My Seattle Trip

The best husband in the world sent me on a Mommy-cation by myself to visit my friend Shannon in Seattle over the long weekend. I had so much fun and so many picture to share so beware of a very long post. So much to talk about that I am just going to jump right in:
I arrived on Friday evening and after her fiance picked me up at the airport we went to a little lake side restaurant for some drinks and appetizers where Shannon met us. After that we headed over to the city center to check out the Space Needle. Bummer! It was closed for some sort of private event :(. So we just walked around the City Center and got some fudge in the Space Needle gift shop. And enjoyed it by the fountain.

They were getting ready for a big celebration called Bumber Shoot the next day so there were street performers doing their thing.

After that we went to the house where a couple of their friends came over to say hello and visit for a while. Then it was off to bed.

Saturday we got up early and headed back to the City Center to go on the "Ride The Ducks" tour. This tour takes you on an amphibious WWII vehicle that's both land and water capable around the city and into Lake Union. This was our hilarious driver and tour guide of the day.

A shot of our "duck"

This is an old coal-gas plant that burned down and what is left of it. This shot was from on board the duck in Lake Union.

A couple shots of the city from the duck.

After we got back. We ventured back across the street to have a little lunch then to the Space Needle again.

And some city shots from inside the needle.

After the needle we ran to make a quick stop at a birthday party for one of their friends and met up with her fiance to take a little ferry ride over to Bainbridge Island. Here we are waiting for our ferry to arrive.

Here it is :)

Some gorgeous views of the city from the deck of the ferry.

And me enjoying the ferry ride.

Bainbridge Island...straight ahead.

We made it.

We stopped at this little place for a little treat and I had some Mile-High Chocolate Mousse Cake. It was sooooooo good. And it was here that we started scheming about a little spontaneous road trip. (More to come on that)

Caleb requested 2 things before I left: A new toy airplane and sea shells, so we headed to a beach on the Island to collect shells. And found this little guy.

And this jellyfish was floating dangerously close to shore.

A pic of the beach.

After returning from the island it was time for some dinner and drinks....and of course, Karaoke! Shannon and I sang 2 songs together. The first one was a little shaky (I Kissed a Girl). But we rocked it out to Material girl by Madonna later. Then it was off to bed.

Sunday morning came early. Shannon and I headed to walk around the waterfront and go to all the little shops to pick up some souvenirs.

We also hit the farmers market or Pike Place and walked around. This is the pic of the original Starbucks that resides there.

A pic of the market sign.

Some views of stuff inside the market.

of course as you see in this picture, it was raining on us . hmm Rain in Seattle? Unheard of :)

If you look close in these pics you can see them tossing a fish back and forth over this guys head.

After the market we went back to the house to pack our bags for the road trip.......are you ready for this? We took a road trip to all the places in the Twilight book. I couldn't resist. It was a long drive but so worth it. After Brian got home that afternoon we headed out. Here some pics of me and their puppy Aubry entertaining ourselves in the back seat along the drive.

Are we there yet?

Nope not there. Let's take another pic.

First stop. Port Angeles! As Twilight fans know. This is the site of Edward and Bella's first date and where Edward rescues her from certain danger for the 2nd time.

Even found the little Italian restraunt they ate at. Sadly they were booked up with reservations for the night so we had to eat at another Italian place. I didn't take a pic but there is seriously a dress shop right across the street.

A couple views in Port Angeles

I so wanted to go in this store but they were already closed for the night. There were also 2 of these stores in Forks. That's right 2! All closed.

Port Angeles from our hotel room. We planned to stay in forks but every hotel was booked solid :( so after diving all the way there we had to turn around and drive back to Port Angeles.

The drive between Port Angeles and Forks is absolutely stunning. I was in awe of it's beauty. That in itself was worth the drive. I didn't get any pics unfortunately though. But here we are pulling into Forks at night time. It's very scary at night....well with all the vampires and all ;).

All of the motel signs had something "Twilight" on them but this one cracked me up.

Forks High School. Whoo Hoo!

Since we couldn't get a room for the night and visit the ocean in the morning like we planned we took a night trip into La Push. It was still gorgeous at night but it didn't do much for my picture taking abilities.

We walked a little far out to touch the water and when the tide came in our shoes and pants got soaked. :)

Me and some iconic driftwood at La Push.

We also picked a few blackberries that grow along the beach on the way back to the car. Yum

We got back to Port Angeles around midnight and just hit the sack. Then after some breakfast, we were back on the road. Since we were running ahead of schedule we took a little detour into Port Townsend. Was a lovely little port town. We wondered around down by the water a bit and stopped at this little sea-side cafe for coffee and Pepsi for me.

Star fish hanging out with a rock just below the dock.

But alas it was time to head back to Seattle and straight to the airport to catch my plane home. Thanks again Shannon and Brian for such an awesome time. I miss Seattle already! But I'll see you soon and am already looking forward to coming back to Seattle for the wedding.

Thank you Mike for sending me! You are seriously, the best!

