Trip to Washington - Seattle

Friday & Saturday, June 17 & 18, 2011

We just before 7:00 in the morning for our trip to Washington. It is not an easy thing trying to pack for a family of 8!! MJ did much better in the car then I was hoping for so that was definitely a plus! We brought stuff in the car to make sandwiches for lunch so we stopped in Oregon at a rest stop and let the kids run around to work off some of their energy. This rest stop was perfect for MJ because she just spent the whole time crawling around on the circle of concrete that the picnic table was on.While at the rest stop one of the kids mentioned that this was MJ's first trip out of the state of Utah! Really?!? After thinking about it for a few minutes we agreed that yes it was her first time out of Utah. We have taken one other family trip since she was born, but that was to St. George and we didn't leave the state during that trip (although we almost took a day trip to a state park in Nevada while we were there).Our first destination was my brother's house just outside of Seattle. We got in around 8:30 that night (after stopping at McDonald's for some dinner during one of our gas fill-up stops). We took my ipad on the trip but I was unable to activate my account for AT&T's cellular service before we left. After driving for a little while we realized that for some reason I am getting free WiFi service. When I check my data plan on the ipad it says that I do not have a current data plan. That ended up being an unexpected plus because I was able to book a hotel room for our first two nights as well as keep in contact with my brother before our arrival.

After saying "hi" to his family we ended up leaving Blondie and Kitty there to spend the night and the rest of us piled back in the car to find and check-in to our hotel. Luke and MJ slept on the floor and the rest of us were on beds. The hotel was just fine for our needs - nothing too spectacular (although now that I think about it the A/C didn't work too well so we were pretty warm most of the night). They had a free continental breakfast which we love. We ate in shifts so that someone could stay in the room with MJ. After that we met back up at my brother's place and then we piled in the cars for a trip to Boeing's Museum of Flight.
It was a busy day at the museum and there were quite a few people around - including these three that looked vaguely familiar. ;)




After exploring the museum for a while we headed out to the cars for a soggy lunch of peanut butter sandwiches and chips. It rained/drizzled pretty much the whole day! After lunch D and his family left to go home for naps and our family went back into the museum to explore some more.
We also happened to be there on the day that Edgar Hansen from the T.V. show Deadliest Catch was there with some members of the Coast Guard. They were doing some type of award presentation followed by a question and answer session. DH and I are big fans of the show so that was kind of neat. :)
The day we were visiting the museum they also had a special exhibit out front of the building where they had some different types of helicopters and safety vehicles that they let people climb into and ask the workers questions about them. We waited until the afternoon when the rain had mostly died down to venture out there.

Before we left the museum we walked over to the exhibit with an older Air Force One plane and one of the Concorde planes. After going through Air Force One the younger kids had had it so I walked them back to the car while DH, M&M and Luke waited in the line to go through the Concorde.

After the museum we headed back to my brother's house and my sister-in-law, K, and I made a trip to Costco to pick up some pizza for dinner and some food for the reunion the next day. After dinner we left M&M and Luke to spend the night and the rest of us went back to the hotel for the night.

The kids enjoyed spending time with my brother's two boys. Kay was especially enthralled with their 3 month old baby. She kept asking where her Baby L was and talking about how cute he was. At one point on Saturday evening she was playing with him and she said, "It's my Baby L! She's sooo cute! She's a boy." We all started laughing because it sounded so funny. She still needs to figure out how those pronouns work!
Apparently M&M was quite a big help over at their house and they were hoping she could stay!! :)