Seattle 2017 - Abridged Version

We were expecting our first trip with Lucas to be to my family reunion at the end of July. But, Steven got a job interview in Seattle, and after thinking about it for a bit we both thought it would be a nice place to live. It was definitely worth the trip to check it out.

Lucas's First Flight

The flight went better than expected. Lucas mostly didn't like standing in line to get off the plane, but during the flight he seemed to be enjoying himself. Note for people trying to fly with kids in diapers, airline changing stations are ridiculously small. Lucas barely fit with his legs up! He's tall, but still only 4 months. 

We had planned to take a taxi from the airport to the hotel, but after we got off the plane Lucas fell asleep while I was wearing him so we opted for the train so he could stay sleeping. It is definitely easier travelling when we don't need to put him in a car.

We met up with an old friend for dinner. He very nicely picked a place near our hotel so that we didn't have to walk very far. After a lovely meal, we ended up walking all around downtown anyway. We almost caught a ferry to Bainbridge Island, but it would have taken too long. Instead we ended the night by finding a fabulous little cupcake shop. I got a strawberry rhubarb cupcake. 

Seattle Selfie

Steven had his interview all day Friday, so Lucas and I the day to see the city. I had two goals. First was to see this yarn art exhibit I read about at the Seattle Center. Second was to eat a crumpet. 

We took the Monorail from near our hotel to Seattle Center. The doors were loud, but other than that Lucas enjoyed the ride. It took me awhile to find the Yarn Art, not a good sign. Turns out it was yarn tied from a tree to a fence. It was supposed to be some sort of calendar? 

The yarn things turned out to not be worth it, but thanks to a well timed nap I went to the Chihuly glass museum. I took a lot of pictures, there were so many interesting sculptures. I also got to look at the Space Needle. One of these days I'm going up in it. 

Goal two of the day was getting a crumpet. Observe below, crumpet. It was delicious. I also went to the yarn store that is on the same block. I got yarn to make Lucas a penguin hat for winter. It came with the penguin to put on the top.

I wandered around Pike Place Market for a bit, got some fancy cheese, and then tried to find a cute baby clothing store. Supposedly it was right there. Near as I could tell someone decided to build Pike Place on the side of a cliff and not think about how tired people are going to get to their stores. There was no elevator I could find to get to this store and I certainly wasn't walking down and back up 6+ flights of stairs for a store of unknown coolness. 

All this I managed to do before 2. This is what happens when you get up early, you end up tired before the day is half over. I went back to the hotel to wait for Steven to be done with his interview. He got back in time for us to try and catch the ferry. Of course this was a long walk to get there and no buses seemed to be helping the situtation. We rushed and made it in time to stand in line waiting for everyone who was arriving to get off. 

In theory this was a good plan. Hop on the ferry, walk over to the yarn store, come back. It was a lot further than I expected, most likely since I was tired from having walked all day already. Steven was fine. The yarn store is a combination tea and yarn shop, which I personally think is a fabulous idea. I really didn't need any more yarn, but I found some very adorable buttons. Hopefully I will finish the project they go to before Lucas grows out of it. Walking back the food options were not nearly as desirable as expected. The place we thought looked most promising turned out to not even have food, so we had to backtrack for pizza and get something better once back in Seattle.

Better turned out to be a little fish n chips place near the ferry dock. This place apparently encourages the feeding of seagulls. The staff brought out some old food for them and they were very skilled at catching it. Not sure how good of an idea this is, but there is a sign.

The next day we had planned to rent a car to go explore potential neighborhoods. We didn't count on all the cars from every rental place being gone, so that didn't happen. We decided to be tourists instead. First we met up with my cousin Michelle. Lucas was wearing his new sunglasses. It's a good look on him. 

Our next stop was Pioneer Square. The stop off the Link was not the nicest, we left there very quickly. There was a surprising lack of restaurants that we wanted to go to. Everything that seemed to have decent food, but be casual enough to have a baby at was full and loud. I blame sports. There was some sort of sports thing going on. 

I had read about a "giant" chess board in Pioneer Square. I took a picture of it. I didn't zoom. I probably needed to for it to be visible... Also it was fabric. So basically it was a little blanket. Santana Row wins this one and they don't call it a "feature". For the second time we decided not to do the underground tour. We did get closer. The entrance is right behind me in the picture below.  We also found a toy store with a great collection of baby toys. Lucas decided (he actually did, by grabbing it) on getting a Whozit. It is a blanket, a rattle, a teether, and it hangs off things. 

By the end of two days of walking I was done walking. I had a coupon for Lyft, we made good use of it. We had a nice dinner at a seafood restaurant. It turned out to be near my friend's house, but at the time I didn't know where she lived. Afterwards we went to the best bookstore ever. I liked it even more that Powell's. It isn't as overwhelmingly huge as Powell's, but the selection was like they read my mind. I think I could have happily purchased half the books in there. Definitely a selling point for living in Seattle.

Another selling point for Seattle was this Molten cake place. An entire place devoted to making delicious Molten Cakes. The Bay Area needs this. 

Lucas takes up a lot of room for being so tiny! 

The next morning we had a lovely brunch with another old friend. She encouraged us to take Lyft and walk around the neighborhood we were most likely considering if we moved. It was a great idea. I think more than anything else this made me want to live in Seattle. The community is centered around a Lake and has a beautiful park. There were so many families outside enjoying the nature. The lake even had a roped off area for swimming with a diving board and everything. I may have to come back just for that. 

San Jose parks are not this beautiful.