Seattle Signs

I saw this cool little sign stuck into the concrete a few blocks from the Market. Looking back through pictures I realized I was obsessed with signs all day Saturday, 

Some of the random signs from around the city:

I like this a lot. I want to keep in on my door at home.

I don't think this is actually a sign, but it was stuck on the front door of the business welcoming people...in place of any other kind of sign.

I may have wanted to do this before.

I also would like one of these signs for my house.

But I'm sure it's okay to take photos of the sign telling you not to take photos.

Yay, none of my kids were engaged in risky or disruptive play! (At least not enough to get kicked out.)

This isn't funny until you actually park there and realize the "cars may be blocked" really is an understatement. They park the cars end to end through the entire parking lot! I really have no idea how they all got out. (Including us!)

I like this too.

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.

Seattle Center

Sunday we wandered around down by the Space Needle and Seattle Center. Zoran and Dev went to another baseball game, so all afternoon I kept stopping to figure out where my missing kid was.

Azia & the whale tale. Aren't these sculpture/ fountain things cool? I wish I had some in my yard. They'd be much more fun for kids to play in than my broken sprinkler.

When I look at this photo, I'm once again relieved Azia decided these comfy white tennis shoes I found in the car as we were getting out went with the outfit she was wearing. The white patent leather heels with silver buckles she had originally escaped the hotel with may have looked cool but I'm sure she would've been barefoot by the time we made it to this fountain. And we still had like five more hours of walking through the city at that point.

 

Azia and Israel checking out some of the sculptures.

I love how there is art all over downtown Seattle. Sculptures and fountains everywhere. Many of them in the touristy areas are huge things like these climbable statues and the animal fountains. After checking out different installations over a couple days, we were walking under the huge orange piece over by the Science Center. Israel just stopped and stared up at it for a few minutes and then said, "Wow, people in Seattle must have a lot of free time." I asked why he thought that and he explained, "They have stuff like this everywhere. There's just art all over the place. People must not have to work very much if they have time to be building all this stuff."

I guess my kids aren't familiar with the idea of "artist" as a real profession or job. Art seems to be something you get to do if you get all your real work done. I offered no commentary on this observation. I still haven't decided whether I'm pleased or bothered by it.

Since we just had one afternoon down at the Space Needle/ Seattle Center area I told the kids they had to pick one of the places to go. It was a tough decision between the Science Center and Experience Music Project (which they also love) but the decided to go with the Science Center.

Lex and Israel in the dinosaur room-- seeing how they match up so some footprints.

The exhibits are almost always interesting and well done (both interactive but also so full of information I never even get to half of it) but one of my favorite parts is the little play area for the tiny kids. This doesn't rotate like the other big exhibits (my kids were sad the "Gross" one from last year wasn't still here!)  but it's just so well designed I always like looking at how things are put together while my kids play here. When someone gives me the millions of dollars to relocate Mission Valley Power from the center of town and build a community center/ school/ park there, the preschool area could be largely modeled on this.

This water table runs the whole perimeter of the area. All sorts of floating boats, measuring things & that cool enclosed box in the upper left for spraying.

There's a whole room for music--everything meant to be explored to see what sort of different sounds different materials and sizes and objects make. (And pretty sound proof from the outside when you shut the door!)

There are little wooden cars and helicopters with working electric things...lights & sirens and such. I didn't think we were ever going to get Lex out of there.

There's also a dress up area, a tree house loft for reading or just hanging out, a computer area and I love the giant pinwheel built from a truck axel. Little kids turn the crank on one end and twirl a huge pinwheel 8 feet above their heads. None of it's fancy but it's all thoughtfully designed & much of it clearly makes the science behind the fun clear. When I build my version the high school science classes will be in charge of designing and building these things as well as coming up with new additions.

That ball is really cool. Israel is just trying to convince Lex that's the case.

Sometimes Lex isn't really very easily convinced.

This is in the little mini-fair / amusement park at the bottom of the Space Needle. Lex thought riding on this little fire engine was much more exciting than riding to the top of the Space Needle. He is obsessed.

We rode the monorail back downtown. Israel had to ride in the front right next to the operator so he could figure out how everything worked. He gave me a full report of facts and discoveries about how the machine was operated. I don't remember any of it now. He probably still does.

Yankees at Safeco

Zoran checking out the game.

One of the main reasons for the hectic, last minute timing of this year's Seattle trip was that the Yankees were in town. All my boys love the Yankees and Safeco is about as close as a "home field" MLB game as we get here in Montana. Not like driving down the street to see a baseball game, but you can still get up in the morning and drive (all day) to catch a night game.

Lex heading into the game. He's prepared with his Cars backpack.

And of course the backpack is stuffed completely full of emergency vehicles.

It's good to be prepared with a backpack of distractions, since the older boys like to go to the game early. Like as-soon-as-the-gate-opens-two-hours early. There is batting practice to watch, balls to catch, players to try to talk to.

Zoran and Dev ready to catch a ball during batting practice.

Zoran was excited about A-Rod...his favorite player. His Mission Yankees jersey was #13 this year, too. He picked it out because it was the same as A-Rod. I'm not the biggest fan, but I did take some pictures for my boy.

But, lucky for Zoran, he was wearing his Joba Chamberlain jersey rather than one of his A-Rod shirts.

During batting practice some of the older kids helped him get Joba's attention and show him Zoran was wearing his jersey. He came over and gave Zoran a ball. Kind of cool. He gave Israel a ball a few years ago when we were here. 

showing off the ball

In our cheap seats up in center/ right field. Our family is too big to buy good seats--at least until Dev or I start making more money or more of our kids are old enough to really appreciate them! But finding front row seats (and preferably near the isle) makes it a little more comfortable and a little less likely to completely annoy everyone around us. Of course there is then the added danger for those sitting below us, but no one was injured this time around. That baseball-sized jawbreaker Lex dropped over the ledge hit squarely in the isle below us...no concussions for other fans or anything.

Lex and Azia were not incredibly excited about the game. Lex was for a few minutes, but he's excited about everything for a few minutes but then he wants to be excited about something new. I suppose that comes with being two. Azia used to like them, but she's now eight and decided as we were getting ready to go that baseball games were kind of long and boring.

They did both like this part of the field--the kids play area. Azia is old enough that she remembered it from last year, so she was asking about it as soon as we got there. We went there for awhile while the other boys were still watching batting practice. One good thing about this place is they sell kids meal really cheap (well comparatively for ballpark food). I was pretty excited when I discovered it last time we were here. I wish I would have known about it from the beginning.

Israel & Dev...watching the Yankees lose. I think we might be bad luck. I'm pretty sure they lost last time we were here, too, and the Mariners aren't even very good.

The game got a little long for Lex and Azia.  They slept through the last few innings! Yet another reason we get the cheap tickets!

Zoran waited till we hit the car... he's too much of a fan to sleep during the game. Lucky for me they were all well rested and ready to go swim once we got back to the hotel. Of course they were annoyed at me when I told them our pool wasn't open at midnight.