Having had quite a busy day on Saturday, Sunday followed suit for the most part. It started with a early trip across to Seattle Aquarium. I had received an email saying it was early entrance for members – which we are. However I obviously didn’t read the email as it is next Sunday! Never mind. We only had to wait for 15 minutes before we got in. We checked out the octopus, which really is ugly, stroked some starfish – the aquarium is unusual in that respect as they do let you touch some of the creatures. Having spent about 90 minutes there we took a quick walk up to Pike Place market to see some of the flower and seafood stands. They flowers were particularly impressive and incredibly cheap. We couldn’t buy Tracy any flowers though as we had more adventures to head off on.
Next stop was about 40 minutes east along the I-90. We headed past Issaquah and up some mountain foothills to Snoqualmie Falls. The waterfall here falls a very impressive 270 feet which is apparently 100ft higher than Niagara Falls. The log at the top of the waterfall in the 6th picture below is actually a massive tree which is probably a good 70+ foot long. I’d love to watch that go over the edge!
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After leaving the Falls we headed back to Bellevue and had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. This is the restaurant that always does giant portions that make you feel full just looking at them. Worryingly this time we ate most of the food and remarked that the portion size wasn’t as bad. Hopefully they have reduced their portion sized. If not, we are obviously just turning into biffas and becoming American! The rest of the afternoon saw us spend most of our time lazing around the apartment and playing a little bit of tennis. Toby is improving no-end.
Monday saw us take in our first game of baseball as the Mariners hosted (and beat 4-3) the Baltimore Orioles:
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The weekend had been spent building up to the baseball. Mainly in the shape of “you’re not going to go to the baseball unless you start behaving yourself”. Most of the time they didn’t behave. Particularly Toby “in a mood every 20 minutes” Stickells. He managed to just about behave enough to get his ticket and a trip to the match. It didn’t last long though as he also managed to end the day in a mood as well – crying about taking his clothes off and putting his pj’s on. Honestly! He is currently under threat of having to sleep in the middle bedroom which is the room with the single, hard bed and no duvet!
Anyway, back to the game. When we arrived one of the stewards asked if it was the first game Harry and Toby had been too – they are obviously trained to spot them! When it was confirmed that it was they were given a certificate to keep and a Seattle Mariners shirt each. They only had youths XL sizes so they look like they are wearing dresses but they are both happy and wore them out playing tennis later that evening. We climbed a lot of steps before finally reaching our seats. It was pretty high but the view was still surprisingly good, although it did make my legs have slight wobbles as I walked down the steps towards the ground on toilet trips with the boys. The game was pretty entertaining and lasted just short of 3 hours. Harry enjoyed it all, even going as far as saying it was better than soccer but I don’t expect that view to last long – he is a bit fickle. Tracy enjoyed it too – the Kindle didn’t even come out the handbag. Toby liked it but spent some of the time on his DS and quite a lot of the rest asking who was playing and who was winning. He enjoyed the games on the big screen, the singing and dancing though. As a side note, we managed to put away 3.5 foot of hotdogs between us! It sounds worse than it actually is. I think!
The weekend ended with shepherds pie, some tennis, Toby in a pj mood, Harry in the middle/naughty bedroom, Tracy drinking my bottles of beer and a lovely sunset over the lake. Perfect!