We had a busy weekend lined up for Grandad’s first in Washington. On the Friday Tracy and Grandad went on the Boeing tour. It’s up in Mukilteo and although it doesn’t take too long to complete the tour they learnt a number of interesting things:
1. The building is the largest building in the world – 98 acres in size
2. It is 2.5 miles in perimeter
3. 30,000 people work there
4. It has 6 Tully’s coffee shops and 19 restaurants
5. There are only 4 Dreamlifters in the world
6. It takes 3 days to build a plane at the moment
7. A jumbo costs $330 million but you don’t get any engines for that
8. Jumbo engines cost $15 million each – you need 4
9. When it was first built clouds used to form in the top of the building and it used to rain inside
Unfortunately you’re not allowed to take photos there so we only have a couple of pictures:
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On Friday afternoon Toby had his latest training session and match for the Coyotes. This week the training session was racing and shooting. It was a very simple exercise but maybe the coaching wasn’t very good because they made real hard work of it! However, once the game began the boys clicked into gear and inspired by a certain player the Coyotes stormed to an 8-3 victory. The referee asked me to calm my team down a couple of times because they kept making the other team cry but I decided to ignore that – winning was far more important! Toby scored 3 goals, including the goal of the match and as a result the coach awarded him the Man of the Match award. Again. Five weeks in a row!
Saturday started with some hair tong trauma and pumpkins before we went over to Seattle and Chittenden Locks. I think this is one of my favorite places in Seattle. It helped that it was a lovely day but irrespective of that, it’s very relaxing watching the boats going through the locks, wondering how much each boat cost, where they got their money from and deciding which boat we’d like the most. We went over to the salmon ladders, with all 21 rungs, however there were only a couple of little weeners to be seen (or whatever the technical term for little salmon is).
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After leaving the locks we went for lunch at Rays Boathouse. Deciding what to eat wasn’t easy but once we’d made up our mind the food that arrived was very good! We ate so much that we didn’t eat again that day! We all got home – after a trip to Kerry Park – and sat on the sofa moaning about how much our bellies ached!
We attempted an early night as Harry had a 9am kick-off on Sunday morning. Tracy set the alarm for the morning so we got up in time. Unfortunately she set it for 7:10 in the evening. Fortunately we woke up anyway! It was a complete contrast to the day before – it was chucking it down. It was raining so much that we half expected the game to be called off. It wasn’t. They Gunners played in, and the supporters stood in, the pouring rain. It was soggy for everyone except Toby. He seemed to have a coat that had some sort of protective layer round it as there was no water on the coat at all – it was most impressive – that’s Peter Storm for you.
The Gunners were, once again, excellent and despite the horrible weather and the sodden pitch they ran out 7-1 winners. Super Harry Stickman bagged himself a hat-trick, to take his tally to 7 for the season – his best ever (and that doesn’t include the goals in the Bainbridge Cup) and the Gunners stayed top of the table. Go Gunners!
After soccer we came home and had a relaxing day doing nothing but watch American Football – Go Seahawks – eat roast pork, drink champagne and watch the UK X-factor and Strictly Come Dancing. It’s a tough life but someone has to do it!