Day 1: Thursday PM. Stopped in for birthday pizza dinner in honor of Aaron and Grandma Jeanne in Scappoose. Drove to hotel in Kelso, near Mt. St. Helens.
Day 2: Friday. We traveled to Mt. St. Helens on the first cloudy day in about 6 weeks. It was still cool to see the destruction, but very limited views of the actual mountain. Bummer. We spent quite a bit of time at the Forest Learning Center (probably the best one for younger kids), and some time at the Johnston Ridge Observatory, too. The movie projector that plays the nice Mt. St. Helens video was broken (another bummer), but we got out and hiked a bit on Johnston Ridge and got some peeks at the peak of the mountain (between the clouds).
In the blast zone
This was the view most of the day...
Here is where the clouds broke up a bit and the peak peeked through for a bit...
Lots of wildflowers blooming - paintbrush, fireweed and lupine, too.
The destruction on the Toutle River
Ben making the seismometer needle jump.
More on Johnston Ridge
There is it! The top!
A great dinner and dessert at Patty's Place
Day 3: Saturday: Mariner's game.
Drove to Seattle from Kelso, stopped at a Mariner's store to get the boys some t-shirts (they both picked Robinson Cano) and then checked into the hotel in Kent, and headed to the Mariner's game. We got there early to make sure we got our Nelson Cruz bobblehead figures, and to watch some batting practice and play a bit at the kids playground in the stadium. We had some pizza, and hung out as the stadium filled in. Mariner's won 5-0 against the Angels, and the game was pretty entertaining. They even closed the roof because it started raining lightly, which was cool to watch. We couldn't even tell there was any precipitation because we were just under the edge of the permanent roof.
Batting practice
Post game
Day 4: Sunday: Ivar's, waterfront, and space needle.
We took the light rail into the waterfront area and had lunch at a great window seat at Ivar's Seafood Restaurant for fish, chips and awesome clam chowder.
The boys (still in their Mariner's shirts) :) at a light rail station.
The Ferris Wheel along the waterfront.
We did a quick walk thru Pike's Place Market, as it was packed. We did watch them throw a fish or two, then proceeded on.
We took the monorail to the Space Needle, arrived about 2:30 and bought our tickets for the 5:00 elevator up. We had to kill about 2 hours at the playground/ walking around. Ben and Eli did the large walking maze, and they both played at the playground.
We got in line about at about 4:30, but were told they were having elevator problems (2 of the 3 elevators were out of service!!), so the line got pretty backed up, and we didn't make it up the top until 6:30. But once we were up there, the boys really enjoyed it! We walked around the observation deck several times, checking out the telescopes, then went inside and grabbed some hotdogs for dinner from the small café inside. There was super fun remote controlled camera shown on a large flat screen TV, that was mounted on the roof of the space needle that you could control with a joystick and a zoom handle. The boys played with this gadget for quite some time (40 minutes??) spying on people in their sailboats in the Puget Sound, watching birds on the roofs of nearby buildings, and trying to follow airplanes as they flew around.
Day 5: Monday. Picnic at Lincoln Park in West Seattle, Ferry ride, drive home.
We grabbed sandwiches and picnicked at a nice park right on the Puget Sound in west Seattle. There was a nice play structure, and miles of beach with perfect sized rocks for little boys to throw in the water. They could have done this for hours. We then caught a ferry ride across the sound, grabbed some ice cream and headed home. We played the license plate game spotting 35/50 states. Eli's priceless comment as I finish listing off the remaining states to be seen, "But mom, we don't have China". Little cutie.
Cool totem right next to the ice cream place
Post Seattle - picking berries
Soccer camp for both boys this year!
They were supposed to take 3 steps, then jump for a header.
