Pike's Place Market

A Seattle trip seems sort of incomplete if you don't stop by the Market at least for an hour or so. 

Azia & Israel...such loving siblings

 

We walked down to the market from the mall, so there were all sorts of distractions along the way. Azia and Israel loved this fountain with a walkway through the falling water.

Lex wasn't quite as big a fan, even though Israel tried to persuade him.

I think it is more the loud noise of the falling water than the actual water that he didn't like. Loud noises are Lex's weakness.

Israel's weakness is people with interests or causes or passions as strong as his. He loves a good argument or discussion or something to think about. I can't even remember what this demonstration was about...other than it appears from this photo it was something about saying "no to the New World order" but Israel had to listen to them, take some literature, and then tell me how wrong they were for the next 15 minutes. It's probably good he's not yet brave enough to engage public protesters directly, but I have a feeling that might change in a few years.  It's strange once again I can't remember any of the details he explained to me about how wrong they were. One of these days Israel's & my interests will actually intersect and we'll have an awful lot to discuss.

Until then, I guess Azia and I will occupy ourselves looking at cool shoes. If I had an extra few hundred dollars I'd definitely have bought some of those with the buckles. Azia found all sorts of things she'd buy as we window shopped our way down to the market.

And I probably shouldn't leave Azia out. Here's her weakness: rich food. She barely made it past the whole shop of cheesecake the first time. When we went by it again, she couldn't resist. And couldn't choose. Once I agreed to buy her something it took her forever to pick among all the flavors.

Lex couldn't resist the strawberries. He wanted them so much, when I finally bought some he ate the entire box. I didn't realize it until I looked down & saw him and the stroller covered in leftover stems and strawberry juice.

Azia spent forever in this animal store trying to decide what to buy. It even seem longer than forever, because by this point Lex had decided he was done shopping and was outside yelling. (Because I wouldn't let him come inside the store and yell.) Israel was also getting impatient because I left him outside with the yelling boy so I could go convince Azia to hurry. And what she finally decided on? A stuffed dog identical to the one she's had for 2-3 years. Of course this new one is soft and clean and without holes or patches. The other one she's been dragging around by self-made leashes, tying to the back of her bike to go for rides, and stuffing it in backpacks to take with her everywhere so he looks a little rough. I wash & bleach it about once a week, but it doesn't come too clean anymore. I noticed this trip Azia had also used some scotch tape to patch up a tear in one paw. Of course even though it was kind of rough looking, she still had it wearing a shiny gold necklace and her silver charm bracelet.

This is one of Azia's (and my) favorite stores. She bought a couple pair of earrings here last year and she thought she should get more, even though she'd spent all of her money by the time she got here.

This is Lex. The screaming seems much calmer when you can only see and not actually hear it. Lex hardly ever acts like this. He's pretty calm and even-tempered for the most part. Recently I've discovered that is largely the case because he almost always gets his way. Usually, he doesn't want anything unreasonable so it's not really a problem and I never notice how much he dislikes not getting his way. Like when he was done shopping and we were still here.

Yes instead of dealing with him I just took a picture and waited for him to calm down. And while I was dealing with this, where was his dad?

Yep. This is what Dev was thinking about at the exact same time: baseball, beer and peanuts. And this was really the exact same time. As I was just downloading all our photos from the trip I dumped them into one folder and had the computer sort them by time taken. The two photos above were taken 23 seconds apart. This is funny to me now because it happened three weeks ago. I bet it wouldn't have been as funny if I would've been aware of it at the time.

And the cute, happy little son of ours he was dealing with.

Maybe Lex was just annoyed because I kept making him look at things like quilts. But I thought this was seriously amazing. Look at how detailed that is!

And we also looked at things like peppers. Probably not that interesting for a two-year-old.

But then we bought more strawberries and the world was right again.

The kids also really liked the hat shop. Even Lex. He wanted a viking hat and he looked so cute in it we almost even bought it.

Dev and Zoran hanging out at the game. Had to include a picture of them, too, even though we weren't with them all day long. They had a good day, too. Zoran is old enough to appreciate good seats I guess. He was pretty excited to sit right by where A-Rod plays! (And he got another ball at this game!)

Once we got back to the hotel Azia had to introduce her new puppy to her old puppy.

She didn't plan to get rid of the old one, but she did tell Lex he could take care of it for her. They both went to sleep with one that night.