Our Last Get Away For a While!

Keith and I took off to Seattle this past weekend. My parents graciously took the kids for us so we could really and truly get a break. Interestingly enough, when we are gone and having fun we often say....'Wouldn't the kids enjoy this!'.

I have a lot of photos for this post. A photo journal of sorts.....so enjoy our trip from the comfort of your computer chair, couch or where ever you catch up on blogs!

We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn in Mukilteo. This was a beautiful hotel with lovely grounds. We were not disappointed! We had never stayed here before but Kori had suggested it as they had passed it a few weeks ago on the way to the 'Silver Cloud Inn' on the water. We were right beside Boeing Fields and the Mueseum of Flight. It was very cool so see all those enormous planes!

The room was clean and modern. The bathroom immaculate. These are things I really appreciate. The one major let down was the bed itself. They claimed to have this 'revolutionary' sleep system mattress with air baffles inside that you could adjust with dials on each side of the bed. The first night we left them on the 'optimum sleep' setting. We woke up after tossing and turning all night with very sore muscles. The next night we adjusted the bed to the 'soft' setting and after again tossing and turning all night woke up feeling like we had been run over by a large semi. ACK! Quite a bummer when you want to get away to feel rested. I have come to the conclusion that our bed at home is the comfiest bed in the whole world.

For our first dinner out we ate at 'Ivars' which was right on the water. The sun was setting and the view out the window was beautiful. Keith got a seafood platter which he could not finish. I told him not to start off with a cup of clam chowder! I usually do not like clam chowder but I had a taste and it was delicious. I had the traditional fish and chips. They were tasty but the batter was a tad on the salty side. Oh well! The service was wonderful and we did enjoy our dinner overall.

After supper we took a walk around the little seaside area. It was very cold but pretty. The sun was just setting and it made everything very golden.

Our dessert that night was a caramel apple we picked up at the Rocky Mountain Fudge Factory. I could eat one of these everyday. Actually, we ate one the next day too!

We spent Saturday at the outlets. We found some great deals. A few of my best deals were Vans shoes for Chad for $9.99 and jeans for Nathan for $7.99, uniform pants for Nathan for $4.99 and board swim shorts for Keith from Aeropostale for $9.99! I love good deal!

We ate at PF Changs on Saturday for dinner. It was as good as I remembered! The only sort of sad thing was that there was not enough time in the day or room in our stomachs for a fish taco from McGrath's. Next time!

Keith and I enjoyed Starbucks a few times.....when in Seattle......

This picture was taken in the FREEZING cold evening right before catching a movie. We saw 'Prince Caspian'. We really wanted to see it to preview it before the kids did. Yeah....it might be a few years before they are ready for that one.

We were sitting in the theatre waiting for the show to start when one of the theatre employees who was about 17 yrs old or so came in to tell people to move to the centre of the rows so there would be enough room for everyone. It was not the message but in the way it was relayed. She was incredibly rude and when people did not move fast enough she took out her walkie talkie and loudly said into it to whom I presume was a fellow employee: Why don't you come here and do this because NO ONE is listening to me! Then she started pointing at people and telling them to move. Nevermind people were saving seats, or sitting where they wanted (which is their right) and there were tons of empty seats near the front. Finally after not having much success with this crowd she yelled: 'Thanks a lot you guys' and stormed out of the theatre! It was quite entertaining.

Fortunately, Sunday morning showed promise of a dry day. We headed to Seattle Centre to catch the monorail to downtown. It's a cheap ride at $2 each way and saves the headache of trying to find parking in the heart of the city. When we went to the station to get our ride back we found out that the monorail was BROKEN! There were signs telling us what bus route we could take back to the other station but we decided to walk back. It took only 25 minutes or so and was good to get the blood pumping before our drive home.

We wandered through the market. Well, actually we were sort of pushed along with the sea of people that were also visiting. It was horribly crowded.

We had a very light breakfast because we knew that we were heading to this restaurant we had heard so much about. There was a very long wait but we were patient. We knew it was going to be good!

There was a small disappointment. Our server told us that the restaurant had NO tomatoes whatsoever. He told us there had been a samonella scare and so they chucked them all. Total bummer as I love them and so many items on the menu just wouldn't have been the same without tomatoes. I ended up ordering a chicken pesto pizza with a small garden salad. It was very fresh and tasty. Even if it begged for a tomato!

Keith ordered some sort of Mexican breakfast dish that was very good. He only managed half of that plate of food. I told him NOT to load up on the fresh bread they brought us before our meal. That man just doesn't listen!

Even though we were stuffed to the gills we HAD to have a piece of cheesecake for dessert. We shared a piece of the Dutch Apple Caramel Cheesecake. It was very very good!

After our late lunch we wandered around downtown a bit and found some more good deals. We finally hit the road at 5 pm and were back in our native land at shortly after 7 pm. The border had a small line up but it moved quickly and we actually had a pleasant customs agent. The boys were happy to see us and very happy to see we had brought them some Krispy Kremes to eat!

And that was our trip!