Seattle Bound

We had the means and opportunity to go to Seattle during our Christmas break to see Daryl' brother Lyle and his family. I will just break it down into days, there is a lot to cover.

December 21st- D's birthday, we were packed and ready to go by 8:30am. We were headed to Boise, ID which is the half way point. We stayed with our friends the Zabel's. We were able to see the beautiful home they purchased and just their life in Boise. It was fun catching up with them. Plus Sarah made a yummy, yummy dinner for us, and then baked a super delicious cake for D, it was Paula Deen's butterball cake or something. I need recipes to both things, they were so good, and not a good indicator to this trip as far as watching my diet goes. They also blew up balloons and threw them on D while they sang and gave him a candle in his cake. It was great! We stayed up too late chatting it up. They wanted to test drive our Odyssey so we took turns doing that as well. We were very grateful they had us as guests.


December 22- We hit the road by 8:30ish and drove the rest of the way to Seattle, WA. It was a long boring drive, and slow, what is with 65 MPH speed limits. It added so much time to our drive. Plus the Northern Western corner of Oregon is UGguly. The girls did great on the drive on both days, better than I thought. I was expecting Emery to cry a lot, she didn’t. We arrived in Seattle at about 4ish I think. But unfortunately his brother and family were not there to greet us. They thought we were further out and ran an errand. But we were able to get in anyways and stretch out while we waited for them to arrive home. Evaet made snacks for us, soy beans and stickers, yum never had either and they are yummy. I was looking forward to this trip because Evaet is Korean and from what I have had before is a good cook. We had a steak dinner and then just hung out, talked and relaxed.

Driving through Oregon

I woke up from a nap to this, as we were entering Federal Way area

December23- We had a lazy morning and then went to Paiglee's cousin Kaden's pre-school Christmas program. It was cute. There was this really cute boy in the front who was not thrilled with the fact he was dressed in an elf suit and being forced to sing songs and shake bells. He was not impressed, he looked defeated and when his teacher put bells in his hand to shake for the next song he looked at them then dropped his hand to his side and didn't shake them once. I laughed hard it was hilarious. The girls singing were into it but not so much the boys. Paiglee had fun watching her cousin perform. Then the party got crazy with gift exchanges and food and a lot of bodies in one small area. I couldn't put emery down to crawl, so I held her and she was so wiggly. At one point I was trying to adjust her in my arms and she tried to jump out of my arms. All her wiggling and body thrusting almost caused me to drop her literally on her head. She was headed head first for the floor. But lucky for me and my cat like reflexes I caught her by her shirt inches from hitting the floor. She was scared and cried and I almost cried cause everyone saw me almost drop my baby. Then Paiglee was getting antsy because there were a ton of gifts none of which were for her and she wanted to open one. She hit me in the head and I got mad and yelled at her she began to cry and I was about to cry. It was a train heading fast into a collision. I told Daryl we needed to go, I felt like we had no business being there, and our kids were losing it.

We got out of there and then headed to a little gym for Paiglee and Kaden to play. It is babysitting, it was nice and Paiglee loved it. A big plus for bigger cities, this was so nice because we had three hours of babysitting so we could do whatever we wanted with fewer kids. We were able to hangout and venture out to Costco which D and I had to stop ourselves from buying the whole store. We had to just buy one thing and ended up with three not too bad when we wanted a basket full. Then we went back to the house and got the kids ready for the sitter that was coming so we could go out to dinner.

I was excited for dinner we were going to go somewhere nice for dinner and enjoy adult time. In a place you can't bring kids. We went to this place called Over the Moon in Tacoma, Evaet was driving and she is a fast kind of crazy driver. D and I were sitting in the back seat and she took a back way so we could see more things. But the roads are twisty and small and trees and buildings and houses lining streets so you can't see far. Plus with Evaets fast stop go driving I was getting carsick. I was doing fine until we hit the downtown Tacoma area and then I felt super nauseous and I had a headache and just was not doing good.


