Seattle Trip- International District

Chad and I went on a trip to Seattle, Washington! With no kids! For five days! Can you believe it?! I could hardly believe it either. This trip was a lot of "firsts" for me. Such as, our first trip together away from the girls. Even though I knew the girls were going to be more than fine at my mom's house, I was pretty nervous. But once you have gotten plane tickets and started making reservations, you kind of just have to go!

I know that Seattle, WA might not conjure up thoughts of a romantic destination. But our vacation criteria were: not hot (like San Antonio), not flat and brown (ditto), want to go whale watching, and can get there using our frequent flyer miles. Seattle fit the bill and we started planning. We were so lucky to spend our first night with our new friends Allie and Toby, who we had never actually met before showing up at their house! (Thanks Jordan for putting us in touch, and thanks Allie for putting up with us!) Allie is a Seattle native and knew right where to take us. Our first stop was the Experience Music Project, or EMP, a cool sort-of-museum where you can not only learn more than you ever thought possible about Jimi Hendrix, but also learn how to play a little guitar (or bass or drums). Sorry, no pictures from inside the EMP.
Then we went to the International District (like a more diverse Chinatown) for some very good Japanese food and a little shopping at Uwajimaya, a Japanese grocery store. It was fun to see a lot of foods that we hadn't seen since we lived in Japan, and to buy some candy that we have missed!

Yes, I am wearing a long-sleeve shirt and a fleece jacket. In June.


The gate into the International District, with the King St. station tower behind it.

Danger! There's a dragon on the lamppost!

It was a short but great first day in Seattle. Keeping busy helped me not worry about Abbey and Elliott (talking to them for a few minutes on the webcam helped too!). It was SO NICE just to enjoy seeing a new place and having some adult conversation without worrying about anything kid-related.

A "it's funny now" story about our first night- we had to wake up early the next morning to head on to the next part of our adventure, so I set the alarm on Chad's iPod for 6:00 AM. When it went off, I got right up and started to get ready. Then Chad said, "It's only 4:00 in the morning!" I had assumed the iPod changed time zones automatically... it didn't... whoops. So we sort of slept for a couple more hours, then headed north. Where exactly did we go? Stay tuned to find out!