Christmas sights and sounds of downtown Seattle!
The carousel at Westlake
Shopping.
Visiting Rookie's work place and eating at the Spaghetti Factory.
But the thing that I have always loved the most was dinking around University Village.
That place is magical!
However, this year we were flying the Red-Eye back from Hawaii on Thanksgiving weekend and we needed the whole weekend recover!
WHEN oh when would I fit in
Dec. 17th! Rookie had bought the family tickets for the Battle in Seattle college basketball game! Gonzaga vs. Arizona. (Totally NEW tradition!) Well I GRACIOUSLY gave up my ticket so Rookie's dad could go in my place. The game was at 1pm and I dropped the guys off and went to U-Village by myself.
It felt ALL wrong.
I was missing my photo ops with my guys!
We weren't there at night when it's all lit up and pretty with Christmas lights!
And ---HEY, wait a minute! I don't have my family tagging along with me at my favorite stores!
So I actually got to spend a long time looking and re-looking and looking some more in my favorite stores! (Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, Restoration Hardware--what have they done with that place?--Ravenna Gardens, Anthropologie, Aveda, Frans, Land of Nod, the list goes on!)
I really enjoyed it, however, it did kind of suck that I had to carry my own bags because Rookie wasn't there to be my pack mule. So I didn't do as much damage as I wanted to do!!!
3:15--race back to pick up the guys and drop Opa off at the ferry!
With our usual family outing to U-Village shot, we had to re-evaluate the "traditions"! We went to Pacific Place to see Santa (new place this year for us) And I thought the line would be a mile long --Saturday afternoon...Downtown Seattle! But alas--there was NO line! Sweet!
From there we took to streets and made our way to the carousel at Westlake! (Ah-ha--here's the line--it was like 400 people long--NO WAY were we waiting in line for that!)
The streets were PACKED---like nothing I've ever seen before! And SOOOO many beggars and street performers! AND--100's of people dressed at Santa! It was almost like there was a Santa invasion and we didn't get the memo to dress like Santa! It was pretty fun!
Once we saw the line of 400 to ride around in a circle, we decided to get mini-donuts from a street vendor instead! Mmmmmm....fried dough--delicious!
It was a beautiful, cold, clear, crisp night in Seattle--i.e. not raining! So we had to take advantage. I gave the boys the choice of riding the "Duck Boats" Christmas version or going to the Zoo Lights. They picked the Duck Boat! (Totally NEW tradition)
We weren't going to be able to get on for 2 hours, so we went back to Pacific Place, had dinner at Johnny Rockets, and watched the "Snow" inside. We were up on the 4th floor, and it looked like all the people standing in line at the Carousel came running over to watch the snow! Rookie and I were hoping for a "Flash Mob" to break out down below--but it didn't happen!
Waiting in line for the Duck Boat--when we wait--we take pictures!
The Duck Boats were fun---our tour guide was named "Mitchell Toe" (get it...like Mistletoe?) We had a great time singing Christmas songs and yelling Merry Christmas to folks on the sidewalks all throughout downtown Seattle. And you know what--everyone smiled and waved back--Seattle really is a friendly little town!
We got these handy-dandy jingle bells we got to shake, shake, shake out the window too!
It wasn't our "normal" Christmas day in Seattle, but it was pretty darn fun!
you're made of awesome, lady a!
ReplyDelete