We get seated and we are talking about what we are getting and I said nothing I am not feeling good. I excused myself to the bathroom to see if getting air would help my vertigo. No it didn't, I tried to sit through it but I was not doing good. I felt like I needed to barf but it wouldn't come. I couldn't sit anymore in the poorly lit place and I got up to the restroom again when Evaet came to see if we should go. I said yeah, I felt horrible seriously bad. Not only from the car but that we had this nice night and it was getting cut short before we even ate because I couldn't hack the car ride. So I sat in the front seat and Lyle drove and took the fast way home. I was not doing good I could tell I was getting close to barfing and I didn't want to do it in the car. We arrived and I went to the curb and began barfing everything up. Anything and everything that might have been in my gut came out into the street. I felt better after, still a little nauseated but so much better. I just wanted to lay down I felt so dizzy and was shaky and knew nothing would help but sleep and time. I didn't wash my face or brush my teeth I just hit the bed and slept. D and his brother went and got yummy pizza and a movie and had some god brother time. So not all was lost.

I woke up at 1 am to D just going to bed and I washed my face and teeth finally. I didn't sleep that good the rest of the trip. The bed we stayed in was harder than I am use to and smaller and D and I are good sized people. You do the math, not good. Plus we never do good when we sleep in the same room as our kids at least a baby that is a light sleeper. My hips began to ache like I was pregnant again. So sleep was hard to get. But really does anyone ever sleep good when they travel and it isn’t their own bed?

December 24- We had planned to go to Seattle to The Pike Pier Market. It was fun, It is just a very long market that is semi outdoors. We started it off with a hot cocoa from the "First Starbucks" ever, really it isn't. Then we walked through the market and it was fun. We saw where they toss the fish, in the movies. Then we got a bite to eat at this little place that had a ton of eating joints in the same building. I had Pike's Pier Best Clam chowder, it was so so yummy. Paiglee and Kaden ate at a pizza shop then D and everyone else ate at a Thai place. But D didn't get full, he ended up stopping at a Greek shop to get a Gyro and a Greek pastry I don't remember the name of. It pretty much tasted like a flaky yummy mini pecan pie. D was in heaven! Then we walked to the water front and looked around. It was fun and I took lots of pictures. We ended our evening with a movie and just relaxing.

Seattle

Watching how cheese is made

Min and Emery were playing footsy while we waited for hot cocoa


Sign says First Starbucks Store Established 1971

After a long wait for her cocoa

The begining of the Market

They have all these flower bouqets for 10$ and then they had wreaths as well so pretty and so cheap for amazing flowers

I loved the tulips

I have been to seattle before and I remember my mom bought some of these flowers and dried them and had them in our house forever.

Little market in the market, all the produce looks yummy

This couple was really good, and she would dance on her wood slab she was standing on

The fish tossing we had just missed a fish being tossed and they cost like 50$ so we weren't going to pay just to see it tossed again.

The main entry of the Market

This is in Post Alley lots of little shops mostly food, stopped infront of the place we ate

Inside, Evaet was tending to the babies in the strollers

Where I ate yummy chowder

Kaden and Paiglee

Min

Mr. D's Greek Delicacies where D found his Gyro and pastry

Had to get D with Mr. D's above him

This wall was covered with gum, so gross people would spell stuff with their gum too Yuck!

Emery loving the ride


The Olympic mountains in the background, it was really clear and beautiful this day

The closest we got to the Space needle

If you look closely you can see Mt. Ranier, it was nice to see "her" since it was so clear

December 25- Just as a little FYI at D's brother's house this was their first year celebrating Christmas. Because Evaet is Jewish and they said they have just not celebrated it really on their own. But anyway this was their first. We woke up and ate breakfast and well our whole day consisted of opening gifts and playing with them. The gift unwrapping was a little too drawn out for my liking and I was over it after a while and just wanted it to end. I let Paiglee open her stuff from Santa and her stocking. It was funny though when I think about it, when we left Lyle’s house Lyle's kid's stockings were still hanging on the fireplace full of all their goodies and hadn't been touched.

