KidsQuest, Golden Gardens, and Wallace Falls, Oh my!

This weekend was packed!  Thursday evening we spent at the KidsQuest Museum in Bellevue. It's in the mall and was cool to see all the activities they had for kids of all ages.

P.S. For Christmas gifts, don't go buy anything expensive. All the toys in the under 3 section were easy crafts, like the bottle to the left (empty pepsi product bottle) filled with some sort of liquid and glitter and then taped shut with electrical tape. Or the wooden blocks below. He was delighted with both, more so than he's been with store bought trinkets!

Then Friday night we went to Golden Gardens, which is another beach park just south of Carkeek. Trevor has the pics for the rest of the weekend so I'll add those later. :) It was a lot more like a California beach in that the sand was very fine and there were tons of people playing beach volleyball, having BBQs, and flying kites. The water is much to cold to swim in, but there were tons of sailboats. We went out on a pier (? I think its called a pier...a wooden structure built to make a little boardwalk that goes perpendicular to the beach...anyone know?) and saw all sorts of sea life. There were TONS of jellyfish (probably another reason for no swimmers), starfish (one in particular that was HUGE), a sea cucumber, a crab, and schools of fish.

Saturday we had the best intentions of going down to the Seattle Aquarium and Pike's Place Market, however upon our arrival we found out there was a half marathon that had half the streets closed, PLUS a parade, PLUS a cruise ship leaving a port next door to the Aquarium. Needless to say, all parking was either unapproachable or marked "Event Parking" and had doubled the price. At one point Trevor turned to me and said we'd just have to pay a little extra for parking, and turned into a place. Sometimes I get a little too Scrooge-ish and Trevor has to remind me that lots of things in life are worth paying extra for. Upon finding a lot he pulled in. However, shortly we were pulling out again as over $20 just to park tipped his scale the other way. We'll try that again another weekend when hopefully less is going on!

So then we decided to drive straight up to the Cascade Mountains to Wallace Falls. It's a nice little hike with several large waterfalls. Good thing we had packed a lunch and Gideon's carrier for the aquarium because we were all set to hike!  The nice thing about hiking in WA is that there are lots of trees to shade the trail and the trail was a well-maintained trail of packed dirt covered in pine needles, making it easier to walk on than the UT trails that tend to be covered in rocks and gravel. Another difference is that WA rivers and waterfalls could eat UT rivers and waterfalls for breakfast. Maybe prebreakfast. Wallace Falls alone probably has more water flowing over it than the sum total of every waterfall in UT. Beautiful.

On our way home, we stopped by the Root Beer Store. I've never seen so many different types of root beer!  We had to contact our root beer connoisseur brother-in-law to figure out where to start!  We bought several different types. Luckily, they sell them by the single bottle so you aren't buying 6 packs of each just to try them!  I think one of the greatest values of education is that it teaches you to look twice at things and then analyze them and what they mean to you. What does this tell you about yourself? About life?  The Root Beer Store makes me grateful that I don't have that many options in the regular grocery store. I'm the person that can stand and stare at two different brands who offer the same product for the same price and take 20 minutes to decide which one I want only to change my mind and go back and switch it before checkout (Trevor is a very patient man but even he tires of this quickly). I'm the sort of person who prefers Redbox to Blockbuster or Netflix because in every Redbox there is usually only 2-3 good options to choose from and you just pick the one in the genre you're feeling like. Simple-minded of me?  Perhaps. However, it is who I am and I like who I am.

Pacific Science Center

The past week was a wild adventure. To start, one of Gideon's and my walks we walked so far we could see downtown in the distance. We also saw some interesting flowers!

 Later we went to the park next to a community center and library (Seattle's so big it has a bunch of libraries that operate kind of like redbox, from what I understand).  As we looked for a parking spot, I had to laugh. Most spots were marked "Compact", but that didn't stop this row of 3 minivans, 3 suvs, and a full size car from sqeezing in. In Seattle, you park wherever you can!

Then this weekend we started out at the Pacific Science Center. We had a good time at their outdoor water experiments (like this wheel Trevor is using to move water).

Then we went through their butterfly house. The butterflies were HUGE and very brazen.

