Finals Days in Seattle

I really need to finish up blogging our Seattle trip since we have been home for 2 weeks now. After we got back from Victoria the rest of the trip seemed to fly by. Here are the highlights from our last two days.

After getting picked up from the Victoria Clipper we were whisked home to a Seafood Dinner Extravaganza! We had two different kinds of salmon, mussels, and clams!
Andrea, Carolyn, and mom

Spence, me, and Jayson

On Saturday I was able to meet up with a couple of my high school friends. I can hardly believe it has been 10 years since I graduated from high school. Sadly, my reunion is in October and we won't be able to make it back up to Redmond then. It was fun to reminisce, catch up, and meet new family members (spouses and children!).

Brenda (with her daughter), me, Nichole, and Katie

And finally as a last hurrah before heading home Carolyn taught me how to make record bowls. They are super easy to make and are so much fun because each one turns out unique! Here is the one that I made.

And that concludes our incredible week in Seattle! It was so much fun, I can't wait to do it again! Hopefully sooner than two years this time.

Victoria - August 7th

Whale Watching
In the morning we went on a whale watching excursion. There are 3 "resident" orca whale pods that live in the San Juan Islands. It took about an hour on the boat to get out to where the orcas were. When we found them they were feeding near the shore. We were lucky to actually come upon all 3 pods feeding together, they don't often interact with each other. So we were able to see a lot of whales. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get very close because there are all sorts of environmental laws about how close you can get to the animals, especially when they are feeding. It was cool to be able to see them in the wild though and we enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the San Juan Islands. Waiting for the boat to arrive Our boat, the Ocean Magic II This is probably the best picture I got. Here is also a little video for your enjoyment.


The Empress
We totally splurged and stayed in The Empress hotel while we were there. It is a super-old and super-fancy hotel in Victoria and it is where the Queen stays when she comes to visit.
A view of The Empress from the harbor
It felt like we took a step back in time, check out the hallway!
You know you are in a fancy hotel when they have robes hanging in the bathroom
Jayson pointing to our room
The view from our room. We totally lucked out and got a room that had a view of the harbor!
Another view from the room.
Getting back on the boat to head back home after a fabulous mini-vacation in Canada!

Victoria - August 6th

Early Thursday morning we headed into Seattle to catch the Victoria Clipper up to Victoria, B.C. We sat with a group of 6 seniors who were part of a big tour group. They had just got done with Seattle and were also heading up to Victoria. They had received box breakfasts as part of their tour package, but none of them could finish all of it, so they gave us all their extra fruit cups and exotic yogurts. I wish that we could have gotten pictures of them because they were adorable! I hope that I still have that kind of spunk and sense of adventure when I am their age.

Victoria is a fun little city. We enjoyed walking through town and along the pier where they have lots of street entertainers and vendors.

Around Town
Here are some of the sights we saw around the city.
Darth Vader playing the violin. Unfortunately, as you might be able to tell from Jayson's expression, he wasn't a very impressive violinist. That's probably why he has to wear a costume.
This lady was amazing. We decided to have her paint our last name as our souvenir from our trip. She seriously whipped it out in like 3 minutes! You can see her at work in the video below.


Walking along the waterfront. Here is a view of the famous Empress Hotel (where we actually got to stay! more pictures later). This is the hotel where the Queen stays when she comes to visit from England.
Here is the Parliament building. We thought it was really funny that this lady on her scooter drove into the picture right as our timer went off.
At night they light up the Parliament building. You might be able to tell in this picture that they just turned the lights on.
We found an awesome hat shop in town. They had some more normal hats as well, but Jayson thought he would try his hand at the wizard look. He is also wearing his "Iron Man" sweatshirt (the logo always glows like that in pictures)
A funny little statue that we found on the street.
Mmmm, gelato! Check out this gorgeous gelato presentation.
We couldn't resist getting some.
Here is one of the street entertainers that we saw. Pretty impressive.


Butchart Gardens
Our first afternoon there we went out to visit the Butchart Gardens. They are a historic site in Canada and have been around for over 100 years! The gardens were started after Mrs. Butchart decided to turn her husband's old limestone quarry into something a little more beautiful. They have several different gardens now and they are absolutely stunning!

Some garden art that was perfect for Jayson.
These hanging flower baskets were gorgeous.
The "Sunken Garden". This is the site of the old limestone quarry.
I love these flowers. They are like natures fireworks.

Even the garbage cans have little gardens on them!
An unexpected surprise. We ran into my cousins who live in Utah of all places! They were actually coming back from an Alaskan cruise and the gardens were their last stop on their way home. What are the odds though that we would be there at the same time as them and in the exact same part of the garden as them? It's a small world after all.
Jayson loved watching this cool fountain.
On the stepping stones in the Japanese garden.
The Italian garden
Check out the size of this leaf!

Stayed tuned for more of The Empress Hotel and Whale Watching!

Seattle Trip - August 5th

In the morning Matt, Spencer, Dad, Mom, Jayson, and I got to go do sealings in the temple. It was really neat to be able to do that as a family.

In the afternoon all the girls got together for a "Flip Flops and Lemon Drops" picnic while the boys went to the shooting range!

The picnic was Carolyn's idea and she was the perfect hostess!
Isn't this a gorgeous spread?! I am in love with the table cloth. She had "place cards" for each of us, which were lemons with a little tag pinned into them with each of our initials. Those beautiful flowers in the center were also made by hand (by Carolyn of course!).
The meal was delicious and we had so much fun enjoying our sister time. You can see a couple more pictures of the picnic on Carolyn's blog Simple Design.
In the evening Jayson and I went down to Auburn to spend some time with Jayson's sister and her cute family. Sadly I didn't take any pictures!!! We had a fun time visiting with them and spending time with her 3 cute kids. Thanks for feeding us dinner Brooke!

Up next, our adventures in Canada! Jayson and I took a mini-vacation during our vacation and went up to Victoria, B.C. for two days.

Seattle Trip - August 4th

On Tuesday we went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at the IMAX in Seattle.

Cute Carolyn made us all lightning bolt cookies to eat at the show. Here we are being Harry Potter Nerds and holding them on our foreheads :)

After the show we went to the butterfly house at the Pacific Science Center. The butterfly just to the left of my head had some excellent camouflage. When the wings were shut it blended in with the tree, but when they were open they were a gorgeous shiny blue.
Jayson found a little friend while we were there.
I love this picture of him trying to look at the butterfly.
The little butterfly hung out on his hat for several minutes, I guess it was enjoying the free ride.
Speaking of free rides, Carolyn and I tried our hand at riding a caterpillar! :)
Carolyn's face says it all! These spider wasps were absolutely disgusting! I am so glad I don't live in South America! Although aparently some of the smaller ones live in the USA.
After the Science Center we went to visit the troll under the bridge in Fremont. It is a fun art piece that was put together by the community.
HELP!
After the troll we went over to Gasworks park and enjoyed a view of the Seattle skyline from the shores of Lake Union.
Then we hiked up to "Kite Hill" at Gasworks park and flew kites.
Here are some of our kites, I think at one point we had eight kites up in the air!
We flew kites into the sunset
I love this picture of Jayson. He is in the bottom left corner and his kite is in the top right corner. He let the string out as far as it would go!
As we were leaving the park there was a gorgeous moon rising over the hill.

What a day huh?! It is never a dull moment with my family. Stay tuned for more Seattle adventures.