Seattle Trip - Day 3

On Thursday we went to the Woodland Park Zoo with my mom and grandparents. My sweet grandma Maggie and grandpa Bob made the 6 hour trip from eastern Washington so they could see us and go to the zoo. Okay, so there might have also been a big quilt show around the same time but I'm going to tell myself that it was completely coincidental. My grandma does love her some quilts. :-) The day started out with the usual:

Oh and did I mention that with our nashville zoo pass, we got in FREE?!?! How cool is that? The Woodland Park zoo is seriously one of the best I've been to. It's huge. And beautiful. We spent 6 hours there and still didn't see every single thing.

The brown bear. By far our favorite part of the whole day. Animal-wise, that is. ha.

Because as if this guy wasn't interesting enough to look at from afar, he decided to take a little dip while we were watching him. And come right up to the glass!!

How cool is that?!

I could go into serious picture overload, but I'll try to pare down as much as I can. I have a bazillion pics. of our day at the zoo.

This was a sweet little moment I was fortunate enough to catch on camera. My grandma is turning 80 this weekend and just finished (and won) a battle with lymphoma. She's still pretty weak from it, hence the wheelchair. It tears my heart out living so far away and not getting to spend more time with her and my grandpa. I really wish my kids would have the opportunity to know them better.

And of course what's a trip to the zoo without a ride on the carousel?

Sophie even got to pet this.....whatever it is. :-)

And they even had dinosaurs. There was a separate area with about 20 or so of these motion sensor dinos. Sophie was pretty scared of them but as you can see, William wasn't really phased.

I don't know, they looked pretty scary to me!

By the end of the day, we were all pretty exhausted.

That evening, we ended up going back to mom's, sending the guys out for burgers then eating in and visiting with my grandparents, sister and niece. A perfect ending to a perfect day!

Seattle Trip - Day 2

A few weeks before our trip, Matt and I sat down and made a list of things we really wanted to do/see while we were in Seattle. In trips past, it has been really stressful for me trying to see everyone I want to see while still trying to make it our family vacation and make sure everyone is happy. So this time I decided to make out a schedule (I know, totally OCD!) and let all my family know where we planned on going each day so they could pick and choose what they wanted to do with us and when they would see us. It made our trip soooo much easier because we knew pretty much what we were going to do every day and I was able to plan a few little excursions by myself to meet up with old friends. I never thought I'd be one to schedule a vacation out, but it worked really well for us in this case! That being said, here's day two. :-)

As I said in my previous post, I purposely didn't plan anything for the first part of Wednesday so we'd have time to sleep in (yeah, right!) and get settled. Too bad William decided to wake up at about 5:30am ready to go. Since our day started so early, we decided to head to downtown Edmonds which is about 4 min. from my mom's. Edmonds is the neatest little town, nestled right on Puget Sound with amazing beaches and views. It's very quaint and artsy. The day was sunny and perfect, so we just meandered around looking through all the shops. We of course had to stop at Edmond's bakery for maple bars. If you're from the south chances are you have no idea what I'm talking about since apparently they are only enjoyed by northerners! Too bad I don't have a picture, but basically they are big thick doughnuts shaped like a rectangle and smothered in maple icing. YUM!

After we ate and shopped around, William was pretty much done. He laid his sweet head down on my shoulder and he was out. So while my mom and I took him back to her place for some much needed rest, Matt took Sophie down to the beach.

little man did a whole lot o' sleeping in the car on this trip! He did so well considering his schedule went completely out the window for the entire week

Would you just look at this view as you're driving down towards the water? Total perfection.

And my little miss on the beach.

That afternoon, we headed to my cousin Denise's house to let the kids play and to have dinner. It was so good to see her. She has the sweetest family and it was all I could do not to scoop her two girls up and take them home. My sister and my sweet niece Kayla were also there, so we had a great time catching up.

a super far away family shot :-) my cousin took a better one, I just don't have it yet!

the kids (minus Denise's two boys) aren't they they cutest?!

 After dinner, we headed home then I went back out that night to meet up with two of my old partners in crime from my single days. It was so great to catch up with them! I hadn't seen either since I moved away 7 years ago.

Whew! It was a long day, but so much fun. I'm so glad I made time for some old friends this time around, even if I had to lose a little sleep and sneak out after the kids were in bed. :-)

Seattle Trip - Day 1

We had a fantastic trip to Seattle this past week. We did SO much that I'm going to do a separate post for each day so that I make sure I don't leave anything out! The weather was as perfect as it gets there, and it made me laugh that everyone there was complaining that it was so hot when for us it was actually kind of cool! ha. I guess this means I have finally acclimated to the southern summers after 7 years!

We flew out on Tuesday the 23rd at about 4:00. This was perfect because we weren't rushed and William was able to get a nap before we had to leave for the airport.

The flight lasted a little over 4 hours and let me just say that it was a LONG flight. The kids were excited to be on the airplane for about the first 30 minutes, but after that it was basically just one big wrestling match in our little row of 3 seats. In the past I've always rolled my eyes at the parents who claimed to use Benadryl on long trips, but have definitely changed my mind on the matter. Let me just say that Sophie rested very well on the flight home. :-)

Having said that, I do have to give the kids some credit for holding it together pretty well considering how long it was. No major meltdowns and no bodily injuries. I consider that a success!

We got into Seattle at about 8:30 or so our time, but of course with the time difference it was only 6:30 there and still bright sun. I think they ended up staying awake until about 11:30 that night and were awake bright and early the next morning! I'm glad I left Wednesday morning open so that we could unpack and try to regroup from the day before.

I have to include a picture of our rental car just for Matt. I'm not so sure this wasn't his favorite part of the trip. :-)