Here's one of the indoor experiments seeing which substances slide the fastest on different surfaces.

 As you can see, we also sentenced Gideon and Trevor to the "chair". This chair has a vibrator in the seat and you put down "pads" made of different substances to see how it changes how the vibration feels. Wood, Plastic, foam, turf, and rubber were some options we tried.

After the PSC, we walked down to the Olympic Sculpture Park. Parking isn't very easy or cheap here, so we found a cheap place to park and had to walk everywhere. Good thing we have a stroller!  After the sculpture park, Trevor chose the Hard Rock Cafe for his Father's Day dinner. By the time we were going home, Gideon wasn't the only one a little tired!

On Sunday, I made him breakfast sandwiches, which is one of our favorites. Egg, cheese, and bacon on an English muffin. So much better than the fast food ones when you make it yourself!  Then at church they do Pie for Priesthood here. They had so much pie, not only the priesthood, but the relief society and primary got some with enough to still give the rest to another ward! Ah, I love holidays. So much fun!

Gideon is getting good with his hands, grabbing, dropping, and throwing toys. He is a rollover expert and can sit as long as he has interest. He has slept through the night twice now and hopefully we'll get a lot more of that before he starts teething!

Slept through the night!!!!

He slept through the night!!!!!!!!!!  I feel like a new person. For those of you who aren't parents yet, you don't know what a miracle/gift this is!

Snowqualmie

It must be summer because we had 3 barbecues in 2 days this weekend. They were all a lot of fun and so completely different that we didn't get overloaded. The first was a work get-together from Trevor's team at Amazon. We had ribs at his boss's boss's house.  It was the first date we've had since getting here without Gideon (he was at a babysitters). The funny thing about being out of Utah is that its unusual to be married, might as well with kids. Somebody asked Trevor, "So how OLD are you?"

The second was an Elder's Quorum BBQ. Seattlites are very particular about their food, specifically with a love of organic, local grown food, healthy food, or unique food. As a result, we had drinks I've never heard of and everything you can think of to put on a hamburger at this BBQ. It's a lot of fun.  I really like our ward here.

The third was Trevor's internship mentor invited us over. He lives in Snowqualmie, WA, just outside of Seattle. He's also from BYU and has a wife and 2 kids. It was so nice to talk with someone who knew UT and BYU. Between her young kids (3 year old and 3 month old) and Amazon we had soo much to talk about. Ahhh, you know you're in trouble when talking with adults is a luxury. Or just a mom, one of the two.

Anyway, after the BBQ we went to see Snowqualmie Falls.

 I really enjoyed this trip to Snowqualmie. It revealed to me how much I miss NOT being in a big city. I've never lived in a city this big and oh....to get somewhere with....elbow room.  Oh my. Where you don't have to fear for your life driving around. Where parking is not a problem. I am definitely not a city girl. If I have learned nothing else on this trip it is that. Even where we live outside of downtown, there are too many people here. There's no room to breathe!

So, outside our front door we have some green space. It's nice, but if you put a blanket down it gets covered in pine sap from the trees. My mom suggested using paper bags on the chairs and I modified it to making Gideon a paper bag blanket!  He spit up on it, he crinkled it, he covered it with grass...and then we put it in the recycle bin and didn't have to worry about a thing. I think next time I'll tape a couple together to make a bigger blanket!

 To the side and below are two pics from the same park. Best park ever!!!! It's got water and its got two playgrounds divided up by age appropriate equipment and its FREE!

Carkeek Beach

Right next to our apartment there's a park that goes all the way to the beach at Puget Sound. We went there last night and Gideon got his first beach/"ocean" experience. Water's pretty cold, but we found a dead jellyfish on the beach and we saw several trains go past. I must say, I love Gideon's little sun hat.

Experience Music Project Museum

This last Saturday we went to the EMP, or Experience Music Project Museum. They had exhibits on fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and Jimi Hendrix, and labs we played music in. Here are some pics from it.                                    This is a throne of swords!

  Alien and Princess Bride relics.

And of course, Trevor always loves a good green screen moment with his son. The ball is the Death Star, fyi.

Trevor's showing Gideon how to rock out.

Anyway, fun little museum!