Seattle Saturday

 Saturday started at the Starbucks in the lobby of our hotel.  The kids are on a pumpkin spice steamer kick.  We also got a bunch of pastries and breakfast sandwiches and cut them up in quarters for a little smorgasbord of delicacies.

 We were all able to get ready and mosey on down at different times, which was nice.  The Courtyard is a great hotel.  It's beautiful, elegant and low-key.  Our family totally flew under the radar.  It was actually nice to be in a more adult environment than we usually find at Springhill Suites or one of the other chains where they serve free breakfast and it's more family-oriented.  I'm a big fan of the newly revamped Courtyard brand now.  We spent quite a bit of time in the spacious, comfortable lobby, reading, watching baseball and enjoying those pumpkin spice steamers.  I loved coming across Golda and Freestone chatting.  They don't have enough time in real life to connect, being in different stages of life.  We missed Ari on this trip, but we got text updates of her adventures in Arizona and California.

You never see ginger this fresh at the store!

 With Pike Place and the tourist scene under our belts, we decided to head over to the university district to see what was up in that neighborhood.  Best idea ever!  Not only was the main drag lined with fun shops and great ethnic food, but there was an amazing farmers market, full of the most gorgeous, colorful produce you can imagine.

 Tziporah was mad that she couldn't buy everything at the university bookstore.  We did, however, happen across a dollar store with very cute knit hats for...one dollar!  We also bought warm socks because it was quite a cold, blustery day.  Typical Seattle weather, and we loved every minute of it!

 The na'an and tikka masala at the farmers market was to die for.  We also picked up some banh mi, some bubble tea and and a healthy variety of produce samples.  We ate the foods we had foraged at a cardboard table behind one of the farm booths.  A meal could not be more satisfying!

 Ptolemy's new hat!

In the bubble tea place a group of Asian-American students were having a long meeting, and others were studying alone.  Freestone settled right in like he was one of the guys.

 We drove down Greek Row while we finished off our bubble tea, then went back to Bellevue for an art project at the museum.  The Bellevue Arts Museum had a kids' art project going on from 12 to 2, and we thought it might be more fum than visiting the exhibits, which didn't necessarily sound interesting to us.  It was a good call.  Essentially, the art project seemed to be run by Chinese exchange students with limited English.  It was a laissez-faire experience, which is when kids thrive the best.  It was two hours of unstructured time with a cardboard box and bins and bins of art supplies, old art catalogs and paints with which to decorate the box and create a little vignette inside.  ALL of our kids were completely engrossed the whole time.  I loved how kids just wandered in and were turned loose with all these amazing supplies.  Not a helicopter parent in sight!  Scott took Tizzy to the nearby shops and I was free to roam the gift shop and rest in the tranquil foyer.

 Don't you love the guy with the orange pants?

  Ruby is so photogenic, I got carried away!

 Next stop:  Skylight Farms. (Check out the link to their blog.) Our good friends Jonathan and Petrina cashed out of their fast-paced lives and bought a farm just outside Seattle in Snohomish.  We have been looking forward to seeing their farm, and we finally got a chance.  In fact, it was a big impetus for this trip.  All summer, we have been seeing pictures of Skylight Farms' gorgeous CSA baskets on their blog and trying to imagine Jonathan the lawyer outside with his hands in the soil.  Actually, it wasn't much of a stretch when I recalled the Fishers' expansive garden when we were growing up and Jonathan's penchant for a challenge.  Petrina and Jonathan are outdoorsy and adventurous, too, and I firmly believe there is nothing they can't do, including starting a farm with knowledge gained from "reading a couple of books," as Jonathan put it.

 When we were almost to Skylight, we drove past an agro-tourism outfit, complete with hayrides and a big pumpkin patch teeming with people.  Freestone excitedly said, "Is THAT where we're going?!"  I said, "Um, sortof..."  Jonathan's farm proved to be even more exciting than "Bob's Pumpkin Patch."  When we pulled in, little Griffin was helping his dad in among the rows of vegetables.  Sadly for us, Petrina and baby Caia were visiting friends in San Francisco.

