Celebration in Seattle

Just over three years ago Ruth and I were sealed for time and all eternity in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple! It was a monumental event in my life, and I cannot possibly recount all the ways that Ruth has been a blessing to me. She has been incredibly patient and loving, and as a gesture of how much I love and appreciate her I planned a trip to Seattle to celebrate our 3rd anniversary. I wanted the trip to be a surprise so I called Ruth's work to get the time scheduled off. I didn't want to risk getting everything planned and paid for only to have Ruth stuck at work. Luckily the lady who does the scheduling for Ruth was very helpful and willing to work with me on getting some days off for her. After I was sure we would both have the time off I began planning and working on the particulars of the trip. It was a little stressful putting everything together, but based on the good time we had I would say the trip was a success. We enjoyed our time away from work and getting to spend so much time together. To our great surprise the weather on this trip was incredible. We were expecting it to rain and be cloudy almost the entire time, but it was sunny and around 70 degrees for the majority of our time in Seattle. Since we had such great weather the whole time, here are some of the things we got to do:

 

Waiting for our plane at the airport.

We had a pretty interesting flight to Seattle. After we had boarded and the rest of the passengers were making their way on to the plan a man came up and asked if he could take the last seat on our row. He seemed like a nice guy, so we quickly invited him to take the seat. Just before he sat down he said, "I should probably warn you, I never stop talking and I snore." We chuckled thinking he was just breaking the ice with a joke, but he was serious. He never fell asleep, so he may have been kidding about that, but he was right about the talking. He was a nice guy, but he was definitely not shy. He kept on asking questions and since we weren't excited about sharing every single detail of our lives with a complete stranger we had to start ignoring his questions and focusing on other things. By the time we left the plane he had given us all of his contact information and an invite to stay with him in his very environmentally friendly home. He was a nice guy, but we were relieved to part ways after the flight.

We decided not to rent a car so we rode the light-rail from the airport to downtown. This is our first glimpses of Washington from the train.

When we got off the train we decided to just walk to our hotel. It was less than a mile away, which wouldn't have been bad, but we did have our luggage with us. This became particularly difficult when we wandered right into Pikes Market Place. It was very crowded and hard to navigate with bags. 

  When we finally made it to our hotel, The Marriott Waterfront, we were right on the harbor with an incredible view. 

Thanks to Ruth we got to spend two nights at the Waterfront for a ridiculous rate using her employee discount! After we got settled in we decided to wander around the city for a while, and we made our way up to the Olympic Sculpture Park. There were some very large and unique pieces of art there, but the best feature of the park was the view from its hilltop. The next few photos are the view from the park:

This giant head looks holographic from out on the harbor.

There were several benches in the park that looked like eyes.

Just up the street from our hotel was a cruise terminal, and there was a ship getting ready to set sail. It was an impressive sight!

One of the aspects of Seattle that I wasn't expecting was how hilly the area was. I thought that since it was so close to the coast it would be a lot flatter. About a block from the shore there was a huge drop-off that led to all of the piers. In order for us to get from our hotel to Pikes Place we would have to climb up several sets of stairs like the one in the picture below:

Luckily we found an elevator at the edge of the drop-off that was right next to our hotel, so we got to avoid the stairs most of the time.


Between the elevator and Pikes Place was a nice example of the abundant plant life that can be found amongst the buildings downtown.

This was the side entrance to Pikes Place that was closest to our hotel.

The legendary fresh seafood of the market.

Mom, can imagine making our kabobs with these!

It was always hard not to go through the fresh seafood in the market because it always made me hungry!

The restroom signs all over Pikes Place cracked me up. You gotta love the guy running with the baby.

There were some fun views from the market as well. Once again the next few pictures show the unique mix of nature and civilization that Seattle has to offer:

We spent a lot of time wandering around Pikes Place. It seemed like every time we went there we would find something new. It was a labyrinth of shops, vendors, and restaurants. For two of the mornings we were there we went and ate at a couple of bakeries.

 

The first morning we ate at Piroshky, Piroshky an authentic Russian Bakery.

 

Similar to a lot of the eateries in Pikes Place, you could watch them making the goods they were selling that day.

 

A big problem with a lot of the food vendors in the market was that there was limited to no seating. We did manage to find a nice area just outside of Pikes Place with plenty of seating and a nice view of the harbor.

 

This was the chocolate hazelnut pastry I got from Piroshky, Piroshky.

 

True to the name of the bakery we had to also try a piroshky. It was a meat filled pastry that Ruth comically compared to a Russian Hot Pocket.


There was also a cool totem pole in the seating area we found.

 

The other morning we tried a French bakery call Le Panier. You can see the chocolate and almond croissant and the sandwich made on fresh baked bread that we ordered.

Ruth looking stunning as usual.

Aside from the market there was also a fun spot on the pier called Miners Landing. There was a cool ferris wheel called the Seattle Great Wheel. It has climate controlled cars to make for an enjoyable experience in any weather.

