my Seattle "epiphany"

So, while we were in Seattle, I had one of my epiphanies. You should know that my epiphanies probably don't even deserve that appellation, because, as enlightening as they may seem to me at the time, they are quite often of the DUH variety. You have been warned.

Whenever I would think about Seattle, my thoughts didn't really get beyond, "I love Seattle!"

I never thought too much about why I loved it, or what I loved about it. I just knew that I was excited to be going back, and excited to show the kids around the city that we so enjoyed.

But as we were visiting various museums and attractions – basically being tourists – I suddenly realized: this is not what I loved about Seattle. What I loved about Seattle was living there.

It was the awesome public library system. It was working at the University of Washington. It was the beautiful, lush greenery everywhere. It was becoming a mother. It was taking Max to the local bagel shop and swimming at the lake. It was shopping for quilt fabric at In the Beginning. It was our great friends. It was pushing the stroller with Max on the Burke Gilman trail. It was my incredible doctor. It was rarely being too hot.

It was picking wild blackberries and making cobblers and jam and ice cream and just eating bowlfuls of berries with cream.

So as much as I enjoyed returning to Seattle, it just wasn't the same at all.

See? I told you – duh.

{the end}

Seattle, day 6

On our last day in Seattle, we decided to visit Boeing's Museum of Flight, a first for us.

But first, we walked to the Boulangerie Nantaise, which ended up being quite a walk. (Incidentally, I don't remember there being so many French bakeries in Seattle when we lived there.)

The kids sampled the pastries, which looked pretty authentic and quite good.

I had an artichoke/red pepper/mozzarella/pesto sandwich on focaccia. It was pretty great.

We stopped at Macy's on the way back so I could buy some Frangos for my book club friends. If you have never had the pleasure of trying Frangos chocolates, you are missing out. They come in tons of flavors, are delightfully creamy, and have just the right hint of salt to balance out the sweetness.

The museum is much closer than I thought to downtown and well worth a visit.

The first section on space travel was fascinating. I could not get over how backwards and antiquated all of the controls looked!

I found out that EVA stands for Extra-Vehicular Activities, or space walks. Who knew?

I must have seen a replay of the first moon walk as a child, because it took me a long time to realize that it happened before I was born!

The museum answers questions about how astronauts eat, sleep, and use the bathroom. Suffice it to say that this confirmed my complete and utter lack of interest in space travel. Plus, their food looks seriously disgusting. And apparently space travel gives you a stuffy nose, which adversely affects your ability to taste, so astronauts put hot sauce on everything (even things which have no business being in proximity to hot sauce).

Did you know that astronauts sleep in sleeping bags that are velcroed vertically to the wall of the ship? They compare it to sleeping in a phone booth. Or that space travel weakens your bones? Astronauts have to exercise for 3 hours a day to combat bone loss, on a pull-down tiny treadmill. One woman ran the Boston marathon from space!

Max doing a flight simulator. He landed the space shuttle successfully; Lucas did not.

The kids loved sitting in small planes and making the rudders move.

And posing as pilots and astronauts. I don't know which expression cracks me up more.

Max did the 4D fighter jet flight simulator. He reported that it was not scary at all, but Lucas was taking no chances.

He and Eva tried out the small Blue Angels mock-up plane...

but the up-and-down controls proved to be too much for Eva and she had to be rescued by the kindly gentleman who had lifted her up just moments before.

I love the way they have all of these planes suspended from the ceiling. It's unreal.

We went on a retired Air Force One.

It was a little outdated. But presidents as recent as Clinton used it!

It's hard to imagine lounging on this sectional in-flight!

We also got to walk through a Concord. Marc is so disappointed that he never got to ride the Concord – apparently that was a bucket list item for him.

Check out this cool U.S. Mail sea plane. I love the postmark.

Even the gift shop had great details.

Of course these stickers made me think of Kristi.

After leaving the Museum of Flight, we drove up North to Katrina's house. Rush hour traffic.

We got to meet her new dog, Frodo. She rescued him from a shelter and he is on anti-anxiety meds. He's pretty lovable and quite a character. He loves to play with hair. Eva was down on the floor playing with him and he started nuzzling her hair. She shocked me by finding it hilarious. You just never know with that girl: will she freak out or crack up? She keeps you guessing for sure.

Katrina's backyard neighbor looks like a patriotic guy with a sense of landscaping style, but it turns out he enjoys porn and public nudity... huh.

Matho playing outside with Frodo. Check out those eyes! Seriously. I'm smitten.

Marc and Katrina went out to get Vietnamese take-out for dinner. (Never fear, Lucas had Little Caesar's.) She didn't have enough large bowls for our pho, so Marc ate out of this trough! He took one for the team on that one.

Eventually we had to leave and let the little kids get to bed. About 5 minutes after we left, Katrina called and said that Matho was distraught that he hadn't said goodbye to his satisfaction. He told me over the phone, and it was adorable.


We got to see the city in its nighttime splendor as we returned to pack for our trip home.

{the view from our window}

Seattle, day 5

Marc really wanted to take the boys to GameWorks, which is basically videogame heaven. Eva and I were not interested, so we stayed behind and went to the pool for a couple of hours.

We then went to Woodland Park Zoo, where Katrina and Matho met us. We used to have a family membership to this zoo when Max was tiny.

It's a great zoo because it has large, realistic habitats, so you don't feel too badly for the animals.

Max used to be more interested in the plants than the animals, causing us to wonder if he would be a future horticulturalist!




I forced them into a family self-portrait. You can see Eva's thrilled about it. If it weren't for the fact that we only took two, I wouldn't post this at all, could I be scarier??

Katrina mocked me as well, but it had to be done.

I tried to get a shot that looked like Max was kissing this snake, but it didn't exactly work out.

Eva had to post on every. single. statue.

Oh how I miss hydrangeas! I wish I could grow them successfully here.

The most exciting part of the zoo was the aviary room, where birds fly around free and you can purchase seed sticks to feed them.


This bird repeatedly landed on Lucas's shoulders, which was highly disconcerting to him. I would move the bird and direct it elsewhere, but it kept returning to Lucas! Did it feel he was a kindred spirit in grey? He was not. He eventually left the room and waited for us.

Eva loved it.

So did Max! He didn't even mind when one landed on his head. He wishes he could go feed the birds every day.

Matho and Eva pretended to have penguins for adoption. Lucas was considering it.

Flamingos are really stinky.

Marc and I really wanted to go to Palomino, a restaurant we used to enjoy (mostly in our pre-parenting days). We didn't really want to take the kids, so we considered leaving them at the condo while we went, but Max wanted to try it as well. We ended up all going and sitting on the bar side, which is more casual. Eva could even lie down on the bench and no one was around to care. It was good, but not quite as fabulous as I remembered.

We showed them some of the Chihuly glass art in the building. These are whale bones with a human skeleton inside the ribs!