Seattle

Scott and I had a great time in Seattle. I think I actually had a better time than Scott. He spent 2 1/2 of our 4 days at a business meeting...I didn't.

I'm slightly ashamed to say that we didn't see everything there was to see in Seattle. Actually, we didn't really see much of Seattle at all. We did visit the Space Needle and Pike Place Market. (I meandered around there almost everyday.) We walked past the Seattle Art Museum. (Does that count?) Other than that, I read a 600 page book, slept (a lot!) and shopped for gifts for the girls.

Shopping for Madeline turned out to be unbelievably easy. I had no idea that I'd be able to find so much killer whale merchandise. (For any of you that have forgotten, Madeline is still planning to become a killer whale trainer.) I got her a stuffed killer whale. I also got really cute pens for both Madeline and Mallory that have little killer whales floating around in them! (By the way, I got those at the Seattle Aquarium gift shop. Add that to the list of places I went - the gift shop that is, not the aquarium.) Shopping for Mallory and Brianna was slightly more challenging. They like dolphins. Now, although there is a plethora of killer whale stuff in Seattle, there is not much dolphin stuff. I finally found a little stuffed dolphin for Brianna at Borders and a slightly bigger stuffed dolphin for Mallory at the Space Needle. (Frankly, I'm lucky I found them at all. I was worried that I was going to have to make an emergency trip to ToysRUs upon our return to Chicago!)

I packed a swimsuit and workout clothes thinking I'd make use of the facilities at the hotel. Even that didn't happen. I did, however, have an extremely relaxing vacation. It was wonderful! I didn't have to wake up to an alarm. I was able to sleep when I was tired and get up when I wasn't. I got to eat good food in nice restaurants and didn't have to cook it or clean up afterwards. That, in and of itself, is a vacation to me!

Scott and I did find that we are easily drawn into TV shows like House Hunters, My First Place & Property Virgins. We'd be planning to leave the hotel room to shop or eat, but couldn't until we found out which house they got... We ended up leaving exactly on the hour or the half hour so that we didn't get sucked into the next show! So sad...

This is a picture of Pike Place Market. You can buy everything here including fresh fish, gorgeous fruits & vegetables, cheese, honey, expensive handmade jewelry and (of course) cheap touristy stuff. It was a fun place to visit. There are lots of little shops in the surrounding area as well.

This is one of the fruit and vegetable stands. Doesn't everything look good??

Here's an example of the beautiful bouquets you can buy at the market. We were amazed at how inexpensive they were.

These are strings of peppers. We just thought they were pretty.









Scott and I had such a great time, but none of it would have been possible without my mom's help. Thank you Mom! She drove up and stayed with the kids for 5 days. It sounds like they had a blast. The kids can't wait to get rid of us again. Well, Scott did find out that next year's meeting is in Atlanta... Count me in!