We found Scuttle hanging out on the pier. He was very photogenic.

A nice view of Miners Landing.

The only piece of seafood we saw the entire trip that wasn't fresh.

Ruth getting acquainted with the locals.

Then there is this goober.

Miners Landing

Miners Landing.

We also got to go and explore the Seattle Aquarium. There was a lot of fun things to see inside the building, but there was also a school group there as well so it was kind of a madhouse. We did get to watch them feed a giant octopus which was pretty cool, but after that we headed for the outdoor areas to get away from some of the noise.

 One really cool feature of the aquarium is that a lot of the sea creature they house are native to the waters in Elliot Bay and Puget Sound. So to better accommodate the fish they pump water directly from the harbor directly into and out of their tanks.

 Ruth's favorite thing to see at aquariums is always the sea otters. Lucky for her there was some very active sea otter to watch:

 The exception of active otters was this guy. He was pretty content to not move much at all.

Another highlight of the trip was getting to go on a harbor tour. The tour guide had lots of fun information, and the tour provided lots of great views.

 After our harbor tour we were ready to grab some lunch. Ruth had never been to a Hard Rock Cafe, and there happened to be one a couple of blocks from the harbor. We got to the cafe and saw that they had opened a rooftop terrace. We thought it would be fun to eat out on the roof and enjoy the view. We got to do just that, but it was a little different than we were expecting. I think the rooftop terrace was meant to be more of a bar/lounge area, but since we were naive we had lunch up there anyway. It did turn out nice to have lunch in our private little cabana:

For our last night in Seattle we needed to switch hotels because there was no availability at the Waterfront Marriott for the employee discount. We switched to a new hotel which turned out to be to our advantage because it put us a lot closer to the attractions we were still trying to get to. It put us really close to the City Center which is where the Space Needle is located. This view out of our room window should give an idea of how close to the Space Needle we were:

 Another fun attraction we got to see on our trip was the EMP (Experience Music Project) Museum. There was a lot of cool memorabilia from famous artists to look at and a lot of music history outlined. They also had an exhibit that they called SkyChurch. It had a massive screen that was playing music videos. The size of the room and the screen made it fun to experience the music videos they were playing. It was also cool because it seems like they were playing music across all ages and genres. There was also stations inside the museum that allowed visitors to experiment with different musical instruments. We got to play on everything from drums, guitars, and keyboards to sound boards and turn tables. While all of the music exhibits were fun, Ruth and I quickly discovered how out of the loop we are with the music scene. There was a lot of stuff that neither of us had ever heard of. We also had a rude awakening at how nerdy we are at heart. There was some non-music related exhibits that were way more fun for us.

 There was a lego architecture exhibit that showed many famous skyscrapers from across the globe that had been re-created in legos.

There was also a Fantasy exhibit that had displays associated with the fantasy genre of books and movies. There were props from movies like the Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, the Wizard of Oz, and the Princess Bride. There was also a kiosk in the exhibit that allowed you to create characters. Ruth and I now have alternate identities:

Another non-music exhibit at the EMP Museum was the Icons of Science Fiction. There were a lot of cool movie props and costumes from some pretty big Sci-Fi titles. Here are a few of our favorites:

 Darth Vaders light saber from the original movies!

 Yoda's cane!

 An early Superman costume.

 A big blaster from Men In Black

 Another gun from Men In Black

 For any Trekies out there that is Data's uniform.

On our anniversary we had reservations at the SkyCity restaurant on top of the Seattle Space Needle. I don't know if Ruth will agree with me on this, but I think this was the highlight of our trip. We had :dinner reservations at 7:15, which worked out great because we got to see the city before and after sunset. I know none of these pictures will do it justice, but here is a glimpse into the incredible view that accompanied our dining experience:

 This is Key Arena, which is where the Seattle Supersonics used to play.

 I believe this is Lake Union.

If you expand these images you can see Mt. Rainier.

 I ordered the American Kobe Beef Tenderloin. It was easily the most tender piece of beef I have ever eaten. It was so tender that it was difficult to cut!

 Ruth ordered the Jidori Chicken. It was a free range chicken that was butter poached, and stuffed with smoked mozzarella and speck. It was served with a side of baby fettuccine with spinach and asparagus.

You will have to forgive the awesome conversation that accompanies this video, but I wanted to show our desert, the Lunar Orbiter. It is an ice cream sundae that is served in a dish that has dry ice in the base to create the smoke effect.

 One of the last major attractions we went to was the Science Center. There were a lot of fun thing to see, but we were running out of time before we had to head to the airport. The one area we spent quite a bit of time in was the butterfly exhibit.

 This butterfly was working its way out of the cocoon.

We made one final trip to the Space Needle observation deck before heading to the airport:

 Ruth waving goodbye to Seattle.

The Great Salt Lake from the plane ride home.