Lyle wanted to try to smoke the turkey for the dinner that night. And Evaet made a yummy stuffing with other side dishes. As dinner was getting closer Lyle realized he didn't a lot enough time for the turkey to smoke and get cooked all the way through. He put it in the oven to finish cooking it. Paiglee wouldn't touch any of the food, I don't remember if she ate anything for dinner to be honest. But That night Emery woke up throwing up. I first thought oh no the flu, but she didn’t have a fever and it kept happening and there were chunks of turkey I knew it was food poisoning. We spent the night cleaning up Emery after each episode of throwing up. D stayed up doing laundry and not only cleaning up Emery's puke but also Kaden's who also began throwing up at some point in the night.

Paiglee opening her gifts from Santa

D helping Emery

Paiglee with her angry bird stuffed animals

Emery giving her pretty smile, thats what she does, too cute

December 26th- By morning Everyone but me, D and Paiglee didn't feel well. D and I decided that maybe it would be best for us to just leave than to wait and leave the next morning. We weren't going to do anything with everyone else feeling horrible. Emery had stopped barfing early morning but I didn't want to give her food in case she threw it all up. So I nursed her and she kept that down and she seemed to be doing better, but had no appetite. When we told Evaet we were leaving she didn't want us to she wanted us to meet her dad. There were a lot of plans for the day but they were all canceled with everyone being sick. But after some talking D and I decided to stay and do our own thing and get out and see some stuff. We went to check out Lyle’s house he has in Tacoma that he rents. We went to the zoo/ aquarium, and it was so nice, I loved it. Seriously I am starting to think SLC's zoo has some serious issues. All other zoos I have been to are nice, animals are not sick looking. The grounds are nice and they don't have more food venders and cafe's than animals to look at. Then we went to this old Firehouse that was converted into a restaurant. It was nice my burger wasn't great I just ordered wrong everything else was good. Then we went and shopped a little. Then headed back to see how everyone else was holding up. Lyle and Kaden were doing better but Evaet was still not feeling good. We just hung out talked with Lyle, kids played and we didn't need to pack a lot because we packed almost everything that morning.

The sharks were big and impressive

When we first went by the Walrus' they weren't out luckily we went by on our way back and they were out. D really wanted to see them, they were both huge but one was ginormous, the picture doesn't even do it justice. It was out favorite and Paiglee still talks about it.

December 27th- The food poisoning was catching up to me finally and I woke up several times in the night rushing to the bathroom. By 6am I had had it and wanted to go, although I couldn’t get my body functions under control. D got me some Imodium and once that was working and we were packed we hit the road. I wanted to do the whole 14 hours in one day. I just wanted to get home. Emery was so over being in a car seat she would cry when put in it. Paiglee was fine and we thought went to the bathroom so we wouldn’t have to stop soon for a potty break. The medicine was working for me, D was just tired. Well we had summated the mountains and Paiglee needed a potty stop yeah she didn’t go before we left. So we see a rest stop on the Summit and we stop. They are out houses yeah Paiglee barely uses a public restroom let alone an outhouse. I used it first I went in with snow melted toilet paper mushy and nasty and other nasty body products on the floor. After I had gone I walked out year she isn’t going to use this. Daryl made Paiglee and she cried the whole time. Then we had also realized we forgot Paiglee’s angry bird stuffed animals and her pillow, blanket, cowboy water bottle, and purple blanket at Lyle’s house. We were an hour out we weren’t going to turn around. So we asked them to mail it to us. D and I were annoyed with one another over forgetting all that. Emery was crying again cause she was in the car seat. So as you can imagine the car ride home was not one to go home and write about. But we made it home at 12:30am and I was so glad to be in my bed that night. Plus the girls slept the last 5-6 hours of the trip I was just worried about us falling asleep at the wheel. So although I was so tired I stayed awake so that there were 4 sleepy eyes on the road rather than 2. But D said he couldn’t sleep if he wanted his back was killing him. But we made it in a few pieces.

We did have fun we were so glad to be able to go out and see Lyle. We would love to go again when it isn’t winter and kids are a little older. There is so much we didn’t get to see and do. Plus it seems we almost went to their house to be sick with them. So maybe next time if we are in a warmer season we can rule out that factor. But we are grateful they let us come stay with them. We have a lot of funny stories to tell and look back on.

Happy to be home

This wasn't even half the pictures