Seattle

I have lived in this town my whole life, only a 2 or so hour trip from Seattle. Yet, I had never (to my knowledge) been there. On the weekend of July 21st, my husband, my dad and I took a trip there with my 2 year old daughter.
This morning, as I was folding laundry, I realized just how much I have neglected my blog. So I decided that this would be the perfect topic to "revive" it. =)
We started off planning weeks before with my husband telling me about the guys who throw fish in the market. I didn't have any idea of how big they were, but my husband swore that it was one of the best sights to see in Seattle. So, I "Googled" it. I found this video that just amazed me! And I have to admit, I loved watching them chase the woman with the octopus.

Then we planned out the rest of our trip. We obviously HAD to go to the Space Needle. I have only seen pictures of it before, and wanted to see it with my own eyes. The next step was deciding if we were going to the aquarium or the zoo. I wanted to do both, but Hubby said there wouldn't be enough time to do both in our one day stay. We also wanted to see King Tut at the Pacific Science Center, but decided that since he is there until January, we should hold off.
After much online searching, we decided the aquarium would be better as it was indoors and the weather is unpredictable there.

Now, the waiting began. I waited....
                              And waited.......
                                                And waited.............
And a week before our scheduled trip, our main drain out of the house clogged and we had to call Roto Rooter out to unclog it. I was slowly seeing my dream trip fade.
Luckily, we were still able to afford to go. =) And we were able to invite my dad to go with us, and he graciously accepted.

All year, my dad has been talking about driving up to Snoqualamie Falls. Looking on Google Maps, I discovered that the falls were only 30 minutes outside of Seattle! So we decided we would stop there too!

The morning of our trip, I was exhausted. The night before I was like a kid waiting up for Santa on Christmas Eve; too excited to sleep. My doorbell wakes me up and it's my dad. 7:30 AM!  (we had decided to leave no later than 9 AM.) Apparently he had been up since 5:30 and ready to go. (love my dad!)

We get on the road, and just before Ellensburg, I go to snap a few pictures of the beautiful mountains, only to realize I had grabbed my camera, charged it, remembered to put the battery back in BUT forgot my SD chip. DETOUR to Fred Meyer in Ellensburg to get a new one. (this now makes 7 SD cards for me)

Okay so back on the road, I was able to get some beautiful shots of scenery I had not seen for many many years (lots of road trips with my Grandma to see her sister in Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island).

Before I knew it, we had reached Snoqulamie Falls. It was every bit as beautiful as I remember. This time, I had my princess with me. I only wish that we had the whole family there with us.

After stopping at the gift shop, and my dad getting me a squished penny and me getting an umbrella, we were back on the road. Once again, before I knew it, we were seeing towering buildings (taller than anything here) everywhere! I instantly went into "tourist" mode and started taking pictures of everything. Don't worry, you don't have to see them, just the really good ones. =)

We followed our GPS to Pike Place Market...unfortunately, it took us right to it and we had to drive through the crowds of people everywhere! 30 minutes later, we are out of the market and looking for a place to park. We finally find a parking garage (I was shocked to see that you had to pay to park somewhere, again...not like that at home.
Then we snapped a few pictures of the street signs so we would know where we parked and were on our way back to the market. (keep in mind, I am 8 months pregnant at this point)

We walked to the market and the first thing I see is the fish throwing guys! I was stoked!!!! (sorry for the term, but there was no other way to describe what I was feeling)

We had everything we needed. My husband was pushing my daughter in her stroller, and I was armed with my camera, ready to video these guys throwing fish!
Wouldn't you know it, just my luck, there were more people standing around watching and waiting for them to throw fish and no one was ordering any for them to throw.
We decided to wander around for a few minutes and see if anything changed.
Not only did nothing change, but it was way too crowded for us to push around a stroller. So our first stop was a bust. We walked through the same area we had just (very stupidly I might add) drove through. and kept walking. We ended up at the Bell St. Pier.

