Seattle Snow

It hardly ever snows here, but it did yesterday. Only about an inch, but everyone was really excited. Jack loves the snow and you could tell he has missed it because he was so excited too. He played outside and in the snow until his little hands were frozen (he refuses to wear gloves), and then he fell in the snow and cried all the way home, but he wanted to do it all again a couple hours later. He was that excited. Here we are playing in the snow on the Pier. I think Jack dragged his feet through ever inch of snow between here and there, and then enjoyed throwing handfuls of snow into the water of the bay. Some other people were there making snowmen, so he checked out one of the big balls they'd built. Of course, when I built him his own smaller snowman, he immediately "crashed" into it and stomped it to pieces. Such a boy!

Today, it was all melted and back to just raining. Apparently the cold spell is over, but it's still very drizzly. All of us have been fighting off colds, not getting very sick, but all with symptoms and enough to be annoying. Hopefully, we'll beat it quickly. We have submitted the house inspection report and are waiting to get a response back from the current owners. We've scheduled a trip back to Colorado to collect our things there February 20th.

Seattle Celebrates

Since the Seahawks won the Super Bowl last Sunday, this city has been in full celebration mode. I marvel at the shear amount of team clothing these people have.  They've been wearing blue and green gear every day since last Thursday or so, leading up to the Superbowl and celebrating after. It still continues, but is perhaps finally starting to wind down. Yesterday, they had a parade down 4th Ave. to welcome back the team. They were originally estimating that 300,000 people would attend. Then, they upped it to 500,000. Then 750,000 actually showed up!  It was quite a sight to see. 3/4 of a million people on one street, although a long street, really means that most people couldn't see anything! And, the parade took an hour longer than anticipated because they were having trouble keeping the parade route clear of people!

Naively, I thought Jack and I could visit the local library, and then pop out to the street when time for the parade, so we headed for the library around 9:45am (parade started at 11:30).  There were so many people already there that it took us 30 minutes to go 4 blocks, most of the time spent trying to get across the street to the far side of the parade route. The library was a good idea because it gave us something to do and was warm, but I quickly realized popping outside wasn't going to happen. People were standing 200 deep in front of the library, so even if we did go outside, there was no way we'd be able to see. So, we decided to watch the parade from a window on the 9th floor of the library. It turned out to be a pretty decent viewpoint. However, it took until nearly 1:00 before the parade made it to our block, so we spent 3 hours at the library yesterday! Here are a few pictures:

Watching the parade from upstairs, Jack developed an intense desire to have a flag. He doesn't care so much about the Seahawks, and I couldn't figure out why he wanted one, but he asked so many times that when the opportunity arose on the way home afterward, I purchased him this $5 flag.  He's been carrying it around every since waving it and talking about his "race car flag." He waves it and yells, "Ready, Set, go!" Apparently, we've watched too many race car shows because he associates flags with starting a race, but he's very excited about it. 

In other news, we have had an offer accepted on a house, so we will have somewhere to live in mid-March if all the inspections stuff comes out right. I'm looking forward to having more to do with some updating, painting, gardening, and things like that. And, I'm looking forward to having our own stuff again!! 

The Ferry, the Space "Noodle," and the Children's Museum

I'm a little behind, so I'll start with last weekend. We spent most of the weekend looking at houses, and of course watching football. The city was crazy Sunday after the NFC Championship win for the Seahawks, so we didn't get much sleep Sunday night!  We're very tired of house hunting and a little discouraged.We took time to stop at a park for Jackson and Aspen in among the home viewing.

 Monday, Mike didn't have to work because of MLK Day, so we took the ferry to Bainbridge island just to explore. At first, Jack didn't realize we were on a boat because we drove on, but once he figured it out, he was fascinated. He didn't like the cold wind that blows on board, so we spent most of the time dashing in and out. He'd want to go in to warm up but 5 minutes later he'd be asking to go back outside because it was so exciting! He cried when we got off because he wanted more boat.

 Once off the ferry, we drove up to Poulsbo, which is a very cute little town. It's got lots of fun little shops and restaurants, and a pretty little harbor. It also didn't hurt that it was a beautiful, sunny day. Jack had fun running around and throwing rocks into the water.

 Tuesday, Mike went back to work and Jack and I spent some time on laundry, groceries, and the like. Every day, we walk the dog, and then do some sort of outing, so we've been to the library, the grocery store, and the swimming pool this week. Wednesday night, Jack decided he "needed" to ride the bus, and he didn't care where to. He's still so excited by all the busses and trains around, so we rode to the Seattle Center and took a night time stroll around the Space Noodle. That's what Jack calls it. He can say needle, and will repeat needle after you if you say it, but then he always reverts back to noodle when he talks about it himself. The whole family will probably call it the Space Noodle from here on out :).

