Seattle - Part 3 (Chihuly)

Our last big sight seeing trip was to the Chihuly glass exhibit.  I made my sister proud.  ;-)  It was AMAZING!! To see the sculptures this guy can make out of glass was mind blowing.  Mondo and I really enjoyed soaking it all in.

This part of the exhibit was in the ceiling!

Hanging from the ceiling.

Love this picture that Mondo took with his phone.  Very artsy.  ;-)

Complementary picture at the end of the exhibit.

Seattle - Part 2

On the second day of our trip, we were able to spend the whole day sightseeing and doing what ever we wanted either with members of the group or alone.  There were so many things to do and so little time to do them!  The space needle, tracking down the building from the book 50 Shades of Gray, there was also some Twilight stuff to see but it was a long drive away.

First stop, look for Escala!  For those of you who don't know, I was a little obsessed with the book 50 Shades of Gray.  The main character (Christian) lived in the penthouse of a building named Escala in Seattle.  I had no idea the building really exsited!  You can imagine my excitement when we found it!

Woo-hoo!  Found it!!  And no, we didn't go inside.  :-)

There was a Starbucks on almost every corner of Seattle.  I think these people must be high on caffeine all the time!  This pic is at the original one!  We actually didn't drink any Starbucks while we were there.  We liked to support the little coffee shops.

Check out these pastries!!  This was a great little coffee shop across from the fish market.  The line was literally out the door but it was so worth it!

I should've taken this pic before we devoured the pastries.  That was the best raspberry croissant I've had.  Ever.  And the coffee was good too!

 

This random dude was walking around accepting donations for a picture with him.  What a quick, genius way to make money!

The Space Needle!  We didn't feel like paying an obscene amount of money to ride to the top, take a pic, and ride back down.  So we opted to take pics from the ground.

We loved the around surrounding the Space Needle.  It was very well kept and had lots of photo ops!

Seattle - Part 1

Thanks to Mondo's hard work, he was rewarded with a trip for being on the "Select Team".  His job on this team is to have new employees ride along with him for several days so he can teach them the ropes of selling.  It was really nice to be rewarded for his hard work...and it was nice that I got to tag along.  There were a few other couples plus the president of the company and his wife.  It was fun to get to know other employees and Mondo was able to see a different side of the president. And on a side note, I'm blessed to have awesome co-workers who switched their schedules around at the last minute so I could have the whole weekend off!  And my parents were able to watch the critters for us.  (There will be several posts because I have so many pictures!)

We stayed at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in downtown Seattle.  It was very nice and felt like a cozy, ritzy hotel.




Our first excursion was riding on a ferry to Bainbridge Island. 






I was a little worried about getting sick on the ride over since I have crazy motion sickness.  But lucky for me it was really smooth.  It was also super cold, windy, and misty!



It was pretty amazing to watch the ship dock.  This giant boat parked effortlessly in the perfect position.  We imagined what it would be like to live on the island and work on the mainland and have to ride the ferry everyday, twice a day.  I'm sure it would get old really fast!





We LOVED Bainbridge Island!  That's totally where I would want to live in Seattle.  It was a cute, quiet little town.  Lots of little shops to check out.

We found a great little coffee shop that made me something close to a caramel macchiato.  YUM!

It rained off and on all day and it was pretty chilly!



Our next stop once we got back frrom the island was the fish market.  Honestly, I didn't think it was worth all the hype.  I guess it would be pretty awesome if you loved fish.  Mondo really enjoyed it.   I didn't love the smell. 

Ya...gross.

There were also little souvineer/trinkets you could buy.  These flowers were gorgeous and super cheap!

We did a little sight seeing on the way back to the hotel.  There was a park type area downtown that seemed to be a hangout...for hoodlem teenagers and homeless people.  I posed with a random statue here.

Yep, just a homeless dude taking a nap.  I guess it was like any downtown area...homeless people everywhere!

After our day excursions, we went back to the hotel, got cleaned up, and went to dinner at the Georgian in the hotel.  It was a fancy schmancy restaurant.  Fun, with no kids.  ;-)

Here's our whole group...minus the president and his wife.  They were sitting at the head of the table that you can't see.  We had a nice dinner and were able to really get to know each other.

The appetizer.  It was actually the size of a marble.  It was some type of crusted cheese thing.  Mondo loved it.  I didn't.

My ceasar salad.  Never seen one quite like that but it was tasty.

Steak.  :-)

Mondo had some sort of fish dish.

***More posts to come.***



Baseball

As I write this, Ethan has one more game left and then the season is over.  He had a bit of a rough season this year.  It seems that his golf swing is better than his baseball swing.  ;-)  After a few games of stiking out he was ready to quit.  But each game he has improved and figured out how to tweak his swing from golf to baseball and now he's all about baseball again.  As usual, we're glad to have the season end and a little sad that it's already over.

Go Astros!

The cheering section.  Caleb just goes to eat. 

At the end of every game the coach hands out little silver stars to put on their hats and tells them what a great job they did to earn them.

The boys got a little surprise during one of their games.  Their 1st grade teacher from last year showed up to watch their game.  They were so excited!!