Both Dean and I had the last week off of work. We had dreams of another family trip but Uncle Sam said "NO!" so we planned a quiet week of getting a few things done around the house and then taking the boys out of school for a couple of days and going to Seattle. Well....as usual things got changed a bit. On the 21st there was an email sent out to foster families about a brother and sister that needed placement that night and for at least 3 months. We didn't answer back because we were sure that we were just going to stick with one at a time. Well, a little bit later the phone rang and the placement coordinator was asking if we could take them. Once again, we said no because it was two and we were planning on going out of town. About 20 minutes later Dean called me again and told me to call her back and tell her we would take them. So at about 4:30pm we had a little 3 1/2 year old girl and her 1 1/2 year old brother with us. Thankfully not all of our plans changed and we were able to have them in respite care while we took the boys to Seattle for aour planned mini vacation.
We had a lot of fun being tourists (a family we asked to take our picture even called us that :)). We started our adventure early on Wednesday morning as we headed south toward Safeco Field. Griffen was SO funny as he talked like we go there all the time or at least like he had been there many times before when in reality it was his very first time there. It ended up being a great game as Detroit was up 4-1 but then the M's came back in the 8th to win!!!!
After the game, we headed to check into our hotel and then to the Seattle Center and the top of the Space Needle. Once again Griff made me laugh as he was so excited to go (he was sure the game was taking too long and he "just wanted to go to the Space Needle.") but after about five or ten minutes he was ready to go back to the hotel. Good thing he is easily bought off with hot chocolate!
The next morning, we went back to the Seattle Center and took the Monorail downtown and then walked to Pike's Place. It had been so long since I had been downtown that I really did feel like a tourist, especially when we pulled out the touristy map but at least we made it without getting lost! I love Pike's Place. All of the colorful flowers and produce are so beautiful! The boys thought the fish throwers were pretty cool but weren't that excited otherwise. Dean and I decided to splurge a bit and got some crab (packed for the trip home) and some yummy pasta noodles, that we still need to eat (the pasta, not the crab. The crab was gone that night!) As we were leaving Pike's Place, a street magician stopped us and had the boys help him with a trick.
Our final stop was the Pacific Science Center. We have talked about taking the boys there a few times but had never done it so...we finally did. There was so much there and the boys had fun in all of the areas. I'm glad that we finally went!
We had a great time even though it was short and we made a lot of good memories together. On the final days of our time off we did get a couple of the project done that we wanted to do (more on that in another post) as we continue to adjust to having two more kiddos in the family. Things are starting to fall into place and we are all finding a bit of a rhythm to the chaos :). We shall see how this week goes now that we will be back to work!
