The Griswolds Go :: Seattle, Washington (day 1)

When Ross told me that our rental car while on our trip to Seattle was going to be a suburban, I wasn't thrilled.  Mostly because it didn't feel like such a large vehicle was appropriate for such a small city with no place to park.  But, I have to admit, now that we're home and we aren't driving the brand new (only 7 miles when we picked it up), Quinn and I miss it.  Quinn asked on Thursday morning where the black shark car was.  It was a winner and possible my future.

Anyway, we'd been planning a trip to Seattle for several months.  The Copa America soccer tournament was taking place this June in cities all over the United States and Ross wanted to cross seeing Lionel Messi play soccer for Argentina, in person, off his bucket list.  Who am I to argue with bucket lists (Remember our trip to the Redwoods last year?  Yeah, bucket list.)

We arrived in Seattle on Friday evening, around dinner time, piled into our pimped out ride and headed towards our vacation.  The excitement of the boys was pretty palpable and we were starving.

Note:  Flew to and from on brand new planes with tv's in the headrests.  Quinn watched Jurassic World both going and coming.

Our first stop was dinner on the westernish side of Seattle in a hip neighborhood.  Zippy's for burgers, fries and tots.  Delicious.   It was a super small joint with only 4 tables and greasy, hipster, beatnik types working and heavy metal blasting on the radio - and no AC so we were sweating and swimming in burger grease.

But, it was delicious.  The tots were diving and my burger was a perfect heart attack with thick bacon, and barbeque sauce.



After dinner, we drove to meet Autumn, the manager of our VRBO.  There was a mix-up and our first night the five of us were crammed into a one bedroom, maybe 400 sq. ft. apartment.  We survived and moved to a bigger, two bedroom place the next day.  It's pretty hard to get your kids to go to sleep when they are all in the same room, and Elliott and Quinn are sharing a sofa bed.  Wyatt chose to sleep on couch cushions on the floor.

We got up in the morning, Saturday, and got ready to play tourist.  On the agenda for the day: Pike's Place Market and doughnuts.  Aquarium.  Harbor Cruise on Elliott Bay.  Seattle Mariners baseball game.















The kids were pretty impressed with Pikes Market and the doughnuts we got there on the recommendation of a friend of mine. We found the gum alley under the market and then headed to the aquarium.  I had a great Cesar salad and french fries at Elliott's Oyster Bar on the bay.  The aquarium was tiny but interesting and the Harbor Cruise was very information.  Did you know that "Fraser" in all it's seasons on TV only filmed one episode in Seattle and that the Jetsons were set in 2062, and that the Space Needle was inspiration for the cartoon.









Oh, and I couldn't resist grabbing myself a bouquet of peonies before we left the market. The flower vendors were fabulous of course, but oh the peonies.  So many colors and they were all as big or bigger than my fist.  Just breathtakingly stunning.  Really, they were just too pretty to pass up and I got to stare at them the rest of our vacation.



Wyatt and Quinn spent most of the day starving because they don't eat real food but luckily, there was pizza at the baseball game.  Saved their bacon I tell you what.  Actually, I think they starved most of our trip but that's their problem and a story for another day.

We finished out the night with tacos from a food truck and a brisk walk to the baseball game, seranaded by a radical religious guy yelling into a megaphone about Jesus, the devil, and how we are all going to hell!  Pretty appropriate for baseball?  The weather was perfect, the game was boring (I mean, baseball right?) and everyone willingly crashed out when we got back to our apartment for the night.









A pretty good day one (and a half) of vacation.

An update :: Elliott

Well, third grade is almost in the books.  It's been a good year, for a good boy.  I mean, the first, oh, seven years of your life were pretty challenging but I have to say that when you turned eight, and since January when you turned NINE, you have become a delightful young man.  We are getting along pretty well these days and it probably has a lot to do with how responsible you are, and how much more I can leave you alone and let you manage on your own.

Independence has always been your thing.  It suits you, my boy!

I guess no post about your current status in life would be complete without the story of the Fit Bit Charge.  It has defined months of your life and taught you some important lessons.

At Christmas, you got a fit bit.  It delighted you to no end, but as soon as you got back to school after winter break, a lot of your friends had fit bits, and fancier ones at that.  As with most things, you talk to your Grandma Judy before your mom and dad, but we knew that there was a fit bit talk coming.  You wanted a new one.  A fancier one.  One that tells you the time and exactly how many thousands of steps you take in a day (you average 100,000 plus steps a week, by the way, that's a little over 14,000 steps a day.) and your heart rate.

Finally, you decided to talk to me about it after school one day because, your buddy Yoshi having something you didn't was eating you alive.  You made sure to point out that Yoshi's dad bought it for him, just because, and were implying that I do the same.  Much to your disappointment, that was not the case.  Instead, I talked to you about goals and planning and saving your money.  We figured out that if you do all your jobs each week, you earn $5 and how long it would take you at $5 a week to earn the money for the fit bit of your dreams.

That was not good enough for you.  It wasn't FAST enough.  And even though you wanted mom and dad to buy it for you, you buckled down pretty fast to go on a money earning rampage.  For a little over three months, you worked your butt off for your dad, for me, for Grandma and even doing some jobs at Great Grandpa Huber's house.  You volunteered for jobs you'd normally run out of the room for.  You did anything your dad asked you to if there was an extra dollar as a reward.  Throughout it all, your attitude was pretty good and you really impressed me with your determination.

You faltered once, when you were so close to your goal, thinking that you'd give up on what you really wanted in order to get something else, faster.  But, we talked you off that ledge and pushed through the last couple weeks of money earning.

