Seattle

Derek works with some really amazing people. They had a Holiday Party and I was able to meet some more people. They had all the employees come from several cities--one team was from Seattle. One of the ladies on that team (Jen--she's awesome) told us that she's traveling over the holidays and then offered us her house to stay in. At first we said "oh no, we couldn't do that" but then she kept offering and I said if she was sure, we would love that.

Driving up, I had no idea where the house was (Derek was in charge of that). I figured the house would be in one of the many surrounding cities near Seattle, I didn't care it was a free stay. When we got off our exit, it was literally the off-ramp to go to downtown Seattle. "What!?" The house is literally one mile from the space needle. A totally amazing spot and beautiful house. I was totally stunned. 

 (be forewarned, I took my cheap little camera=not the best pics)

 The playroom, boys were in heaven:

The boys loved the spa tub, it made tons of bubbles.

I had priced out some activities and planned a few day vacation. First we went to the zoo.

Luckily since we have a zoo membership in OR because the zoo's work together or something, so we showed our pass and got in half price: cool. We went on the day that was supposed to be the least rainy and it turned out to be a great choice, it was basically empty when we got there. This zoo is also special in that they have a "Zoomasium" which is an awesome play place for kids. What a good idea. The boys had a great time climbing rocks and sliding down slides. Super fun.

However right before we left the zoo we had to make one more pit stop in the Zoomasium. Van was especially fond of scaling the rocks (pic above), and was good at making sure to find the footholds. One time when he reached the top he decided to jump back down. I was sitting nearby and as I'm telling him that's a bit too high to jump down from (about 5 ft) that's when he jumps. The floor of the play area was covered with super cushy foam padding, but I believe he landed right about where that padding tapered off to the hard normal floor. Well, whatever happened when he landed, he cried out bloody murder. I pulled him aside and did an initial check of  "Can you move your toes?" He could, so I figured/hoped he just sprained/strained his ankle. 

And this was our first real day in Seattle. :(

Needless to say we went back to the house and took it easy. Van basically sat on the couch the rest of the day with his foot elevated while watching TV and playing video games.....what a vacation. He was able to put weight on it so we wanted to see if it would be better the next day. When he woke up gimpy, we decided to go home. 

But first we had to hit up the Space Needle. The boys loved going up in the glass front elevator (I loved that too as a kid--a lot more than I did this time around). At the top you are inside an interior space and have to go out to the balcony to get the true experience. We were trying to find the house that we were staying in (since it was so close). We got the general area, but couldn't pinpoint the house. Oh well. We had some snacks there (the kids were dying for hot chocolate), then we went back down and got some souvenirs.

The last pic is of some cool decoration inside the Space Needle. As I was sitting, eating a sandwich inside the space needle, I was looking around and noticed these cool decorations up near the ceiling. I sat and thought that with the awesome 360° view, these interior decorations probably go unnoticed. I decided I must take a picture (I'm random, I know).

After the Space Needle Weston totally zonked out in the car (yippee). We got back to the house, quickly packed the car, cleaned up the house, and began our drive home. For some reason the 3 hour drive between our 2 cities feels really long. Can't pinpoint the reason. The boys had movies playing and Derek and I were able to chat about fun random things. It was good but long.