 Ptolemy was cracking us up with his dollar store hat.  We didn't see much of him after he discovered how comfortable it was!  In every picture, we had this mystery boy!

 Scott and I met Jonathan in 9th grade.  Along the way, there have been more adventures than we can recall.  Some of them we couldn't even recall the next day! ;)  Scott sent me a picture today that said, "We've been through a lot together and most of it was your fault!"  Ha ha.  That certainly applies in this friendship, although I'm not sure what was whose fault, only that I'm grateful to have Jonathan's friendship after all these years.  I will say, just for the record, that Jonathan and Petrina are responsible for Freestone's arrival.  It was on the trip to Banff for their wedding almost 11 years ago that...

Suffice it to say, we almost named Freestone "Calgary."

 Rows and rows of the most gorgeous veggies.  Here in Utah, we think our farm stands are great, but we really do forget that we live in a dessert, and that growing things in a dessert is hard.  The colorful variety of produce we saw at the farm and the farmers market made Utah produce literally pale in comparison.  I mean, 10 different colors of carrots?  Endless shades of radishes, from purple to pink to red to white!  Same with the leaves.  Much more colorful in a place that has so much more rainfall.  That said, I love my Utah landscape to my core.

 I told Jonathan that I knew at least a dozen Mormon Mommy photogs who would kill to do a shoot at the farm.  I got carried away myself with pictures!

 Scott loves this picture.

 We took a walk to the river where the salmon were running.  Some were still headed upstream to spawn, some were floating back down, their life's purpose complete.  We spied a bald eagle, just waiting for his next easy salmon meal.  We saw a crawfish and lots of salmon.  The river was just full of them.

 Two sweet sisters.

 Seriously, I was wishing I had our nice camera and about two hours to take pictures.  It was a beautiful day in a gorgeous place.

 Xanthe's poses are killing me!  The hose, the apple, the stance.  She is hilarious!

 Ptolemy really eats apples with a vengeance!  He had just picked this one off a tree.

 Is this kid the greatest or what?

 Griffin demonstrated how he drives is Papa's tractor.  Golda was jealous!

 We weren't going to visit the Space Needle, but Golda wanted to see it.  We honed our skill of me parking in a no parking zone and acting confused while Scott and the kids run and see landmarks.  It worked great this time.  I parked amongst all the semi trucks who were there with equipment for the Kanye West concert.  Whenever an official-looking guy walked by in a vest with a walkie-talkie, I squinted into the distance and nervously checked my phone, as if the people I was waiting for were lost, but coming any minute.  Worked great!

 A Dale Chihuly, I presume.

 Scott took the kids to the pizza place we had eaten at the night before, Pagliacci Pizza.  I couldn't go back because I had embarrassed Golda and Ruby by breaking into tears over my slice of pizza while explaining the plot of the opera Pagliacci.  (But he was such a tragic figure!  Hiding his pain behind the clown's smile!)  Freestone, on the other hand, HAD to go back because we had been given a punch card the night before, and if we bought a few more slices of pizza, we would get a free slice.  He HAD to get that free slice of pizza!  So it was decided that I would take Tziporah back to the hotel, but I saw the Vietnamese place we wanted to try, and I stopped for a steaming bowl of pho with my favorite baby.  So much better than going to bed!  Tizzy was adorable eating her noodles, saying, "Thank you!  You're welcome!"

 Soon, the rest of the gang showed up for a round of bubble tea, then off to bed.  Sheesh, when we get on a kick, we really get on a kick!  When Tizzy saw the bubble tea, she said, "Bubble tea!  I need that!  I need that bubble tea!"  In fact, "I need that was a new and useful phrase for Tizzy on this trip.  She used it often in the car to get things.  "I need that Kindle!  I need that drink!"

 Pagliacci Pizza

Spying on us through the window at What the Pho

I've gotten pretty long-winded about such a short trip, haven't I?  It was so short, Jonathan called it a "cool-down lap" for our cross-country trek this summer.  I guess that's accurate.  It was the perfect little jaunt to polish off a season of travel.  The next day, there was a peaceful 12-hour drive, which of course, I have way too many pictures of...