Trip to Seattle

One of the hard parts of Steve's new job is that he has to occasionally do some traveling.  Of course we always miss him when he's gone.  But when the kids are on vacation from school, we use the opportunity to tag along on his adventures and utilize the free hotel room!  So when a short trip to Seattle came onto the radar... we were there!  The first day we all drove up together and Steve dropped us off at the aquarium before heading to his meetings.  My kids LOVE aquariums, and although this particular one is pretty small, it was really fun!  The kids spent at least an hour at the touch pools, and when the docent heard I was a biologist she spent a ton of one-on-one time with the kids telling them everything she knew!  It was so fabulous!

Afterwards we walked around the waterfront and took in some of the sights.  It was cool to see how Seattle is trying to develop that area to be something similar to the Piers in San Francisco.  There was a ton of stuff to do!

After all that walking and sight seeing the kids were EXHAUSTED and HOT and I still had some time to kill before Steve was done with his meetings. So I took the kids into a fancy hotel to use their rest room.  The hotel had a huge foyer and around one corner there was a little seating area with a TV where a couple of kids were watching cartoons.  So I parked them on the couch in the hotel lobby and let them rest and watch TV while we waited for Daddy to be done.  That hotel lobby was like a oasis sent from God!  After Daddy was done, he picked us up and we went to meet up with some old friends, Kevin and Linda, that had recently moved to Seattle!  They invited us over for dinner and we had a wonderful meal and visit with them!

The next day Daddy was able to join us as we went to the museum district of Seattle.  I was blown away with how much this area has grown since the last time I hung out around the space needle (which was probably 25 years ago).  So many fabulous museums are there now, all within walking distance of one another.

We chose to spend the day at the Science Museum, figuring that it would be the biggest hit with the kiddos.  We were right.  It was quite an expensive museum, and when we were buying our admission I asked if there was any discount for people who are members of other Science Museums.  Apparently because we're OMSI members we can get in for FREE!  Best deal ever!  The kids favorite section was the entomology wing and butterfly garden.

They also loved the dinosaur exhibit and the hands on area outside in the courtyard.

We also got to see a great little movie on lemurs in the IMAX theater in 3D.  It was the kids first time in an IMAX theater... and their first experience with a 3D film.  Very fun!

Afterewards, we piled everyone back into the van and headed for home.  It was a very short trip and we will definitely have to make another trek to Seattle to spend some time there.  It's such a fabulous city with so much to do!