Day 1 - Travel Day to Seattle

The night before the travel day was not so great:

• Seeing the Sarah McLachlan concert the night before (well that part was great) caused us to get home late

                            

• Chris  went to bed with a fever and some congestion which made him loud
• So I slept in the guest bed and finally fell asleep around 1 am
• Then Cooper woke up at 3 am.  I fell back asleep at about 3:45 am and then tossed and turned until I finally just got up at 6:30 am.

I’m glad I got up a little early because I could enjoy the morning without feeling too rushed.  I was able to finish packing all the little odds and ends (diapers, electronics, bath products).  Charlotte and Cooper were so excited to go on ‘cation.  We got Scout all packed up and dropped her off to my sister’s so that my dad could watch her for us while we were gone.

We got to the airport and got through security with no issues and the kids did great following all the instructions.  Cooper got a little sad when he had we checked his suitcase, asking ‘where my suit-tase go?’ with tears in his eyes.  We told him we had to fly on the plane and that we would get it in Seattle.  He said ‘oh, otay!’ and then proceeded to ask about 7 more times on the 2.5 hour flight.

Cooper didn’t want me to take anymore pictures so he started throwing a fit.

The plane ride was also much easier this time.  The iPads helped keep them entertained as did the DirecTV on Frontier.  Cooper wanted to jump from activity to activity every 15 min or so, but he did really well.  Charlotte watched a movie the whole time and was quiet as could be.

When we landed Cooper exclaimed ‘I see mountains.  We see mountain goats on cation!’.  Um, okay, I guess we can go on vacation to Seattle an see mountain goats.  We went to baggage claim and got our suitcases, which Cooper was very relieved about and then we went to get the rental car.  The carseats we rented with the car are cheap crappy ones that aren’t really sized properly for big boy Cooper, but it’s all we have.  We won’t be flying without theirs again.  On the drive to the hotel I had to take a guess at which way to go (I guessed right!) because we had not looked up directions and the iPhone was getting enough cell coverage to map the route.  Once we stopped we downloaded the map and were on our way.

I was severely disappointed in the hotel when we arrived at 4 pm.  The room had not been cleaned yet, so we had to wait nearly an hour before we could check in.  They kindly comped our parking (which is $21/day I might add and one that you need a room key in order to get into).  The lobby was FREEZING and they don’t have the Disney channel so it was a long wait with two toddlers.

Our room was convenient with 2 bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen/dining area.  We also have a lake view.  It was clean, but the décor was very outdated.  The internet was slow and the guest book didn’t have enough information in it for people from outside of Seattle.  There wasn’t any room service, although the breakfast in the morning was pretty good.  The location seems good, but we probably won’t choose to stay here again.

For dinner we searched urbanspoon.com which we were frustrated with the searchability of the site.  There’s no way to narrow options by type of food or by kid friendly.  However we did find a great restaurant – Ivar’s Salmon House.  Really great salmon (pretty much every item on the menu is salmon), amazing views/location, and very family friendly but still upscale feeling.  The décor was beautiful and we enjoyed the atmosphere quite a bit.  We recommend it!

Ignore the crappy cell pictures, I didn’t want to lug my camera around to the restaurants. 

The inside of the restaurant while waiting for our table.

The waitress made Cooper a silly hat with the napkin.

The kids menus also doubled as masks.  Charlotte didn’t like hers, so Chris put it on.

Charlotte enjoyed the view pretty much the whole dinner.

After stopping at the grocery store for milk, cereal, medicine and diapers we went back to the hotel.  We put pajamas on the kids, read two books and they were out.  I fumbled around on the internet while Chris watched sports for about an hour and then we both zonked out too.  Long day!

Okay, more to come…but the pictures take me about a day to get through!  Be patient!