We didn’t really plan out every day. We just made a list of what we want to see/do and then wake up and decide what we feel like doing that day. I liked the flexibility and the relaxed feeling of being on vacation that this type of planning gave us.
The kids slept really well in the same bed in the same room, but Charlotte woke bright and early at 6:30, despite the black out shades and overcast sky. She turned on the living room lamps until I whisper yelled ‘Charlotte!’ and then she whispered back ‘Oh torry!’. I made her go to the bathroom and then back to bed.
We got up for the day about an hour later. The kids had cereal while Chris and I took turns getting breakfast from downstairs. Of course both Cooper and Charlotte shared our breakfast with us. While we were eating we asked the kids what they wanted to do and Cooper said ‘see mount goats!’. So we decided the zoo would be a great place to go today and Charlotte said ‘yeah and we see all da anmils!’
The ice maker in the freezer was making a really loud annoying noise after breakfast and so Cooper started walking around the hotel room with a stern look on his face, hand raised in the air asking very loudly ‘What dat noise?? It pisses me off!’. He said it at least 5 times while Chris and I just tried to stifle our laughter and promise to watch our language!
After breakfast and getting ready we left and found the zoo fairly easily. The streets are all strange here, seeming to go every which way and sometimes just seem to disappear. We noticed the express lane goes off and then you don’t see it again (we later realized it’s because it goes under the freeway. Another street lacks the ability to turn left on, but there are no under or overpasses for several miles. Then when you turn right and loop back around on another street, you don’t intersect the main street you turned off of. See, even explaining it is confusing. Driving it isn’t much better.
The zoo was very natural park feeling with beautiful exhibits and lots of animals out. We even got to see dinosaurs (you know the robotic ones, because we of course know that there aren’t real dinosaurs around anymore…although Cooper thought these were pretty real!). We spent 4 hours at the zoo and even skipped several exhibits! While eating lunch, Charlotte exclaimed ‘Dis is da best chocyate milk I ever had!’, so make sure you get some chocolate milk if you go to the zoo in Seattle.
The kids loved the bird exhibit, but Cooper kept trying to scare all the birds away.
These are wild dogs. I’ve never in my life seen anything like this before. So weird!
There was this really cool tree that Cooper climbed under and I just couldn’t capture a proper photo of it without a wider angle lens. Boo!
Cooper being ‘over’ pictures.
Charlotte ‘posing’ for a photo. You can see her recently chipped tooth in the front!
And after making plans around seeing mountain goats and Cooper talking about it all morning, this is all we got to see of them. See the tiny white mound by the pine tree in the back? That’s the mountain goat. So ironic, no?
The old fashioned carousel was a nice break from looking around. The only issue was that it didn’t have belts to fasten the kids to the horses, so I couldn’t take photos while it was moving and they were on it.
You can see the distortion the 24mm end put on on Cooper’s face.
We rented a double stroller and bought popcorn for them.
Cooper loved the dinosaur exhibit so much we went through a second time. He was terrified and loved it all at the same time.
When he got scared he looked through the netting on the stroller.
I guess laughter helps relieved the nerves a bit.
They were a little realistic.
It was next to impossible to take a ‘good’ photo in this set up. Neither kid would sit still at all!
And they LOVED the penguins. Who doesn’t?
We stopped at Target to get me a light jacket, the kids some milk cups and swim floaties, and some cables to make the iPads work as movie players with the TV (which we couldn’t get to work). On the way back we sat on the 5 (aka a parking lot) experiencing the Seattle ‘crawl’. The kids zonked out.
Then we came back to the hotel and vegged out while deciding what to eat. This is the only part of not creating a real plan that hasn’t worked so well. It is very hard to find restaurants that are suitable for kids, but also have great food. Not sure if it’s that we’re in a downtown area, or of that’s a Seattle thing. We finally left at 6 to head across town to 5 Spot, another pick from urbanspoon.com. And another win! Great little diner atmosphere, but with tons of things on the menu from all parts of the US – Northeast, Southwest, Northwest, and the South. Perfect place to take kids with awesome kid menus. No pictures of this place, but we might just come back before we leave!
I did however, see this car parked on the street. I kind of love the eyelashes!
Weather report: Cool (low 60’s), wet/sprinkling, cloudy all day.
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