Fan-tastic!

Of my three sons, Matthew is the only one who is into sports. Whether playing or watching, he is a sports fan through and through. He has been cheering for the Seattle Seahawks for last couple of years, so when it was decided that Seattle was our vacation destination, taking a tour of Centurylink Field was a must. We arrived early again (this is actually pretty normal for us) and Matthew was so excited that he was pretty much glued to the glass outside the team store which was the designated meeting place for the tour. In spite of the fact that most of us have no caring for football, it was actually pretty cool. And our tour guide was a chatty old guy that kept us entertained. Get ready for a bunch of pictures. Matthew tried to take a video of the entire tour but I won't make you sit through that. ;-)

 Let me in! Let me in!

 

 The visiting team locker room. We didn't get to see the one the Seahawks use.

 

After lunch, we went to the Museum of Flight. Kev and all the boys are airplane fans (as evidenced by the fact that this is the third airplane related location they’ve visited this trip) so they were all excited. As for me, World War II era planes are interesting, mostly due to the fact that I actually have a frame of reference for many of them based on movies and books based on that time period, so there were intriguing things for me to see as well. I have to say, since I got married and birthed three sons, I’ve learned more about airplanes that I ever wanted or needed to know.

See how many airplanes? And this is just one of numerous galleries.

The kids all got to sit in the cockpit of an SR-71.

Always the drama kid...

Matthew and Malia also sat in an F-18.

The outside hanger had the big ones-Boeing 747, Boeing 787, the Concorde, etc.

My dad suggested a place called Ivar’s for dinner and I have to say, we were all fans of the amazing food. Honestly, I could eat there every single day. Seriously. It was that good. They had a delicious assortment of seafood chowders as well as fish, crab, fish, some more fish…if you aren’t a fan of seafood, this is definitely not the place for you. But we loved it. Daniel ordered a dish that included Clams, mussels, prawns, snow crab, salmon, halibut and cod. What he didn’t realize is that all the shellfish and crustaceans would still be in the shells. Being from an extremely landlocked state, he was also completely surprised when his dinner came with a bib. Those of us who had more experience with such things assured him he really did want to wear the bib and my mom coached him in how to actually get to the crab meat. He was a good sport and took everything in stride. After the fact, his response was, "The crab was really good...the bib was awkward, but the crab was really good!" Yes, it was in fact, very good. Over the course of this trip, our two oldest children have become unabashed seafood fans.

After dinner we took a few minutes to wander through the nearby “Ye Olde Curiosity Shop.” I’m a fan of such random locations. It’s probably something I learned to enjoy as a kid. My parents took us on jaunts to a variety of locations around the country (and occasionally out of it) and we frequently stopped at random little spots like this one. Malia was fascinated by the vast and completely random assortment of things to buy. She even tried out a crazy pair of glasses. Creepy, right?

We were definitely all worn out by the end of the day. Malia had a couple of blisters and was one sleepy girl by the time we returned to the house. We’ll sleep and be back at it tomorrow.