We decided to take a family trip to Seattle this summer– to escape the oppressive heat of Phoenix, to get in one last trip before we become a family of four, and to travel before we have to start paying for an extra full price plane ticket after Clara turns two (ouch). Side note: We are having a baby! Baby girl Rottman is coming around Thanksgiving this year. We could not be more excited for this gift and thank our Heavenly Father for another child! More on that later… Back to Seattle, we have some great friends from Seattle that made us so excited to visit after hearing them talk about the city and who also gave us some great tips. Before the trip, we decided we were going to take public transit and forgo renting a car until necessary. So, we arrived at the airport, took the light rail to downtown, and then took a bus that stopped within feet of the house we rented for the next several days. This may sound easy, but with a toddler and lots of luggage, it was an adventure. Jeff did a great job finding us a house to rent which was only a few blocks from Green Lake. We had been talking to Clara about visiting Seattle, and about a week before we left she started randomly saying, “I wanna go to Seattle’s house.” So, here we are at Seattle’s house and here is Clara embracing Seattle style in front of our rental house. This was mostly her doing, including the nice headband.
We spent the sunny afternoon walking around the lake, canoeing, and playing on the playground. This was Clara’s first time on a boat, and she had been talking about it for a while. “I want to ride in canoe.” She and Jeff had done some trial runs in kayaks and canoes at REI. She was ready! She enjoyed it for the most part and was pleased to “help” me paddle. So we did it all that day– a plane, a train, a bus, and a boat.
We spent the next day in downtown. We had breakfast at The Crumpet Shop (another great tip from friends) which even Clara enjoyed and then headed to Pike Place Market. Jeff and I have decided that this one of Clara’s favorite things from the trip. She has talked about it every day since then, “man/guy throwing fish. market. fun.” It has been the subject of many crayon and magnadoodle drawings.
We saw the first Starbucks, cheese being made at Beecher’s, fun street performers… Clara was enthralled by a band with a violin, banjo, washboard, and stringed bucket. We then headed towards the Space Needle, had a burger at Dick’s, and played at the Children’s museum. Whew… then we rode the monorail back to downtown. Clara fell asleep as we made our way to Ivar’s for dinner. She woke up just in time to join in on the fun of feeding chips to the seagulls.
The next day was dominated by our visit to the zoo. Clara loves the Phoenix zoo, but it has pretty much been off limits for the last month and for the next few with our 100+ temperatures. The Seattle zoo is great! We walked the 1.5 miles there from our house and then spent almost 5 hours wandering the zoo… tiring but fun. One highlight was feeding the giraffes…
We really appreciated how well you could see the animals with many exhibits having several places to view. We caught the bear at the perfect time and found a little window only a few feet from him eating a cantaloupe. Clara is at a really fun age right now and loves to recount her day. This is one of the things that she mentions, “Bear ate cantaloupe. I saw it” or “I feed giraffe.” She also liked the hippos which is a favorite animal right now and one that we don’t have at our zoo. After the long zoo visit, Clara took a 3+ hour nap. We finally woke her up to go to the park while Jeff walked to a nearby sushi place to get takeout for dinner.
The next day included biking around the city. We saw the Fremont Troll, Gas Works Park, The Ave, and the University. Clara was at first scared of the troll but warmed up to him a little before we left. She talks a lot about him too, “Troll under bridge. I scared. Troll making noise.”
Gas Works Park was beautiful with great views of the city.
We ate at a great Thai place on The Ave, Thai Tom. It is such an interesting shift now traveling with a child. The small, cramped Thai place wasn’t quite the same with a 2 year old. Of course, she certainly adds a lot to our travels, and we are happy to see her enjoying and learning new things! Jeff picked up a car that evening for our trip to Whidbey the next day, so we took advantage of having our own transportation and headed to Queen Anne for dinner. We walked to Kerry Park which was breathtakingly beautiful with a clear view of the city and Mount Rainier in the distance.
Molly Moon’s ice cream was next. This was another recommendation and was well worth the trip!
Great pictures are great! Looks like y’all had good weather also!