As I mentioned in our last post, we did end up taking our trip to Seattle. So much fun, and such an adventure. I have to say, we had a close call on whether or not we would even be able to go. On Tuesday night, James and I started to look for Grant's birth certificate, since the airline needed proof that he was under two years of age. (As if you need proof, can't they just look at the kid? CLEARLY under two.)Anyway, we were looking, and I came across an application to apply for a birth certificate. My heart sank. I thought for sure we wouldn't be able to go. What happened was, we had so many things going on the first month after his birth, that we just forgot to apply for his birth certificate. (All is well, now though. We've applied, and it's on its way.) We called the airline, and they said they would also take a shot record from the doctor. What a relief. We were so elated to finally know that we would be going again, and we could start thinking about packing. We started on Tuesday night, since we would have to get up at 12:30 on Thursday morning to catch our 7:00 flight. I put Grant in an outfit that was comfy enough to sleep in, but still looked like a normal outfit for the day. He stayed awake for a few hours after we got him up, but soon fell asleep. James drove while I slept off and on. Needless to say, our flight getting there and everything along with it (renting a car, getting a carseat, snagging a shuttle, getting our luggage) all went well without a hitch. Grant was great on the flight. I think he likes the vibrating motion and sounds of cars and planes, so he did really well. He didn't fall asleep at all on the way there. In fact, he like peeking at the people that were sittting in back of us, and he had fun playing with keys, and dropping them, and having someone pick them up. (This got old quickly though :)).
After we arrived in Seattle and had our car rented, and Grant in place, James and I were feeling pretty good and decided to use some passes in our Seattle City Pass booklet which you can check out here. Pretty good deal, and they have them for a lot of cities not just Seattle. This was pretty much our trip. Our first stop was the Science Museum. We watched a 3D IMAX film(which Grant convientiantly fell asleep in), and Grant played in the toddler area. It was a pretty neat place, just way crowded with school kids taking field trips. Grant seemed to enjoy himself:
After the Science Museum, we checked out the Space Needle. Pretty interesting building if you know its past. It was built in 1962 for the Worlds Fair. The guy who built it thought that all buildings would look similar to this one in the 21st century, which is kind of funny since there are only three workable floors. Usually buildings built for the Worlds Fair are torn down 18 months after the Fair has occured, but Seattle people liked it so much that they petitioned the city of Seattle to buy it, but they didn't so a family stepped up and bought it, and it is still privately owned today. (All this info I learned on the Lake tour we took :)). Here is the view from the Space Needle:
Another fun thing we did was we ate lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory. James actually ate here with his family while they were visiting his brother. Our meal was delicious, and the building was fascinating. Very beautiful with shiny mahogony floors and old chandliers. It was almost like walking in to a different time. We pretty much wore Grant out, but had to drive a ways to hopefully get to our hotel in Port Angeles. For Twilight fans, we were going to see the Port Angeles, Forks area and drive the Olympic Loop. However, we were having trouble getting over to that part of the state. There is a part of Washington, where there is a strip of ocean, but you can cross using the Hood Canal Bridge. Well, much to our exhausted dismay, we drove there only to find the bridge was closed until June, and our Hotel was non-refundable. My gripe is, how were we supposed to know the bridge was closed? The hotel didn't even mention on their website that it was closed and not to come that way. Anyway, they were stinkers, and we told them that we were never going to stay at another one of their hotels again. I bet they were heartbroken ;).
We spent the night in Tacoma, and we were all exhausted from having gotten up so early the night before. Grant, who usually struggles sleeping in hotels, slept just fine. Since our Port Angeles part of our trip was ruined, it gave us more opportunities to use the City Pass. We left that morning to visit the Museum of Flight by Boeing. Pretty interesting place. They had an actual WWI and WWII planes along with actual letters from soldiers.They had old newsreels and footage of the planes in combat and neat stories of how they had captured it on camera. My favorite, and James' favorite as well was seeing the inside of the old Air Force One. Even though it's an old one, I still was impressed by how luxurious it was, and even more spellbound thinking of all the Presidents that had once flown on this very plane. This specific one was for the presidents from John F. Kennedy through Reagan. I captured a few pics of this historic scene, and even one that would impress anyone:
Notice the foot rests on these leather plane seats. Pretty impressive when you think about who might have sat here.