Chugga Chugga Choo Choo

Mike's company had their annual summer party today. For the activity, they took us all on the Heber Valley Railroad. The boys all have a blast on the 90 minutes ride. Caleb was thrilled that his friend Logan was there and never left his side. And the boys had fun on the train and soaking up attention from all of Mike's co-workers swooning over them. As you see in the video, Zaden was in absolute Heaven. I think we may have a train boy on our hands. He would stand and yell and talk and giggle and giggle for long periods of time. And point at everything. It was adorable. The video certainly doesn't do it justice.
After the train ride we had a picnic with everyone at the park in Heber and visited and Caleb wore himself out on the playground. What a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Enjoy the pics from the train ride.

Just Like Dad

These boys all have a little bit of Dad's computer liking in them. When I opened up my laptop on Sunday, they were there as quick as can be. The babies climbed up the chair and went right to work tapping away at the keys, sending random messages to people and giggling and enjoying themselves the whole time. Caleb then had to run over to see what they were doing as well. They were all pretty happy until after Mom took a picture when she then peeled them away and shut the laptop back down to wait for a chance to work on it with no boy-helpers.

Weekend Fun

You'll notice in my last post about soccer, I mentioned that Grandma and Grandpa were there for the game. They decided to get away for a couple days and come play with us. And of course, we love visits! They got here on Friday night but it was late so we didn't do much of anything but visit for a bit and send them to their hotel. But Saturday was all about playing! First we met them for breakfast then it was off to the soccer game. After that we tried out a new Smashburger that they put in by the mall. None of us had ever heard of it so we decided to try it out. The burgers were really good. Then it was home for a bit to let the boys nap and take a break and they went to rest back at the hotel too. Later we met up at the hotel and joined them in the pool. They stayed in a new hotel that was just built close to here too that has a really cool indoor waterpark for the kids, so we took advantage of that. The boys had a ball and even the babies loved the slide they had. Zaric loved it so much he started going down in his own and letting us catch him at the bottom. He would make these faces like he was scared to death and hating it but as soon as he was done, he would say "more" and go again. It was too cute. Here's a load of pics from the pool.







After taking a short breather after the pool, it was off to another Bee's game. Me and Caleb went with Grandma and Grandpa. It was Air Force night so they had displays set up. We didn't get there with enough time to see it all but Caleb was enthralled to get to walk up by this jet.
We enjoyed the game and the goodies and it was a special game with fireworks afterwards and you know how much we love that. Caleb was in heaven and made it all the way through again without falling asleep. And finally after 4 Bee's games, we finally got to see them win one. Final score was 8-3 Bee's!

Grandma and Grandpa came here on Sunday morning for breakfast and we made some waffles with bacon and ham, then they headed out for home. We had a good visit and can't wait for the next one.

Soccer Time!

Caleb had his first soccer game of this season on Saturday. He had practice for 45 minutes before the game so Mike took him up without us. Mike said he did awesome in practice. Did everything right and listened to the coaches. Well come game time either he was worn out, or used up all his concentration at practice or just nervous about all of the watchers because he was kinda a wreck.


He did get to kick the ball a few times. Even in the right direction. But the majority of the time he was off running circles on his own and doing acrobatics and diving on the field, not paying any attention really to what was going on. Mom and Dad were a little disappointed. Grandma and Grandpa still thought he was adorable (of course) and the babies didn't care at all because they got to be outside. He did the same sorts of stuff when he played almost 2 years ago and we thought he would have grown out of it by now.
So Mom and Dad will continue to talk with him about appropriate behavior on the field and hope for better results next week.
Oh BTW, the team name ended up being Lightning. So GOOOOOOOO Lightning!

Total Bust

While Caleb was at school today, I decided that I was going to do something as a surprise for him. Partly because he was such an angel getting ready this morning and partly to get us out of the house. So I decided that a picnic at the park might be fun. I made him and I some PB&J's and packed some goodies for all of us in a brown sack and went to pick him up.
He was pretty excited when we pulled up to the park and ran right of of the car to play. Turns out that the fitness center's kids kamp program is in full swing and they were doing their lunch at the nearby pavilion. No biggie I thought but when I got the twins out of the car and got to the playground I noticed what a mess it was. Apparently those kids that choose to come play on the playground the last few days have not been supervised. There was trash everywhere (this is normally a very nice park) lunch sacks, empty bottles, chip wrappers etc. I was pretty disappointed and disgusted but was trying to not let it ruin our fun so I let Caleb still play and kept an extra watchful eye on the babies that they didn't pick any of it up. I sat and ate my sandwich for about 5 minutes. When some of the kids migrated over from the pavilion carrying their lunch sacks.
Well normally, no big deal right? The more the merrier. Well these kids were not playing nice. They were throwing things (like their oranges) at each other, calling each other names and swearing at one another. Not one adult in sight, but me. So I called Caleb over and let him know that we would be leaving. I felt it was best just to remove ourselves from the situation. He was pretty bummed out and Zaric was livid that this meant I took away the stick he was having so much fun with. But I promised that we would go to another park.
So we loaded back up in the car, a screaming Zaric and bummed out Caleb and headed toward the next park. We were about a block away when Caleb told me in his sad tone that he would just rather go home :(. So home we went and he ate his picnic lunch in front of the tv watching Cyberchase like any other normal day. So much for my big idea.