When that dumb fit bit came in the mail from Amazon, and I presented the box to you across the kitchen table on a Sunday night, I've maybe never seen you so excited.  You were beaming and glowing; giddy and jumpy.

You are a good boy, with a lot going on in your little nine year old life and you are handling it like a champ.  It's so much fun to watch you grow up and get better at making good decisions every single day.

An update :: Quinner

Lately, this boy lives in a land that dissappeared 65 million years ago.  To say he is in a dinosaur "phase" is a gross understatement.  Take yesterday morning, for example (Side note:  it wasn't really yesterday, it was last week.  It's taken me a while to finish this post.)  After we took the boys to school we watched his BBC documentary kids show about dinosaurs.  When that was finished, we "read" dinosaur books in silence.  He doesn't need me to read him the names because, he's a dinosaur and he knows all the names.  After that, I convinced him to get dressed, in his new glow in the dark Indominous Rex dinosaur t-shirt from target.  Then, as we do a lot of mornings, we watched dinosaur videos on YouTube before it was time to go to school.

Then, there is all the coloring, of dinosaurs.  Painting, of dinosaurs.  Reading of dinosaur books, and the fact that on most days, he only speaks Raptor to me and asks to be called "Blue" (his favorite dino from Jurassic World) instead of Quinn.

This kid, he's a great boy.  He's a little strange, talks like a 10 year old, and is a pretty content kid.  He loves his Uncle Willie, calls his brothers, "The boys" or "The Brothers", loves to talk about zombies and animals, and wookies, in addition to dinosaurs.  Yesterday, Willie took the boys in his car on the Huber family cemetery trek for Momerial Day and Quinn came home so excited that he got to go on a road trip with Uncle Willie.

Last week, he finished preschool.  The Mini-3 program that he participated in from January - May was so good for him.  He was painfully shy before school, and still had moments of being ridiculously shy and nervous when I dropped him off on most days, but I was so proud of him that he did it.  And, more importantly, that he loved school.

When he finished last week, I asked him what we were going to do now that school was out for the summer.  He replied, "I guess I should take swimming lessons."  I guess he's right.  I mean, if he can tackle school on his own for 4.5 hours a week, he can surely sit on the edge of a swimming pool and kick and blow bubbles, right?

This kid and I have some long days every once in a while, like today, where we lay on the floor in the office taking selfies and wondering what to do.  But, for the most part, we fill our days with activities and conversations that I wouldn't trade for anything and I feel pretty lucky that I get to have him as my side kick.  He likes to pull weeds, tells me when it's a beautiful day, and willingly washes his hands.  What more could I ask for.

Happy Happy Birthday Wyatt Dear...

Today, my boy, you are seven years old.  I can remember the day you were born, and it was great. Our first exchange this morning, on your birthday, was also great.

I opened the door to my bedroom after I got out of the shower and you were standing there, smiling.  I said, "good morning, Wyatt."  You said, "hi mom."  I smiled and said, "Happy Birthday!"  You let out a little sigh, grinned ear to ear and as you dove in for a gigantic hug said, "Thank you!"

You are a handsome, smart, funny and talented boy.  You are always the first kid awake in our house, would like to be the last one to go to sleep and if I'd let you, you'd prefer to sleep on the couch every night.  You are happiest at school, playing baseball, and building worlds in mine craft.  You have grown so much in the last year and are truly an amazing little kid.

Your smile and laugh are infectious.  You love knock-knock jokes, and have become an excellent reader.  Your teachers love you, you sit at a table of ALL GIRLS at school, and get chased by those same girls at recess.  I have no idea, well really I don't want to think about how handsome you will be in a few years, but I think that those girls at school seem to know something I am not ready to come to grips with yet.  Man alive, you are a good looking kid.

You love sugar and raspberries; ice cream and hot fudge.  Food, at least throughout most of your childhood I'm afraid, will always be your nemesis...but that's what missions to foreign lands are for.

Your asthma is getting better and as you get older, your lungs get stronger.  You are a champion at the inhaler and haven't been sick for a long time.  Your threshold for pain is remarkable and even when you have two ear infections in the same ear, as you did a few months ago, you took it like a champ.  Now, if only your dad and I could convince you to stop the "broken arm scream" whenever you think your hurt, and stop you from kicking Elliott in the nuts whenever you get mad at him.

I asked you a few of your favorite things this afternoon.  Here were your replies.
Favorite Movie: Harry and the Henderson's
Favorite song: Fitz and the Tantrums, Hand Clap
Favorite TV show: Phinneus and Ferb
Favorite Food: Pizza
Favorite drink: (sneaking mom's) Diet Coke
Favorite Star Wars Episode: The Force Awakens

I love you forever and always.  You are my little chickadee and though you are forever stuck in the middle, your star will always shine brightly.

A Dapper Trio

Over the weekend we were shopping at the Salt and Honey Market, mostly to check on my inventory because I was a vendor at the show.  While there, Wyatt decided that he wanted a bow tie, as part of his birthday presents.  We obliged.

On Sunday morning, he started to get dressed and then Quinn decided to jump on the bow tie bandwagon and, thanks to the last couple years of dressy Christmas presents from Grandma Judy, we were able to find a bow tie for Elliott, too.  I must say that these boys of mine, especially when the big boys have fresh haircuts, end up being a pretty dapper trio.

And as we all came down stairs ready for church, I realized that we were all dressed the same - navy blues, so it warranted a front porch selfie before we left the house.