Birthday Weekend

In celebration of Challene's birthday, we took a short trip to Seattle to see a Mariner's game. The following is a photo reminiscence of that trip:

The Game

Downtown Seattle

Home of the Seattle Mariners. Right next door is Qwest Field - home of the Seattle Seahawks. I would love to go to a Seahawks game... one day.

Empty seats everywhere, except both sides of us.

The wind-up...

and the pitch!

Joshy was clapping even before the game started. He loved it there. They were both pretty good for the entire 9 innings.

Hmmm... here we see Joshy doing his impression of the entire 3 rows ahead of us. Many Japanese people come to these games to witness Ichiro in all his baseball glory. The second he gets up to bat, out come the cameras. It was father's day weekend so I got a free shirt. Near the end of the game we were trying to rally the Mariners (they ended up losing, but that's neither here nor there) by swinging our free t-shirts over our heads. Ethan joined in and all the Japanese turned and started taking pictures of him. Somewhere in Hokido, Japan is Ethan's picture.

The Hotel

We stayed in the Hyatt hotel in downtown Bellevue, WA which is just outside Seattle. It's a beautiful town and very ritzy! I got a great deal on the room so we were able to pretend like we had money! Here's some pics from the hotel.

This was actually when Ethan was in a time-out. He was not listening very well. Not much of a time-out, eh?

Challene really liked this bench/patio chair set.

Pikes Market

Yes, the famed market. Immortalized by a scene or two in Free Willy. So, it's pretty much a big market place downtown Seattle. I suppose most of it's popularity is due to the fact that after purchase, they throw the fish to the packagers to wrap the order. Hence, the intrepid scene in Free Willy where Jesse, a preteen, aqua-mammel loving, ner-do-well races through the marketplace in perfect timing only to intercept a thrown fish to feed to his new-found friend.

Pre-toss

Post-toss

Here is a street performer doing antics with balls, tennis rackets, and all sorts of fodder. He wasn't really that good (not to say I could do anything near what he did, but when compared to other street acts I've seen he was definitely on the low-end of the spectrum). Ethan, however, has really been into juggling lately. He loves to see people juggle. He enjoyed it.

See, he just dropped two juggling pins.

The Space Needle Ah, the space needle. Can you imagine paying 40 bucks just to go to the top? Well, we couldn't so we didn't. But there was a big carnival/amusement park right underneath it, so we spent our $40 there.

Joshy loves the water.

Here are Ethan and Josh putting on a little performance for the crowd. Good dancing.

Kinda hard to see, but Ethan and I are riding the little roller-coaster. I'm the big one in the blue shirt and Ethan is next to me. You can't tell, but he's got a big grin on his face. He loved it!

This was their first time riding rides like this. They loved every minute of it.

She missed.

Below are a couple cool looking buildings that were surrounding the space needle.

Good Design

My cup runneth over!?! Odd sort of fountain, eh?

Kids got a kick out of it, though.

Car Fun

Well, we had a fun trip. The car ride home wasn't too fun, but what do you expect with two sleep deprived children? The plus side was that they slept until almost 10:00 a.m. the next few days. Good news for Challene. I on the other hand was still up at 6:00 a.m. for school. ugh!