Gosh, I actually wrote this post before Christmas, but never got around to publishing it. Oops. Oh well, here's our Thanksgiving post. I promise I'll post something about Christmas before Easter!
We've now lived in Oregon almost 2.5 years and haven't ventured out of Oregon to the rest of the Pacific Northwest. We decided that this Thanksgiving was the perfect time to take a quick trip up to Seattle. We left Thanksgiving morning and spent most of the day traveling, sitting in Seattle holiday traffic, and checking in to our hotel in downtown. Since it was Thanksgiving and Clark's first one, we knew we wanted to go out to dinner. However, nothing was open! I had figured out earlier that most of the restaurants that were open were either serving fancy Thanksgiving dinners or Chinese. Chinese, here we come! We headed down to the International District to Ho Ho Seafood Restaurant (which we thought seemed a bit more Christmas-y!). It was delicious! Ben and I had the Peking duck and honeyed walnut prawns. So good! As you can see, Clark had a soup spoon for his first Turkey Day!
The next day we hung around the northern part of downtown, so we were able to walk everywhere. We first found Top Pot Donuts for a little breakfast. After finding out there was a pumpkin old fashioned donut, I was a happy girl! We then walked down to the waterfront to the Olympic Sculpture Park. This day happened to be bright and sunny, so the view from the park was amazing. We could even see the Coastal Range all the way up to Canada. After the Sculpture Park, we headed over to the Seattle Center and the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum. I had fun, but Ben's mind was blown! Both parts of the museum had awesome exhibits. I think Ben particularly enjoyed the Jimi Hendrix one and the science fiction one with all of the movie stuff in it (i.e. a storm trooper from Star Wars, the captain's chair from Star Trek, and all the weapons from different movies). We decided to stop for a snack when we left the museum, so we walked over the International Fountain in the Seattle Center. This fountain is huge! It shoots water at least 40 feet into the air and the whole thing was set to Christmas music. The best part was watching little kids and even big kids run up to the fountain when the water would go down and then run screaming when it all came back on again!
After that we went back to the hotel to rest and feed Clark. That evening, though, was my favorite part of the whole trip. We barely made it downtown and barely found a parking spot, but we did! We made it over to the Macy's (along with thousands and thousands of people) to watch them light the Christmas tree. It was great! They did a whole count-down and then there were fireworks afterwards. I loved it! We then fought the crowds and made it to our restaurant for dinner. We had some yummy sushi at a table in the corner where Clark was able to stretch his legs and play on the floor. As always, Clark charmed the ladies and our server loved him!
The next day we drove down to Pike's Place. After paying and arm and a leg for over-priced parking, we wandered through the market. We feel a little spoiled because the market was a lot like our own Saturday Market (arts and crafts) and the Portland State University farmer's market. It was fun to see Pike's Place and take a picture with Santa, but I think next time we'll see some other stuff in and around Seattle. We took the rest of the afternoon to drive around downtown. We did stop at the library to take a look at the new building. It was amazing! It's all made of metal and glass and is totally open on the inside. That afternoon we went back to the hotel again to rest and take care of Clark. Then for dinner we went to a pub in downtown for some fish 'n chips.
On our last day we were pretty ready to go home, so we just checked-out and drove through the Queen Anne neighborhood before heading home. The Queen Anne area is north of downtown on a hill and is named so because of the style of the houses. Wow! There were some beautiful homes and some expensive ones. Rightly so because many of them had a view of downtown and of the Puget Sound!
We had a great trip and loved having Clark with us. He is so easy-going and did great while we were out-and-about. We love our little boy and look forward to lots more Thanksgivings with him!
