Summer Part VII: Father's Day with the Calls

With Cynthia, Jeremy, Madison, and Ryan gone, today started off very quietly. We were so used to having them with us that it was very, very quiet as we sat around the hotel for the morning. Then Tom arranged for us to go down to the Tacoma area to visit one of his mission buds, Tyler, and Tyler's family.

We had such a good visit with them. It was also nice that our kids matched up well age-wise. Shelby and their oldest Ethan are just a few months apart and hit it off really well. It was fun to listen to some of their conversations. The second children, Taylor and Ellie, were also only a few months apart. The two of them cracked me up because they have really similar personalities.

We sat around and talked while the kids played for a bit. Then we headed off to a local walking trail. It was absolutely beautiful. The weather was perfect, and the walking trail went parrallel to Puget Sound. There were beautiful views everywhere. We had such a good time. The kids enjoyed all of the dogs. Every time someone came near us with a dog, the kids just went nuts. They had so much fun petting each and every dog that we came by, except for the occasional not-kid-friendly dogs.



Here's Tyler and Tom.



Here's the whole gang minus Laura, who was snapping the picture.

Thanks Calls for letting us come crash your Father's Day. We had such a good time with y'all!!!!!! Hopefully we'll be back again next year . . . permanently. (While visiting them, we discovered that we really loved the area where they live. Hopefully, we can find a practice nearby for Tom to buy next year when he graduates.)



On our way home I tried to snap a few pictures of Mt. Rainier, but always seemed to get something else in the picture, so this was the best I could do. It was just amazing to look at.



Poor Payden hadn't had a nap and ended up crashing on the way back to the hotel. She really handled our crazy schedule well.

Summer Part VI: Chittenden Locks

On Saturday morning, we headed out to the Chittenden Locks & Botanical Gardens (I guess locally they're called the Ballard Locks). The sun was supposed to be out all day today, so for once we decided not to bring jackets. Well it was still a bit cool, but we made it alright, and the sun did come out to warm us up eventually.

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.

Summer Part V: Pacific Science Center

On Friday we headed out to the Pacific Science Center. It's located in Seattle Center, so we got to walk by the Space Needle; we decided we'd not go up the Needle, but rather save it for another time. I'd looked the Pacific Science Center up online beforehand and realized that we could definitely spend all day here.

First we headed to the dinosaur exhibit. There were about 10 robotic dinosaurs set up along with other things. Taylor was in heaven. She LOVES dinosaurs.



The girls all had to play with this robot at the same time; fortunately, there were 3 buttons to push to move it, so they each got one to push. Taylor and Payden didn't want to leave this.



I finally convinced them to get down so I could take a picture of them in front of Taylor's FAVORITE dinosaur . . . Parasaurolophus.



I was only able to get one more picture of the three of them before Shelby went off with Tom, Jeremy, Madison, and Ryan to watch a demonstration on combustion. Taylor and Payden would NOT leave the dinosaur area, but I figured it'd be easier for them to stay than try to get them to sit through the demonstration.



One thing I learned about Taylor was that she's got no boundaries when it comes to strangers. She wanted to watch this movie and had no problems sitting by the bunch of strange kids who were initially sitting there. Later on, she would just squeeze in between a bunch of strange people so she could look at a display. They would look down at her like, "Who is this kid?" Ah . . . that's our Taylor. She also had no problem doing her own thing. Shelby would stick around with someone else, but Taylor was often by herself (being trailed by me of course).



Payden felt like this dinosaur footprint was hers. She tried to swat away another toddler who wanted to sit in it. At another point, a group of older kids came and sat down in it. She just sat there, frozen and looking down with this funny face that seemed to say, "What are those kids doing here? They need to get off of this now. Don't they know this is mine." She really would not leave this footprint. At least it was easy to keep track of her. For some reason though, she felt like she needed to take off her shoes and socks while she was sitting in it. I'm sure that part of the problem is she's not used to wearing socks, but I can't count the number of times I had to get her to put them back on.

After the combustion demonstration was over we headed to the next area, which was a space area.



Of course, Taylor, Payden, and I trailed after everyone else because I had a hard time prying them away from the dinosaur area. Taylor saw her cousin Ryan in this space capsule and decided to join him, so of course Payden had to follow suit.



We found this scale that you could stand on to find out how much you way on the different planets in the solar system. Shelby tried it first.



Then Taylor followed. We tried to get Payden to stand on the scale as well, but she just prefered exploring the base of the weight display area. I even tried to pick her up and do it, but she threw such a huge fit I decided it wasn't worth it.

We then had to leave this area to go stand in line to watch the IMAX show that we got to see for free with our tickets. We watched Shackleton's Antartic Adventure, which was about 28 men who tried to be the first to cross Antartica, but ended up getting stuck when their ship got packed in by ice and eventually crushed. They spent 2 years stuck in Antartica, but in the end all 28 men made it home alive. It was a really good story; unfortunately, Taylor and Shelby got bored pretty quickly . . . again, amen to snacks to help get them through it. Payden fell asleep, which was nice.

After the movie and a bite of lunch, we headed back to the next area, which was about Puget Sound.



