a great job flapping and boogieing his way down the aisle a couple of times. You know he reveled in it!
After we went on the Ducks, we walked over to the Seattle Center and the Pacific Science Center there. The kids liked exploring the different exhibits, especially the hands-on ones like this: But our primary purpose there was to meet up with a friend, Maggie, and her three boys, Lucas, Jeremy and Brandon, at the Animal Grossology exhibit they were hosting. We were able to visit the Human Grossology exhibit they had awhile back, so it was fun to come back for the animal version, which felt much grosser, by the way. Maggie's husband, Zeke and I were friends in High School, and in one of those "It's a Small World" twists, a good friend of mine here in the Springs went to High School with Maggie! Cray-zay! Here's Josh trying to save the the frogs, the frogs that burp their babies...ewwww. With a ball-firing-frog-gun, this was the favorite of all five of the older boys. Surprising? No.
This was a fun competition to see who could correctly guess the blood color of various animals.

Zach and Luke on the snake slide.
The boys were all running around from exhibit to exhibit, so I didn't get any good shots of them all together, but here are Josh, Ben and Lucas checking out the reason why dogs smell each other's butts!
Luke checking out the snake slide. Deciding if he thinks he should go down on his own. The answer is no. He will get scared, sit at the top and other kids will get mad and push him down. He will come out crying. But it matters not. He is drawn to this snake slide like a fly to poop. While the other boys were all occupied with firing balls from the mouths of frogs, this was his favorite exhibit.

The boys and I outside the Science Center with the Space Needle looming in the background. With our ice cream.

Another outing in Seattle: My mom got us all tickets to the Seattle Storm game. The Storm is the WNBA team based in Seattle that has won the National Championship a number of times. We had a fun night! There are a lot of loyal fans to pump up the crowd, Zach loves basketball so he was really happy to be there and we all caught the bug, and the WNBA games are shorter than the NBA games, so the game was a great length for young kids.
Luke didn't really pay much attention to the game, but was having a great time cheering with the crowd and playing "pass the Luke" between Mom and Nana.

Our final outing that started out of Seattle was a ride on the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge. The day was quite warm, so it was perfect to be out on the water. The boys really liked the ride too, and wanted to run from one end of the boat to the other to see from both outside decks. Here we are on the way to Bainbridge with the Seattly skyline and Elliot Bay behind us.
We had lunch at a little pizza place in a tiny outdoor mall on Bainbridge Island before taking the ferry back to the city. Our family friends, Pat and Dave Brown had flown their plane up for the last weekend of our trip, so we were able to have a great visit with them too!

Nana, Grandma Pat and the boys checking out the shoreline.

Leaving the Bainbridge Island ferry dock.

It's a beautiful city, and it was fun exploring it with my boys, parents and everyone else who joined us on our various adventures! But, ultimately, we were ready to be home. Dave, whose father was a school teacher, said his dad said a good vacation was one where you were excited to go, but excited to go home again. And we were. It was a great trip, packed to the brim with so much fun, friends and family, but we were excited to be in our home again, with Adam and our lives to get back to.