Sightseeing in Seattle

Well, I just like the alliteration. We didn't really do that much sightseeing. At the end of August, we spent a long weekend in the Puget Sound area, including two nights with our friends Nancie, Dave, and Cat in Woodinville. Nancie is a colleague and my birthday sister (we were both born on October 6!), and she and Dave are also Nicholas' godparents. Our kids call Nancie their "fairy godmother" because she tends to spoil them with presents. They adore her, and not just because of the presents! She has that hard-to-define ability of connecting immediately and intimately with children. They can sense it in her.

Nicholas with his new fire truck from Nancie, Dave, and Cat:
quite the hit, I must say!!!

Nancie and Nicholas

Nancie planned a little birthday celebration for Chris and Nicholas. Can't have too many birthday celebrations!

On Friday we drove into Seattle and hung out at the Seattle Center...taking in lunch at the food court, the Pacific Science Center (which has a reciprocal agreement with OMSI), and a few rides afterward.

The shooting fountains outside of the Pacific Science Center
Nicholas driving the school bus

Fortunately I was able to get Nicholas to take a midday nap in the conveniently provided nursing room for babies...while Mike took the older boys around the rest of the museum. As parents of toddlers know, everything has to be planned around that midday nap!!

After he woke up, Nicholas and I went through my favorite part of the science center: the butterfly greenhouse. We both loved the chance to see these beautiful moths up close and personal!

We were even able to see these newly hatched butterflies
just set out for their first taste of the garden!

We bought a few tickets apiece for the kids to go on some rides. Chris and I took in the log flume (no good-enough photos to post), and Kieran went on his first-ever bumper cars:

Nicholas rode the carousel (most of the time he was smiling and laughing, even though he looks worried in this photo):

Sometimes Kieran feels left out around the Chris/Nicholas birthday period (their birthdays are within 2 weeks of each other), and Nancie must have thought of that, since she also gave Kieran a birthday gift: a fantastic box full of art supplies, perfect for our little artist.

Kieran and his clay dinosaur tableau

Nicholas' masterpiece

Kieran Da Vinci? He's informed us that he's planning to sell his artwork for $8 apiece!

Nancie, Dave, Mike, and I were glued to the Democratic National Convention, to the point that Nicholas came up to us on the morning that McCain announced his choice of Sarah Palin and announced "TV All Done!" It was so much fun to watch Obama's big speech, in addition to Gore and the others, with great liberal friends...we are in the (hopefully broad) category of Hillary-supporting Democrats who now support Obama and vote on the ISSUES that matter in our country rather than on the personalities involved.

Toasting the Democrats with a glass of wine!

Dave entertained us later by playing the piano...his special talent is playing the piano with his nose! Quite a hit with the kids, as you can imagine!

Kieran playing the ukulele with his nose!

Best buddies Nicholas and Nancie B.

On Saturday Nancie and Dave's 16-year-old daughter Catlin had a softball tournament in Kent (she is a VERY talented softball player!), so we went to watch a few games before heading off to Puyallup later on.

Nicholas and Nancie watching the game

The ball fields had a FANTASTIC play structure with a really great steep slide--no slide is too tall for our intrepid two-year-old!

Kieran racing down the slide