Here Shelby got to touch shells and rocks and look at animals native to Puget Sound. There was also a display that showed how the current flows through the Sound and some other displays. They also had a kiddie area over here that Taylor and Payden enjoyed. It involved water, so of course we left the area a bit wet.



We then headed to the insect section, which included a butterfly atrium. We got to see some nasty bugs, including an assortment of live roaches. Ugh!! I hate roaches!!!! These were especially big and nasty. There was also a place where you could look and see how a bug sees you, 3D insect puzzles to do, and all sorts of stuff. After exploring the insect place for a bit, we headed to the butterfly area. It was a seperate area where the butterflies were flying all around you. Shelby eventually had one land on her, which she just thought was too cool. By the end, she'd had 3 butterflies land on her. The cool thing was that 2 of the butterflies that landed on her was the exact same butterfly the girls had learned about from the Nick Jr. show Go Diego Go - the blue morpho butterfly. We decided that the color of clothing must have helped to get a butterfly land on you because of the 4 people in our group who had a butterfly land on them, 3 were wearing green.



Taylor finally had one land on her. I couldn't tell if she was excited or scared to death of it, but she definitely liked being one of the ones to have had a butterfly land on her.



As we were leaving the area, Tom finally decided to take a picture of Payden's chubby little hand with the star that got stamped on it for reentry into the Center. The entire time we were at the Pacific Science Center she would just randomly come up to us, ask to look at our hand, and then say, "Star" "Mama's star" "Payden's." She LOVED those stamps and couldn't get enough of them.



The next area we decided to go to was about speed. It was definitely for a bit older crowd than Payden, but we found this, and she fell in love with it. It was this HUGE wheel that you turned 180 degrees, which turned the 3 tubes upside down. There was an object in each of the tubes that would fall down at different speeds because of the different kinds of liquid in each tube.



The green liquid was the slowest. I swear it took 3 minutes for that object to finally float down, but Payden sat and waited every time. The others were too fast for her to point to, but she loved waiting for the slow one to fall enough for her to touch it.



Meanwhile, Taylor was sitting at this area where you'd place objects, take a picture, move them slightly, take a picture, and repeat. Then you could play the pictures back in order like a movie (similar to doing a flip book). It was fun to do. I helped her at first and then left her to try it on her own. Later, I saw Tom over there later "helping" her do it. I could hear her asking him to let her do it. It was funny. Tom loves stuff like this.



Meanwhile, Payden was still over at this wheel thingy. I swear we were there for at least 30 minutes. We flipped it over and over and over again, and amazingly she never got bored of it. Maybe I should make something like this to keep her entertained during church. Other than TV or movies (she's a natural couch potato), I don't think I've ever seen her keep her attention on something for so long. This time around she sat down to wait, which I thought was toooo cute.



Shelby found this display where she got to make a sound movie, as she describes it. They would prompt her on what sounds to make, and then she would play the movie and it would have the sounds she'd recorded as part of the movie's sounds.



There were all sorts of other displays dealing with speed. This one involved some sort of driving. Shelby did one that involved a race between 2 cars. Finally, it was time to leave as the Center was closing.

It was a fun place to go, and in the end we still had TONS of exhibits that we weren't able to go to. You really could spend days in there trying to see everything. It was nice to mix fun with educational, too. What a great way to spend a day!

Summer Part IV: Seattle Aquarium and Argosy Harbor Tour

We decided to purchase the Seattle CityPass. It gives you tickets to 5 of Seattle's top attractions for a really, really good price. I think if you totalled the 5 ticket prices we saved almost 50% by purchasing this pass (apparently other big cities have these so it's a good thing to check out).

First we headed to Seattle Aquarium. It's right on one of the piers on the waterfront. There were tons of tanks filled with fish and other water life. The girls got to touch sea anemone, sea urchins, and starfish in tide pools. They also had a part where we were actually under Puget Sound viewing the wildlife. There were sea otters, river otters, sea lions, and some other of the bigger ocean animals. There were so many exhibits and so many interesting things to see that we stayed until it closed; I think we were even the last visitors out of the building.

We did leave the Aquarium for about an hour and a half to take a boat tour of Seattle. There was a tour guide telling lots of facts about Seattle and the Puget Sound. It was interesting, but unfortunately the girls were a bit bored, so I didn't really get to pay attention much. Plus being on a boat in the ocean made me just the slight bit nervous, especially about Taylor and Payden. They were both hard to contain (amen to snacks . . . they helped a little). At one point Taylor, even went to the front and laid on the floor directly behind the tour guide. It was weird, but I figured as long as she was quietly laying there in the middle of the boat and not causing any problems, then I wasn't going to embarrass myself by trying to get her.



Here we are at the beginning of the tour. No bored looks yet, and we're all together . . . at this point.



Space Needle in Seattle Center. You can also see how close the trains run next to the waterfront as well as one of a couple of parks that runs along the waterfront.



One of the hundreds of islands in the Puget Sound. This one was directly west of downtown Seattle.



One of MANY marinas. There were so many boats.



Downtown Seattle and the commercial side of the waterfront.



Industrial side of the waterfront.



These are the loaders. There were a lot of them, but oddly enough we never saw one of them in use.



Here's our boat . . . the Spirit of Seattle.

It was an educational day for sure, and I was really proud at how well the girls handled all the walking around as well as the hour long boat ride.