On Brent's birthday, we attempted our first 2-kid-no-grandparent family vacation, this time to Seattle. Our friends Luke and Jess were getting married in Tacoma which was the original reason for the trip, but I had never spent much time in Seattle, it was Brent's & Ashley's birthday and Ashley and Dante made plans to come up from Portland, so we made it a long weekend and packed a ton into those few days. We stayed with Harriet (in her green house...Sabrina is big on house color these days) and it couldn't have been more comfortable. Harriet shares her house with friends Twit and Leslie (yes, Twit) who were out of town, so we got to use the entire downstairs of the house. Sabrina made a carpet bed and slept like a champ. Kali hung out near the front of the house in her pack and play and we had a separate bedroom in the back of the house. What a score! Harriet's place upstairs is full of great trinkets, many of them seals and sea lions which she studies, and the best part was that even the fancy looking items were completely unbreakable. Sabrina played with everything including a very tall giraffe that looked delicate, but was made from recycled paper. She put him to bed several times during the weekend and found rugs to serve as blankets. And even Kalira found a (really disgusting) spider that she played with for hours. It was so wonderful to have a comfortable spot to stay that wasn't a hotel. And the company was wonderful too. Harriet kept threatening to go to work and leave us on our own, yet each day she just kept hanging out with us! We spent several hours throughout the weekend watching Kali wiggle on the ground trying to FULLY roll over and we're fairly sure that she's got it now. I think she'll be rolling all over the place within the next week.
We spent Friday touring around Seattle, visiting Pike Place Market, a classic old carousel, and Harriet treated us to a ride on a huge new ferris wheel over the water. The night we made a trek down to the rehearsal dinner party, but due to traffic between Seattle and Tacoma, we missed most of the party and Sabrina was so sad that most people were ready to leave right when we got there and she couldn't dance! They had a great dance floor set up and she was totally raring to go, but the enormous mosquitos scared everybody away early. That was a lot of extra car time and we got home really late, but the girls were great sports yet again. When we got home that night, Harriet met us with the line "Wow, you're the WORST parents in the world. But you have the BEST kids!" She's probably right!
Saturday morning we visited the Ballard Locks where the boats can travel between the Sound and the lakes of Seattle. They also have a great viewing area where you can see the salmon running up the stream. Very cool. Sabrina got a new sea otter there she loved and carried around for the rest of the weekend. Saturday night was the wedding down in Tacoma on an old historic Washington State Ferry boat. It was beautiful and we got the best weather ever for the sunset cruise right after the ceremony. It was also wonderful for Sabrina because many of our Boulder friends were at the wedding too, including Casey and Allison who she cruised around with the whole night. There was lots of laughing and dancing. At one point, Lynn (Allison's mom) came around the corner to find Sabrina and Casey sitting on a bench talking and she said that the look they gave her was exactly like the middle school-age girls that Lynn works with as a middle school vice principal. We got a glimpse of the future, we're afraid.
Sunday we got to go into the secure area around Harriet's office at NOAA where they have an abundance of blackberry bushes that were hanging on the ground with ripe berries. They made an excellent dessert that night! We also visited the Sound Garden (inspiration for the band name) that is an art installation that plays music with wind coming off the Sound. Next we got to meet up with Ash and Dante who took the bus up from Portland and they brought a special surprise!! Nana flew to Portland on Ashley's birthday, then came up to Seattle with them. Mom's birthday is the 14th, so we got another Leo birthday girl to celebrate that night. We had a wonderful party at Harriet's house that night and our friends Zoe and Batya from the Ranch came over and we had delicious salmon, salads, appetizers and cupcakes. Sabrina officially LOVES salmon and ate a ton of it. Glad she got that from her dad instead of my poor taste in food.
Finally we visited the neighborhood of Freemont on Monday morning and saw the famous troll under the bridge. Sabrina has been talking about trolls ever since. It was a wonderful weekend with so many different people. The girls were excellent travelers and we had a great trip. Looks like we'll be able to travel with two kids after all.
