Seattle and Victoria, BC

Our little family left for Seattle, Washington on St. Patrick's Day! We were going to be away until Saturday. We were all looking forward to spending some time with each other in a new and exotic location.

On Tuesday, we arrived at the airport, got into our rental minivan (Despite the cushy ride, Richard and I are still not minivan people. Sorry!).

We finally took off and went to the Pacific Science Center. It was so much fun to experiment with all of the neat trinkets, gadgets, and projects! What's even more exciting was that it was all free! AWESOME! The advantages to having a membership here at the Arizona Science Center.







After the science center, we went up to the top of the Space Needle. It was not Richard's favorite moment of our trip. He is a bit vertically challenged. :) It was cool to have a 360 degree view of the city of Seattle!


We then went and checked into our hotel. It was called the Edgewater Hotel. It was a very nice hotel right on the waterfront. Wow!

On Wednesday, we went to the world famous Pike Place Market where fish fly in the air freely. :) We looked at the various shops and purchased some very nice homemade cheese. Yum!

We were able to drive up to Bellevue, Washington and see the LDS Temple there. It was beautiful as all temples are.

We also had some very yummy seafood at the Crab Pot, which was walking distance from our hotel.

On Thursday, this was probably my most favorite part of our trip. We took the ferry to Victoria, BC. Alex was a bit nervous as we first got on the ferry. It was pretty sloshy! A little bit of Dramamine in Alex, Addison, and myself, and we were knocked out for a bit.

Once we docked in Victoria, we decided to get a rental car to allow us to have a bit more freedom during our few short hours there. Unfortunately, we had to wait for an hour for our car. Ugh! It made us all a little sad since now we had one less hour to sightsee.

We drove up to the Butchart Gardens. It was beautiful! It was a little drizzly but very green. It would probably be even more beautiful with the many flowers and plants in bloom in the spring and summer. It was amazing!

On Friday, we hung out in Seattle and went on an underground tour of Seattle. It was so much fun to see that the town of Seattle all began many, many feet below where it is now located. After our underground tour, we made our way halfway between Spokane and Seattle to a little town called Moses Lake to meet up with Richard's older sister Melanie and her family. Despite the short time we had to spend with her and her family, it was nice to see family again.

Saturday was a day of lounging and preparing for our trip back to sunny and warm Arizona. We spent almost all day traveling and spending time in airports.

We had a blast during our time in Canada and Washington. It was great to relax and spend time with family, but.... it is sooooo nice to be back at home!

Was it all worth it? Just look at these faces...