We walked through the gardens to head over to the Locks first. These locks were made on the waterway that connects Puget Sound to Lake Washington. They're designed to help keep the salt and fresh water separated and then to help transition boats between the 2 bodies of water. On the way to the water, the kids saw these hills, and of course decided they had to run up them and then run/roll back down.
Taylor went up and down a billion times. I figured she'd definitely get some good rest tonight!
Payden would crawl up and then either scoot down backwards on her tummy, which is how I teach them to go downstairs, or she'd scoot on her bum. It was funny to watch because it didn't work too well, but apparently she was having a blast.
Shelby had fun too, but definitely was not as fast at doing it as Taylor.
After letting the kids play around for a bit, we decided to head over to the Locks.
Earlier in our outings, Payden decided that Jeremy was going to be her good friend. I finally was able to snap a picture of them together. She's funny because she does this a lot. At home, she loves being with our friend Joel. On this trip, she loved being with Jeremy. Most times if she couldn't have Mom, she'd run over to Jeremy to have him hold her.
When we got to the Locks, we crossed over the first lock to be on the other side to watch. We came at the perfect time because they were tying up the boats in preparation to drain the water.
Then all of sudden all this water started spraying out and swirling around outside of the closed lock.
We watched as the water inside the closed lock slowly started to drain. Taylor decided that she was going to climb up on the fence to watch. I wasn't too excited about it, but figured if it kept her in one spot it was better than trying to keep her from running around. I was afraid though that she was going to lose one of her shoes as the water was just right in front of us. Fortunately, she didn't.
After a few minutes, the water level in the lock had dropped enough. I was surprised at how much water they had to drain out of the lock.
We then watched as they opened the doors, and the boats were let out one by one. Shelby by this point had decided to climb up and sit on the fence like Taylor to watch.
Of course, Payden cannot be left out . . . if Shelby and Taylor are doing it, then she HAS to do it too.
They're actually 2 locks - a big one and a smaller one. We crossed over the smaller one and headed over the dam that spanned across the rest of the waterway to get to the other side where they had a fish ladder built and an underwater viewing area to watch the fish climb up and down the ladder as they passed between the Sound and Lake Washington.
Once on the other side of the waterway, there was this wave artwork. It looked pretty cool and the girls had a fun time playing in it.
Finally, we headed down to the viewing area below the water to see the fish. I thought this looked too cute. I'll have to say, one of the nice things about vacationing with Tom's sister and her family was that there were 4 others to help with our girls. It was sooooo nice. Thanks Cyn, Jeremy, Madison, and Ryan!!!!
We were able to see quite a few fish. The kids loved watching for them. Because her green jacket had done so well at attracting butterflies the day before, Shelby kept insisting that the fish were attracted to her blue shirt today. It was too funny. Definitely some good thinking on her part.
On the way back across the waterway, there were boats going the other way through the lock, so we got to see them fill the lock up with water this time. It was cool seeing this fire department boat. I'd never seen one before.
Unfortunately, there was a bit of an accident. Shelby had climbed up on the fence again to watch. Tom was trying to instruct her on how to get down on her own, but she went a little too fast and ended up biting her tongue pretty badly. It didn't bleed too badly, but at times you could see this big huge chunk sticking up unnaturally. Tom thought we might possibly have to go get it stitched up, but we kept an eye on it, and it ended up healing normally. There was a mother there with a girl about Shelby's age who came and asked about what had happened. She then immediately turned to her daughter and said, "See what happened to her. That's why I told you that you couldn't climb on the fence. You could get hurt." The weird thing is she said this right in front of us, and it kind of felt like she was chastising us for letting our daughter climb on the fence.
Of course on the way back we had to play on the hill again. You can see how close the hill is to the locks. Only this time when the kids played, Shelby refused to join in. Between the hurt tongue and the far-from-normal sleep schedule, Shelby was a bit sensitive and overdramatic today, and it took her awhile to decide that she could be happy again.
This time on the way back we looked a little bit at the Botanical Gardens. There was a wedding being held on the grounds. It really would be a beautiful place to take pictures for a wedding.
I think this is about the only picture we took of Tom today. In all of our sight-seeing, he spent a lot of time carrying kids on his shoulders. Taylor looks really comfy at this moment. She would be so dramatic when she asked; it was funny. "Dad, I'm just TOOOO tired. I can't walk." You could tell she was playing it up a bit.
After the locks we went and got stuff to do a BBQ at our hotel. We swam for a bit, and then we BBQed hamburgers and hot dogs using the hotel's grill. This was Cynthia and Jeremy's last night with us, so we decided to take the rest of the day easy and let them head off to bed early for their LONG trip back to Utah the next day. We really had a lot of fun vacationing with them and were glad they tagged along with us.
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