Weekend in Seattle

John and I went to Seattle for the weekend to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary. Our first stop was a fresh pasta place (Il Corvo) that John read about that was only open for lunch on the weekdays. (This was the menu for the day. John had the pasticcio and I had the pasta misti. Mine was better, but both were delicious.)

We walked down to Pike Place Market and it was just as we envisioned.

We had some samples, did some shopping for Christmas and for my mom and sister babysitting back at home, saw the fish being thrown

and visited the gum wall.

John was really, really grossed out.

I'd seen pictures before and knew it was vast, but had no idea how deep it is. Many layers of gross.

Then I wanted to see the Fremont troll.

This was in one of the scenes in 10 Things I Hate About You and I was happy to find it just as it looked in the movie.

The architeture around the bridge was beautiful.

When we planned the trip, the place I was most excited to try was Hot Cakes and I already knew what I wanted. We went during happy hour and had: grilled chocolate sandwich with caramel sauce, creme brulee with pomegranate, peanut butter molten cake with vanilla ice cream, a butterbeer.

I shared with John.

We rolled out of there and went to see the Chuhily exhibit.

I liked the fishing boats display.

The greenhouse one was pretty, too.

John was getting hungry, so we moved onto the next activity,

We bought city passes that included a tour of the space needle observation deck at night and during the day. It was beautiful at night, but cold out in the wind up top.

We took a quick picture and then went to Ivar's for dinner. Lots of the places along the seawall were closed for construction, but luckily the popular ones have multiple locations, such as Ivar's.

We talked to the kids then crashed for a long, restful night of sleep. Probably our favorite part of the trip.

The next morning we went through a session in the Bellevue Temple. I love seeing other temples.

Bellevue also has a Crab Pot, which was another place where John was excited to eat (and was closed in the city).

They cook a big pot of delicious and then dump it on your table. We saw it featured on a food network show once and it lived up to its hype. Next time we go, though, we want to bring more people to help eat it all!

We hit massive, unexplained traffic on the way back to the hotel, which (from what we hear) is also part of the Seattle experience. We went to our daytime visit of the Space Needle

I love cities at night, but the view in the daylight was gorgeous, too. I think all of the water makes it such a beautiful city.

We went next door to use our science center passes and found some fun exhibits.

We ended up staying and exploring everything until they closed.

Their monarch room was diasappointing, though. Some things in the Bay Area spoil us for other places, but there are other things we don't have, such as Potbelly's. I was excited to see one and we walked downtown again and had sandwiches for dinner, which was nice and light after such a big lunch.

Sunday morning we went to the EMP right when it opened and were told to go try the Game of Thrones exhibit right away to avoid crazy lines. Not knowing anything about it, we obediently went and tried it first. It was a completely immersive 360* experience that was cool and crazy and creepy. It reminded me of something from Ready Player One. 

The rest of the museum was really well done. I'm pretty critical of museums and I totally loved it.

They had a lot to do that was interactive.

And fun nonessentials, like painted walls.

Fun things to see from movies and tv shows.

John trying to use Darth Vader's light saber.

They had plenty of depth in each room for real fans, but also enough to do and easy-to-learn displays for people like me who aren't as familiar with things like Nirvana or horror movies.

We found this popsicle on the walk back to Potbelly's for lunch.

We ate quickly and picked up our cruise tickets. We had some time to kill before we could board the boat, so we checked out the aquarium.

It was a really nice place, but it's hard compared to the one in Monterey Bay.

John is always good for a laugh.

We saw the sea otters and found a cute book for the boys called If You Want to See a Whale.

Then we took the harbor cruise.

I started feeling a little seasick, so I went and sat down inside. It was darkish and warm and rocking and the next thing I knew, a super old lady woke me up by saying, "bless her heart" while walking by. I didn't know if I should be embarrassed or proud that I could nap faster than someone her age.

Despite still not being caught up on sleep, we really missed our boys and were anxious to head home. On the drive down toward the airport, the sky cleared more and we could see Mt. Rainier. 

On our way, we stopped to see the Museum of Flight. We actually had free reciprocal admission from Happy Hollow. John would have paid in plasma if he had to, though, he was so excited.

We crossed over the bridge and toured the plane from Air Force One and saw lots of other Boeing aircraft that were significant and I'm sure John could tell you all about.

Inside there were countless more.

They had a space station replica used for training and other Nasa exhibits that were really informative and thought-provoking. A docent was telling us all about them and we could have listened to him all night, which he seemed happy to do, but we had lots to see.

I should really have John caption these. He isn't a huge picture fan, but he wanted one with this, so it was probably something cool.

My favorite parts were the WWI and WWII rooms. After reading Unbroken a few years ago, I've been really interested in things like the pilot training and equipment advancements, etc. John tried landing one of the "flying coffins." I don't think he made it.

It felt like we were rushing through everything because they were closing. In retrospect, we should have done the cruise a different day to leave more time for the museum.

It was huge and John was in his element. All weekend we talked about what the boys would have loved doing or seeing, but especially at the flight museum.

We were both definitely ready to go back and be with them, but also would have liked to have stayed a little longer because there was so much to do and see.

That just means we'll have to go back!