We rented a little cottage in West Seattle which was comfortable, but not the peaceful retreat that we found on the Island. It didn’t matter, since we didn’t spend much time hanging out there. We had a city to explore! Our first day there found us at the Seattle Aquarium, since we never pass up an aquarium trip. It was fun to see the underwater view of all of the sea life that we had been watching from above the water. We picnicked in the Seattle Art Museum sculpture garden and enjoyed some art and then skipped back for a mid-day nap.
I’m pretty sure that all Seattleites head to the beaches on a hot weekend day, so we did as well. Saturday evening found us eating ice cream on Alki Beach, wading, people watching and eating fish and chips.
On Sunday we covered the city. Back in our before-kid days, J and I used to loved exploring cities by walking from one end to the other. Ending the day with sore, tired feet and happy memories of sights and adventures. I’ve been dreaming of the day that we could do that with our children. That day was our trip to Seattle. We explored from one end of downtown to the other, saying yes to every adventure that presented itself to us.
We started at breakfast at Lola’s, a fancy gourmet place that welcomes children (a win-win in my book). After that we strolled through Pike’s Market, seeing fish mongers throwing salmon (well, hoping to), flowers and produce, live crabs and lobsters for sale and street performers. I kept waiting for little feet to drag and little voices to raise in complaints of fatigue and overstimulation, but they were champs and loved the adventure.
After we made our way through the market, we (well, I) got a wild hair to buy tickets for one of those “duck boat” tourist trap tours. The tour driver dressed up in funny hats and blasted music, we drove through the city and then the duck boat “drove” into Lake Washington and gave us a water tour. J was skeptical at first but in the end we all really enjoyed it. It also gave us a chance to sit down in the middle of our adventures.
After our duck boat tour, we hopped aboard the light rail train to Safeco Field to take in a Mariners game. If you’re keeping track, and we were, on that day we rode in a car, a boat and a train. The baseball game was the trip highlight for J. It held the kids’ attention for about three innings, four if you count eating hot dogs, and then I took them to explore the stadium. We found a play structure for children to play on and I sent the kiddos up into it. I instructed Clare and Sam to stay together and every time I saw them they were like the picture below – close together. That was perhaps the highlight of the trip, not the play structure, or the baseball game, or even Seattle or Lopez Island. It was the closeness that brought us all together, especially the kids. The purpose of the these trips is to bring our family of four into a tighter unit, besides the relaxation, adventure and fun.
We made it through the whole game and made our way back to our little West Seattle house, with tired feet and stories full of adventures. We came back home the next day to celebrate our girl’s fifth birthday. It kicked off another big week, making July quite a party around these parts. Still, we’re all still talking about the relaxation and adventure of our 2014 Famly Mac vacation.