There was a very large (cruise, I think) ship waiting for its passengers to board. This is the largest ship I have ever seen!

We crossed the train tracks and the Alaskan Way Viaduct and found the elevators that would bring us down to the sidewalk to go to the aquarium. Mind you, I am still in tourist mode and taking pictures of everything. These buildings caught my eye.

My husband says (in a very odd tone that can only remind me of something I must have heard on "I love Lucy") "Oh Alishia, what is this?" I turn around to see the Space Needle sticking up behind some other buildings behind me. I am only wondering how I could have been so impressed with other buildings and not seen this!

There it is. Painted it's original color in celebration of 50 years standing! However, excited as I was, we had to go to the aquarium first.
We made our way down the sidewalk and once we hit the aquarium, we realized we were hungry. Luckily, there were several restaurants right next door. We found a place (I can't remember the name of it, but it was on the third floor) and had some amazing non sea food burgers. We were pretty shocked at 7 dollars a meal, but none of us could finish one.
While we were eating, we had an unexpected visitor. 

After fighting the urge to not obey the signs to not feed the sea gulls we were back on our way to the aquarium.






The price was, at first thought, pretty steep. At $20.00 a person, I thought it wasn't going to be what we expected. I was dead wrong.

Touch Pool- We got to touch starfish!

 My daughter had her heart set on seeing an octopus, However it was hiding in the rocks. This was the best shot I could get of it.

Jellyfish!!

This fish is what I would call an "attention whore". (sorry, bad term again) Every time I went to take a picture, this fish would pop up out of nowhere and get in the shot somehow. 

I think they are Seals, not Sea Otters.

 

By the time we were done seeing the "fishies", we took off (on foot) for the Space Needle. I swear, it was like we were walking in San Fransisco with all of the hills. I was so glad I wore my tennis shoes instead of flip flops like I had originally planned. 

We finally reached the needle and, my goodness, was I worn out. We walked around the gift shop, and when I finally caught my husband whispering to my dad, it was already too late, as their plan was already in action. They had devised a plan to go up, taking me and my daughter too. Now is not the time to mention that I am afraid of heights, and get very nervous in elevators. 

After a 30 minute wait in line to buy more $20 tickets, we had to park the stroller in an exposed, insecure area, we had to wait another 45 minutes in line to go up. My daughter fell asleep and now needed to be carried. We must have been quite the sight to see, three adults passing around a sleeping toddler every few minutes. 

We get up to the elevators and they announce that our tickets included a picture of us that was to be emailed to me. Okay. Cool. 

Then the ride up the needle terrified me. I held onto the back of my husbands shoulder with one hand and the other was gripping the hand rail for dear life. Oh, did I mention that the outside of the elevator is clear so you can see out?  Yeah, my eyes were clenched shut as many other people we chuckling at me.

The view from the top was amazing!

Lake Washington

Mt. Ranier was barely visible through the camera, but was breathtaking!

She loved being "way up high"

We were eye level with an airplane...Just wow!

While descending the 52 stories down to the ground, I got the courage to look out the elevator. It was not as bad as I thought. In fact, is was quite pretty! We checked the time and realized it was now 7:30. We decided to grab a frappachino from Starbucks and head home. The Starbucks on the Space Needle did not serve them, and that only made us want them more.
During the 1 1/2 hour walk back to the parking garage, we stopped at at least 5 different Starbucks' and NONE of them were open. It was harder to get a Frapp. is Seattle (home base of Starbucks) than it was to get one at home! And at home they are open until at least 9! We were just a little disappointed.

Overall, it was an amazing trip that I will never forget! It is not another trip I would want to take while that far pregnant, but it was so worth it. I ended up taking over 250 pictures and my poor camera was dying before we got to the Space Needle. It died before we could remember the streets we parked on, but I remembered on of them and walked until we saw something familiar.

Here are some other pictures that I love from the trip.

This is either pier 62 or 63 I think. It was pretty.

This little squirrel practically ran up my leg while I was getting some shade.