Pretty archaic, I know, but it is history and I find it fascinating.
We also got to climb aboard the British Airways Concorde. This plane only flew like 100 times or so, (don't quote me on that) but it could fly from London to America in like an hour. They had a lot of complaints about the sonic booms it created, so now it is no more. Kind of fun to tour it! It was really long and skinny and people like Phil Collins flew on it for concerts. Pretty amazing stuff!
Friday afternoon, we ventured on over to the Woodland Park Zoo also a part of our city pass. I have to say, I was not that impressed with the array of animals that they had, and the animals they did have were hard to see in thier exhibits. Denver Zoo had a lot more variety, and smaller places for the animals, so people can actually see them. We did see a pretty cool lion, giraffes, a jaguar, a tiger, and some interesting monkeys. No alligators, or polar bears. Kind of disappointing, and Grant was kind of getting ornery at this point in the day. We bought him a hat, and left for our next venture which was our Red Sox/Mariners game. 
I thought for sure, Grant would be such a crab at this game. But there was so much going on to keep him entertained he stayed awake for most of it! He was so good! The weather was also wonderful. The stadium can either be opened or closed, and it was such a nice day, they had it opened. Clear beautiful night! There was a cute mom and her teenage daughter and her friends right behind us, and they were having such a good time getting Grant to smile. He put on quite the show. I had James take a few pics of the game:
We stayed in a Residence Inn by Marriott for the remainder of the trip. Our room was beautiful. The hotel was 6 months old, and new, fresh and clean, and decorated exactly to my liking. I know it doesn't matter where you stay since you don't spend much time in your hotel room when you travel, but it is nice to stay somewhere nice if you can. Our nights were so sleepfilled and wonderful, James and I are thinking about getting the same kind of bed! Grant slept wonderful in the Pack and Play provided by the hotel, and I must gush for a second and say how nice it was to let Grant cry and to not have the neighbors hear! We couldn't hear anything our neighbors did, and I'm sure they couldn't hear us. Or if they did, they didn't complain. We all slept really well, thus the title of my post. No sleepless nights here.
Anyway, Saturday rolled around and dawned another clear sunshiny day! Thrilled! We headed on up to the Seattle Aquarium hoping to see some interesting sealife. We saw some pretty fish, seals and otters, but that was about it. We enjoyed being outside anyway because of the beautiful weather. We ventured on up to Pikes Place Market where we read about a cheese festival happening and hoping to sample some yummy cheeses. Well, us and all of Seattle were there too, so needless to say, we got in a few chunks of cheese and that is about it. We stopped and looked out over Puget Sound, and watched the water and the boats and loved being outside. I loved being around the water, I think it has such a calming effect on me! I felt so much more relaxed than I usually do. We ate at a Red Robin right by the pier for our cruise. Part of our City Pass was taking a cruise around Elliot Bay and the lake and you can see the Seattle sky line, and we were there during the 98 days out of the year when you can see Mount Ranier. It was a beautiful cruise, and thus all the knowledge about the buildings in Seattle. Very informative. Highly recommend it if you are going there. Some pics of the trip:
Also, a first, we were able to take Grant swimming for the first time. We captured this on video, and I got a few pics of this occasion. He started out not knowing what to think, and ended up loving the water. I also liked that when James and I got ready to go, we could actually leave and not have to listen to little ones complain about leaving. I'm sure this will happen soon enough :).
Our trip ended all too soon. I so did not want to leave there and have to come back to the same old routine. I'm sure Grant will want to get back to normal though. He did wonderfully on the plane trip home, although I have to say, we were pretty cramped on the trip back. Grant actually slept part of the way.
