Sleepless in Seattle

(Beware: this is the never ending post)
We went to Seattle for our family vacation over the Spring and Summer semester break.

It was a very fun and very needed break.

We left Sunday morning and flew into Seattle by 10am on Easter.

It was Leilani's first flight and she did amazing.

We had reservations and car rentals all set up but no one was at the counter for our car rental so we went to the next desk over and they said they would get us into a better car for the same price.

Sure, why not!

Ya, same price my bum!

They took our original registration sheet and I couldn't remember what we had paid for the first place, but this "new" place charged us $100 more than the other place did and we didn't find that out until after we got home.

Oh well.  Bummer!

We drove to our hotel but couldn't check in until 3pm.

Who checks in at 3pm?

So we drove to the temple and walked around the grounds.

When we got to the hotel and they sent us up to our room, we walked in to the vanity of the bathroom right behind the door and two queen sized beds squished together with about a foot of leg room in between.  It was the smallest hotel room I had ever seen.  We had called and requested a refrigerator for Leilani's milk and our food for lunches but that had apparently bumped us to a smaller room.  I hiked back downstairs and told them there must have been a mistake because we still needed a crib.  The girl at the counter said, "Ya no problem.  We'll bring it up whenever you're ready."  I said, "Sure, that's great.  I just have no idea where you're going to put it."  She looked at me for a second and then changed us to a normal sized room.  Frew!  

I tell you this because Targhee was so ticked off by our dollhouse sized room he would say, "remember how they put us in that crappy room" every time we walked by the door.  So I had to write it down so I would remember. 

We ordered in Pizza that night.  Mmmm.

I was a little worried about Leilani sleeping in the hotel with us in the room with her.  She takes a nap in the afternoon and goes to bed around 7:30 or 8, so what were we going to do while she was supposed to be sleeping?

My solution...

Ta Da!  Leilani's own bedroom:)

It actually worked perfectly and there was no sleepless in Seattle on our trip!

We would put her to bed and shut the curtain and then wait silently for a few minutes until she fell asleep.  Usually she was so exhausted by the end of the day that it only took her a minute or two.

Then, we would sneak out of the room and head down to the fitness room (where we were sure nobody would be coming in:) or the hot tub and I would read "Breaking Dawn" to Targhee. 

Yes, I said Breaking Dawn, the last book of Twilight.  Targhee's totally hooked:)

Monday morning we went down to breakfast to find sausage and eggs and biscuits and gravy and blueberry waffles.  Pretty much anything you could ever want in a breakfast.  Targhee was in heaven.  When something would happen with the hotel that we were not very impressed with, (like testing the alarm system every 15 minutes during Leilani's nap..ya so not cool) Targhee would say, "BUT... it has a great breakfast!" which made up for everything else.

We bought a City Pass (which by the way is the ONLY way to go if you've never been to a city and want to see the main attractions.  Everything was half the price than if we would have bought the tickets at the door and we didn't have to wait in any lines.  I highly recommend it.)

We started our trip at the Zoo because we wanted Leilani to be excited about our vacation.  I kept asking her if she wanted to go so the animals.  She would get a big smile on her face and say, "Manimoos!"  Very cute!

It was rainy, but what do you expect?  It's Seattle.

We hardly saw a fourth of the Zoo before it was time to head back for Leilani's nap.

Well, the Zoo was huge and I can never tell which direction I'm going outside of Utah so we got lost and wondered around for an extra 30 minutes or so just trying to find our way out.

Leilani finally passed out on Dad's shoulder, which shows just how tired she was because she NEVER does this!

We finally got out, Leilani took her nap, and then we were back to the Zoo again.  I'm glad we went back because the rain stopped and the manimoos started coming out a lot more.

Targhee and Leilani's faces looking at the alligators in their glassless cage.  Scary!

We went to Red Robin just on the board walk next to the bay for dinner that night.

It was yummy and had a fun view of the bay from our window.

This was the view from our hotel.

Tuesday we walked over the the city center where the Space needle is and such.

Apparently Seattle is a night city because nothing opened until 10am and when your daughter wakes up at 6:30am that makes for a very long morning. So we walked around the deserted city center for an hour until we could get into any of the buildings.

We finally were able to get into the Science Museum which was a pretty cool museum.  Honestly, we only saw a tiny part of it because Leilani was having so much fun seeing, touching, and playing with everything.

Our citypass included an IMAX movie about saving the elephants and chimpanzese but it was in 3D and Leilani only wore her glasses for this long

She was still good though.  As long as we had snacks she was happy:)

Then we went up to the top of the Space Needle and it wasn't even raining so that was an added plus.

See that hotel...ya ours is the ghetto one next to it:)

We had to have an ice cream sunday at the top of the space needle.  What would a building 500ft in the air be without ice cream?

We also went to the Experience Music Museum, which to us was kind of lame, but I'm not really into the first guitar used by some rock band I've never heard of, so I guess if you're into that kind of stuff then it could be cool.  There was also a galactica space museum mixed in with the rock and roll stuff which I also found a little odd.  So ya... 

The building looked cool though.  That's how they suck you in.

That night we found a cute little Italian nook in the city.  We were the only customers which normally might give you a heads up about the food, but it was actually very good and just a fun quaint little place.  Our waiter was even Italian.  That never happens at the Olive Garden.

That night we went swimming at our hotel.  Leilani loved splashing in the water.  She didn't even complain about having to wear the life jacket.  (Dad's a little protective of his baby girl:)

Wednesday we went to the Aqarium just on one of the Piers of the Bay.

I know you can't see them, but this is a huge fish tank and there were scuba divers swimming around.

We went to Pikes Place Market which apparently is a must see of the city.  I just felt like I was walking around one of the markets in China because everything they were selling just looked like cheap China crap to me.  But it was still fun to walk around.  They used to throw the fish to each other like in the movies but my sister said that there were too many complaints from the public about getting hit by the fish so they had to stop.  LOL 

Our last stop was a Harbor Cruise.  They took us out on a boat and we toured the harbor while they gave us some history and info about the city.

Our plane left Thursday morning at 7:30am.  We made sure we left in plenty of time.  We went through security with no problems and started heading to our terminal.  I stopped to go to the bathroom and we I came out I asked Targhee where our bag was.  We both stared at each other and then realized we had left it at security.  Targhee ran back and told us to go on to the terminal.  We had to take several escalators and trains to get to the terminal but when we got there, no one was there.  I looked at the sign and it said our flight was on time.  So I just sat down a waited for Targhee and kept watching to see if it would tell us when to board.  When Targhee got back it was 7:20 and I still hadn't heard anything.  There was one other couple sitting there with us and the lady at the desk called them up and said it looked like they might have a seat for them.  A little confused I walked up to the boarding desk and they said, "Are you the Coles?"  "Yes"  "We were just about to give your seats away."  What??!!  We had been sitting right there and almost missed our flight!  How ridiculous!  I would have been so upset if we had missed it.  I still don't understand why there was no announcement for "one last call" or anything, but we made it.  I felt kinda bad that they had to send that couple back up the terminal, but I was not giving our seats away!  I guess the up side is that we didn't have to sit in the plane for an hour waiting for it to leave the gate:)

It was a great trip.  It was fun to go as a little family.  Having children with you brings a whole different dynamic to a vacation.  It wasn't your sleep in late, relax type of vacation.  We were up at 6:30 every morning and I was always worried about keeping Leilani fed, changed, rested, and entertained, but it was very fun and I wouldn't have changed one thing.