Anyway, the Space Noodle looks very pretty at night.

Today, we met up with Uncle Colin, Sam, and Tommy and went to the Children's Museum. The boys had fun playing will balls, constructing things, driving trucks and trains, and pretending everything from being firemen to grocery shopping, to mountain climbing, and playing with all sort of toys too!

Jack got to ride the train (aka monorail) home from the museum, and the conductor let him honk the horn, so he was happy, even though the train ride is always too short to suit him! Now, he's taking a long nap after his exciting morning. 

Views from Seattle

Well, we've had a very busy weekend. We house hunted and then had dinner with Lesa and Colin on Saturday, and house hunted and went to their house for football viewing on Sunday! Yesterday, we sold our house in Colorado (assuming all the paperwork goes through and everything works as it's supposed to). While I know this is what we needed to do and it's a good thing, it's still really sad for me to have this final reminder that we aren't going "home."

Today, Jack and I headed out to the Space Needle by way of the monorail. Jack did a great job walking the 7 blocks to and from the monorail without complaint. He was very excited to ride the "train," but he was disappointed that the ride was so short (about 3 minutes). Still, me liked going up in the Space Needle. Here's a pictures they took of us at the entrance. Of course it didn't really look like that outside!

 It actually looked like this. Foggy and drizzly...If you look closely, you can see Mike's work in the middle right of the picture. Of course, he wasn't there because he's working at the Bothell site today, but still...

Jack was really tired by the time we returned, so he headed off to his nap without much fuss, giving me some computer time :).

Downtown Apartment and the Beach

Yesterday, we had to be out of the hotel by noon, we couldn't move into the downtown apartment until 4pm, and Mike had to go back to work, so Jack and Aspen and I went to Edmonds to explore the neighborhood since we are considering a house there. Then, Mike told us about a park with an off leash area at the beach, so we went to visit that. I've never seen a dog park which such a nice view before!   Aspen had a really good time, but she decided to run into the waves several times, so she was muddy and wet when she finished! Jack had fun throwing rocks into the waves and came out almost as muddy.

After we put Aspen in the car, we walked over to the playground, which is also right on the beach. It was gray and misting, so the place was pretty empty, but we had fun sitting at the top of the play structure watching boats come and go. And then, Jack got even more excited when a train went by on the land side! 

We showed up to the new apartment wet, muddy, and ready for baths! Aspen and Jack had to get cleaned up right away. Luckily, we don't have much stuff with us, so the moving in process was pretty quick.  

The new apartment is pretty good. It's right downtown near the water. It's two bedroom, two bathrooms. The furnishings are nothing special, but the view is pretty neat. We're able to watch the ferries and boats come and go from the pier.  The view on this very gray day:

One of the bathrooms:

Our bedroom:

 Dining room:

 Jack's room:

 Kitchen:

Living room (and tired dog):

It's odd to walk everywhere, and all the stores are tall and have several floors instead of being spread out. The hardest part so far has been finding a place for Aspen. We finally found a small park this morning about 6 blocks away where we can take her to go potty, but there's no grass anywhere nearby!  She'll be glad when we get settled in the suburbs. In the meantime, it's interesting experiencing city life. 

One Week Down

We've officially been in Seattle one week today.  Last week, Jack and I enjoyed a visit to the Seattle aquarium and some walks along the pier. He likes riding the streetcar, so we've done that several times too. He liked the fish and sea animals at the aquarium, but he couldn't understand where the other animals were and got upset that there were no giraffes or hippos. Sigh...apparently, we will be making a trip to the zoo soon too. 

Jack also loves the hotel pool and it getting more and more brave about going into the water. So, I guess that's a good thing. 

The weekend was beautifully sunny for the first time when I've been here, but we spent the entire weekend going to open houses trying to find a house, so we didn't get to enjoy it much. We looked at 18 houses between Saturday and Sunday!  We saw several good ones, but after awhile, they all start to blur together and you can't remember what was in which house. We are going back to look at our top 3 choices again this afternoon to try and remind ourselves. We have had to adjust our criteria a lot. We are just going to have to get used to smaller yards and closer neighbors because that's what's in our price range here.  Oh well...hopefully the house will be nice anyway! Tomorrow, we should also have a new address, though it's temporary too, as we are shifting from hotel to apartment. The apartment is a skyscraper right downtown near the pier, so it's going to be interesting!