Seattle

When I asked Spense what he would like for our anniversary he said that he would love to get away somewhere for a night. I dutifully did as my husband asked and organized for the wonderful Johanna to watch our kids overnight while we had a trip up to Seattle.

We dropped the kids off after school yesterday and drove up to Bellevue where we had an early dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. We had only ever had cheesecake there before and were quickly stuffed with their oversized portions. We then headed off to the temple to do a session there together. To prevent any embarassment I won't tell you how long it has been since we did a session at the temple together, but it's been a while. Since I made it to the changing rooms, undressed, and then discovered that I didn't have a slip I didn't make it in time for the 7:00 p.m session. We then sat in the chapel and waited and waited. It was finally 8:20 p.m when we got into the session. I guess that it had been a really busy day with over 1100 endowments so they were backed up. A few people left and we thought about doing the same, but I would have felt bad for my person. We finally got out of the temple at about 10:15 p.m and made our way to the Pan Pacific Seattle hotel.

The hotel

Our room

We had a nice view of the Space Needle from our window

Spenser of course had printed off directions, but left them in the printer so we called Ryan for some help. He got on the internet and led us right to the door. As is the case in lots of the nicer hotels there was no microwave to heat up our left overs. Spense called down stairs to ask if there was anywhere that we could warm up our food and the little porter came up to get it and took it down to the kitchen for us. When he returned he bought it back with the full room service treatment. Our carry out dishes sure did look fancy!

Our room service!

It was nice to be able to sleep in and sleep through the whole night without children waking up or coming into our bed. I hoped that Zach had been good to the Johnson's, but I wasn't too hopeful. I figured that they couldn't hate us too much for just one night - I hoped!

After checking out we went into the Starbucks next door for a quick drink and then walked into downtown.

We first stopped by the Pike Place Market. The market is one of the oldest continuously operating markets in the US and has a bunch of fun little shops and stands.

One of the big attractions at Pike Place Market is the Fish Market where the emplyees throw the fish that customers order rather than pass it. We got to see the men in action.

The fishmongers

There were flowers everywhere. As we walked by I wondered how they would possibly sell all that they had since the ladies were still working hard to make more bouquets. We went back a couple of hours later so that I could take a bunch home for Johanna and I was shocked that there weren't too many left. They looked and smelt beautiful.

Since Spenser and I both worked in the library at BYU after we were married we have a love for books and libraries. On our way down to Pioneer Square we decided to stop in at the new library and take a look. The architecture was especially fun.

After lots more walking we finally stopped for lunch at Qdoba's. It was nice to sit and eat without worrying too much about Zach stealing my drink! We then made the short walk back to the hotel parking lot and drove home.

We found the kids safe and well. Olivia didn't even want to look at us. I think that she thought that if she closed here eyes that we could go away and she could stay longer. Zach had woke up briefly in the night as expected and we were to later find out that he had a big poop that managed to go over a few things. Thanks for cleaning that one up Ryan! We had a fun and relaxing weekend. Thank you so much Johnson's for taking such good care of our kids and treating them like your own. We love and appreciate your friendship and are ready to return the favor!