Seattle... or We Finally Get a Day Without Driving!

After surving two hellish days on the road (the second being so arduous Chris and I both felt the need to post about it), we finally got down to some fun. Seattle for us is the city of old college friends so we started the day with my dear friend Mary showing us the sights. We visited the ever-popular Pikes Market and got to see one fish being thrown about, bought two pounds of local cherries and generally ran everyone down with the double stroller. The girls found an enormous piggy bank by the fish stall and hopped on for a picture.
We then ambled over to the Seattle Center, where they chose to ride the carousel instead of the Space Needle. Good choice, since I wasn't about to go up there, but didn't want to tell them I'm afraid of heights. Frankie, however, was not at all pleased that her daddy forgot to buy her a ticket and left her to watch.

Then we went to the children's museum and let the girls run around in bliss for a bit. Their favorite part was a really neat exhibit that had houses, stores and transportation from Ghana, the Phillipines and Japan. They used scaled down versions of things to make it child-sized yet realistic. Very cool.
Then we left Mary for a bit and met up with Chris' old college friend Mark Barbieri. We sat in the hotel lobby and the guys had a drink, Julia had her first "Shirley Temple" and the little ones napped. Amazingly, the only disturbance we created was when I knocked the glass bowl full of pebbles off it's stand and sent everything flying.
Then we hopped in the car to meet up with Mary and her husband Norm and see their 1920's house they're in the process of remodeling. They are doing an beautiful job and it's going to be a great house when they're fininshed. The girls were so happy to meet their dog, Cora, and poked all around the house looking for the cat but never found him. The girls are funny they way they walk into a strange house and immediately search it from top to bottom as though there's some fabulous thing hidden away somewhere. We practially had to drag Julia out of Mary and Norm's closet she was taking such a thorough tour.
there are two girls hidden in this picture!
We had a wonderful dinner with them and stayed out too late, considering we had to pack to catch an early ferry the next day, but it was worth it.