 I will be adding a "photo edits" page soon. Look for some of these pictures there too. None of the above photos were edited before posting and I am excited to share some of the photo work I have done!

Thanks for Reading!!

Home Management Binder

I saw this somewhere, and I cannot find it again. I did think that this was a good idea in case of an emergency (heaven forbid!), and to keep myself a little more organized.

I used a left over binder from the end of the school year and started out by adding my daily chore sheet into the clear pocket. It used to hang on the side of the fridge, but I decided that everyone who comes over does not need to know how I clean my house.

I got some write on dividers by Avery and also utilized some that were left over from the school year. My tabs are:

• Weekly Planner
• Emergency Information
• One colorful tab for each child and one for the adults

• Phone Numbers
• Lunch Menus 
• Pet Care
• Blog
• Home Inventories
• Out of Town Checklists
• Survival (Hubby's Idea)
• Notes

 I found the weekly planner printables somewhere on Pinterest, and yet I did not save it (bad me).  *If this is yours, please let me know so I can give you credit* I love that this has a weekly meal planner and plenty of room to write down important events. Much easier to use than my white board.

The emergency Information sheets were found here. I printed 2 adult and 4 child sheets. Both of which have a spot for fingerprints, personal info, and a picture. A new one will be printed out each year so that the pictures can be updated.

Adult

Child









I also put my marriage certificate and birth certificate into the pockets of the adult divider. (Not showing as I don't want my personal info all over here)

The phone numbers page was found here. Instead of typing in all of the info first, I just left it blank to write them in as more will come.

The lunch menus will be empty until school starts back up and a new one will be hole punched and put in every month.

The Pet Care Sheet has not been made, and will not be frequently used as we don't go out of town long enough for someone to have to come take care of them, but it will be something I print up using Microsoft Word.

The Blog tab is just a bunch of notebook paper that I use to write down ideas of what I am to blog about.

The home inventories tab is just a word document of movies, music, special items, and collectables that we have (just in case of a robbery or something *again heaven forbid*).

We frequently go out of town to transport my step boys back and forth to their mom's house and again this just has notebook paper so I can write down things that I need to remember to pack.

The survival tab....well I had one extra and my husband has this thing about being prepared in case if we have to survive on very little (ie: loss of job, natural disaster, Armageddon etc.) It too has notebook paper so I can fill it in as I go.

The notes tab is more of a Misc. category that I can just write down anything extra that is needed to be remembered.

At the last minute I decided that in order for this to be a "home management notebook", it needed to have some sort of financial management too. I found a calendar here.  Instead of printing the whole year and throwing half of it away, I just printed from May on. I wrote "Bills Due" on the top of each page and now just write in the days the bills are due. Now we don't have to dig through our bill box to figure it out. =)

Everything was hole punched and put into their corresponding places, and now I feel organized (a little bit).

Kindle Fire Cover =)

So I finally got the Kindle Fire Cover completed. It does not look as great as I had hoped for, but I think it still looks pretty good.

Again, I gutted a book.

This time, I didn't cut myself!!

I then measured and cut another piece of quilt badding, black fabric for the inside, 2 pieces of orange fabric for the inside and the grey piece for the spine.

Then, I hemmed up the edges so they didn't fray.

 The next step was pretty easy too. I sort of quilted (not sure on the term here) the badding to the black fabric. This looked pretty cool (again, to me).

Then I sewed the orange fabric to the black, right sides together. Be sure to measure and fit before making any final stitches.

The grey fabric presented a small challenge, and I accidentally sewed one side to the wrong side of the orange. Either way you do it, sew the grey to both edges of the orange.

 

Now, turn it all inside out and sew a seam across the top. Make sure to get the placement correct. 

Then turn it right side and put the book back in. Fold the remaining fabric inside and pin it closed. 

 

 I hand stitched the bottom, just like I assume you would to finish up a pillow.  It turned out pretty cool, except I forgot to fasten it somehow. For now, it will work though. =)