Day 10: Market and Aquarium

Today, we lounged around the hotel for a large portion of the morning. The boys finished their school work and we browsed some of the nearby shops until James could join us. Then, it was off to Pike Place Market and the Seattle Aquarium.

It was a little rainy today, but we were inside most of the time. No problem!

Beautiful flowers for sale. (Somehow, we didn't a picture of all of the fish!)

Beautiful peppers for sale too!

After delicious chowder at Pike Chowder, we crossed over the street to the aquarium. It's not a huge aquarium, but the touch tanks were wonderful.

Love Rudy's face here:

Rudy (the supposed future animal saver) was not having any of the touch tanks. He'd look, but had no interest in touching!

The anemones would really try to latch on to your finger. Kind of creepy feeling!

Pacific octopus. Apparently, this is a smallish one!

Aack!

Ever heard of a basket starfish? Me either, until now:

All kinds of weird looking creatures:

Up close and personal with a sea lion:

As our last hurrah in Seattle, we went out for a seafood dinner. Wow - James and I agreed it was not only the best salmon, but also the best fish, we had ever tasted. YUM!

Day 9: Locks and Chocolate

I remember visiting locks on one of our family trips growing up, so I really wanted to take the kids to the locks in Seattle. I think they were as impressed as I was (and still am!).

Rudy driving the model boat up and down the locks. Both of the kids did this several times!

Check it out; more salmon! There weren't supposed to be any in these locks, but there were a few stragglers. I only picked a few of the pictures. Brady had the camera and took LOTS of salmon pictures. (I guess he was channeling his inner-Papa!)

The boys really understood the basic logistics. The upper gate opens...

...the boat comes in...

...the water goes down; the bottom gate opens...

...and the boat goes out.

I even threw in some questions for them about what would happen if you opened the lower gate or forgot to close the valves, and they seemed to get it!

The lock and a drawbridge in action - wow!

After that, we had great burgers at the Totem House restaurant before heading to our next adventure - a tour of a chocolate factory! YUM!

Brady with a cocoa pod. The boys will both tell you the inside of the pod looks like alien brains. (They're right!)

Inside the factory:

We got to taste LOTS of chocolate, so it was a great day!

We picked up James and headed toward the city to check out the flagship REI store. We could have easily left a small fortune in Seattle at that store, but managed not too!

Day 8: Museum of Glass

On the agenda today was to check out the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. We'd read about the bridge of glass and weren't sure what to expect with that. It wasn't quite what we expected (I guess we expected a bridge made out of glass!), but it was quite amazing.

The first portion is a span overhead filled with colorful pieces of Chihuly glass:

The middle has two large "sticks with glass ice cubes" on them, as Rudy described them:

And the last portion has a partitioned wall filled with more Chihuly pieces:

Once we got inside the museum, we watched the guys working in the hot shop. They were making one of their Kids Design pieces, which is a glass piece made based on a kids' drawing.

After that, we checked out the rest of the museum. No pictures were allowed in most parts, so we only got a shot of this vase that the kids liked...

...and this outside work that was inspired by steam coming off a cup of hot tea:

Then, it was back over the bridge of glass...

...to the Town Hall with three more Chihuly pieces:

We happened upon a maritime museum on our way out of town, so we spent an hour or so there.

We finished off the day with some swim time at the hotel pool!