A Day in Seattle

At Pikes Market in Seattle with the fish-throwers.

                                                         
Monday, July 23, 2012   Seattle, WA

This morning we slept in at the Holiday Inn, had breakfast and decided to let the kids swim.  We have had some big days with a lot of hikes and with touring Seattle today, we thought we would take some time this morning. The weather was still a little cloudy today and we have not yet seen Rainier...hopefully soon!

Our first stop in Seattle was at the old house that Dave lived at while doing graduate work, The Scandinavia House.  The name is changed and only girls live there now but they were very nice and let us come in and look around.  It is remarkably unchanged for having been 20 years.  Dave even found a pair of hiking poles that he had hidden away all those years ago.  Then we drove through the University of Washington and enjoyed seeing the campus.  It has changed a lot but is very beautiful.  I found out that my Grampa had also gone there which I had not known.

The Hammer Man

We then headed downtown and parked close to Pikes Place.  We had just started walking when Annika bent over and found a dollar bill.  We looked around to see if someone had dropped some money but there was no one around who it looked like it might belong to.  She was excited about her find.  Not more than 30 SECONDS later, Jonathan bends over and finds a 5 dollar bill.  WHAT????  We really thought we might be on Candid Camera again- the kids are definitely liking this city :)

The kids with Rachel
the pig.



Aren't these beautiful flowers?

Pikes Place was remarkable as always.  The kids sat on Rachel the pig and we watched the fisherman chucking fish to and fro.  The kids said it was a little smelly here :)  There were people everywhere, fruit stands, flower stands....incredible prices.  We bought a huge bouquet of flowers for 5$ and then bought a bag of cherries and the juiciest peaches in the world.  Wow, they were very good and messy!!!  We also picked up some chocolate dessert linguine which we will try in Big Sky with Dave's family.  We walked though the whole place and found our way to the Gum Wall.  Have you heard of the Gum  Wall?  It is very interesting. Supposedly, someone started sticking gum on the wall and it STUCK......ha ha.  People keep adding their gum and it is an interesting place to visit.  Jonathan said it was disgusting :) and didn't want to stand next to it.  Jonathan also bought some fossilized amonites at a very cool gem store with some of the money that he found on the road.


The gum wall.



A closer look at the gum
wall.

Then we headed down to the wharf and looked for a little snack to hold us over until dinner.  We enjoyed seeing all the sights- they have a new HUGE Ferris wheel on the wharf, we could see the Space Needle and loved looking in some of the stores.  We settled on Fish and Chips at Ivars....mmmmmm!!  We sat out next to the water where we were encouraged to feed the seagulls.  The Fish and Chips were great and we shared some of our fries with the Seagulls.  The kids thought that was fun.    Annika asked if we lived here would we come here every day???



Our company for our
fish and chips snack.





My little bulls in the
candy store.

We started heading out and wanted to stop by REI quick to check for some items for our hike on Rainier tomorrow.  You have to go to the REI store in Seattle if you ever get a chance- they have a huge forest at the entrance so people could hike and bike ( to test out products).  Annika and Jonathan played in a huge tree fort while Dave and the other boys picked out some hiking poles for them to use tomorrow.  Fun store but not good on prices :)

It was about dinner time and we were eating at The Spaghetti Factory with the Frasers.  They were the ones who let us their house in Utah.  Well, they have a veterinary business in Seattle and we were able to meet up with them.  We had a wonderful dinner, we need to get some Spaghetti Factory's in Pennsylvania.  After our dinner, they gave us a tour of their beautiful facility, Pet Care.  It is such a wonderful facility and they have done an incredible job in building their business.  Dr. Fraser showed us all around, even doing an untrasound on Jonathan and letting them try out the x-ray machine.  We really enjoyed our tour and maybe someday Jonathan will be a veterinarian.  We loved our time with the Frasers and so appreciate their incredible generousity to us.

Well, it is 9:30pm and we are again heading our car back toward Rainier.  The boys really want to try to hike up to Camp Muir tomorrow so we want to get closer to Rainier.  We drove for about 2 hours and after many calls to hotels and some campgrounds, I was beginning to think that this might be the night that we had to sleep in our car.   We were REALLY glad when we found a Best Western to crash at.  Tonight was the first night that the kids were really tired as we brought them in.  Jonathan was wondering back and forth trying to find the bed (he didn't remember anything in the morning) and Annika had a little screaming fit and kept locking herself in the bathroom because she DIDN'T want to go to the bathroom.  :)  Good night!