March 23rd marked our 10 year wedding anniversary. Bob and I really wanted to go somewhere for our 10 year anniversary, but we didn't feel we should go far away. Since neither of the boys have ever stayed overnight with anyone but Bob and I and have never spent the night away from their own house except for when Ethan was in the hospital, we didn't feel that this was the right time to see how they would do with someone else in another place. The closest the boys have come to being away from us overnight was last summer when Bob took me out for my birthday and we went out to the Mukleshoot Casino. My dad came over and watched the boys. We didn't come home until like 4am and by the time we came home, Dad had put the boys to sleep and he spent the night too. When we woke up though, mommy and daddy were home; this would not happen this time. We did prepare the boys by telling them that we were going to stay overnight somewhere else and that they were going to stay with Gung Gung and Po Po, go to sleep with them, and wake up without us being there.
On a side note, Jonathan's friend Mia was having a birthday party on Saturday at noon and we would not be home in time to take him so Katie's mom offered to come pick him up and take him so he had that to look forward too and ended up doing very well. That also meant we would have to make sure to be at Mia's house to pick him up on Saturday at 2pm.
We left around 1:00pm on Friday afternoon. Our first stop was Shilla on Denny Street downtown. I hadn't been there is years and I used to really like going there and getting the tekka don. Tekka don is a bunch of raw tuna on a bed of sushi rice. It was SOOOO good. Bob got a sushi plate. Our next stop was at the hotel, The Edgewater Inn. This hotel is a famous hotel that a lot of famous music people have stayed at. We'd never been there so we thought we would try it out. Our room was not supposed to be ready until 4:00pm, but when we got there at 3:00pm, we were told the room was ready and we could check in. The room was nice and the view was spectacular. We got a full water view room. The other cool feature about the room was that the bathroom was open to the rest of the room only being separated by sliding doors. We could sit in the tub and soak while looking out at the sound or even watching the tv. That was a cool feature that i'm sure was a renovation. I took pictures of the room and then we decided to go for a walk. On our way out, we stopped at the hotel gift shop to look around.
The hotel is pier 67, so it was pretty close to the end of the waterfront on the Seattle Center side so we walked down to the sculpture park. I'd never been there before and luckily it was a really nice and sunny day, so we took our time walking though the entire park. It was really nice, with nice views of the sound although I have to be honest. I didn't get some of the sculptures that were there.
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| Sculpture park looking away from the water at the needle. |
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| There were a lot of birds and people feeding them. |
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| It was really relaxing watching the birds, but cool that the space needle was in the background. |
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| A bird and the needle. |
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| The sound |
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| More sculpture park |
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| There's something artistic about this shot |
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| A ferry and a beautiful reflection of the sun on the water |
After our walk, we came back to the hotel for a soak in the tub and then we went down to the lobby where there is a restaurant called Six Seven for pier 67. One entire side of the restaurant is glass so diners could see the sound. The hostess stand was also very cool. The entire bottom was a fish tank.
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| Six Seven Restaurant |
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| Hostess stand fish tank |
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| I ordered king crab, which was very good |
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| Bob ordered the fish |
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| Dining at sunset |
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| Entrance to the Six Seven restaurant |
When we got back to the room, Bob had ordered chocolate covered strawberries. We set those aside and got ready for our massages. The hotel does not have a spa in house, but they do have people who can come in and do in room massages, so Bob got two masseuses to come to the room. It so SOOO nice and relaxing. We got hour massages and then pretty much laid down and fell asleep. Right before we fell asleep, we did decide to have breakfast brought to the room, so we filled out our choices and hung the order on the door. It was an absolutely wonderful anniversary day.
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| Chocolate covered strawberries |
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| Together at dinner |
The next moring, we slept in for a while and then waited for our breakfast to come at 10:00am. We were so glad that we had decided to have breakfast delivered. I got an omelet that was really good and bob got eggs flourintine. We ate in chairs facing the water with the window open looking at listening to the sounds of the birds flying by the window. They flew so close that we could probably touch one, though we also hoped one wouldn't fly into the room.
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| Spinach omelet |
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| Eggs flourintine |
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| Ferry |
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| Close up of the ferry |
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| Eating breakfast |
After breakfast, we took another soak in the tub. Then we got all packed up and checked out of the hotel. We were so bummed and wished that we had decided to take the whole weekend away. I was proud of myself in that I didn't call to check on the boys once, though I did think about them often. This was my first time staying overnight away from both boys too. We got our car out of the hotel's valet parking and started making our way to Pacific Place shopping. What we didn't know was that the viaduct was closed, so we got stuck in traffic. We ended up going in a big circle to get home since the freeways was also a parking lot. We skipped shopping since we had to get back by 2pm to pick up Jonathan. I decided I wasn't going to let the traffic ruin my good mood. I dropped Bob off around 1:45pm at home and I went to pick up Jonathan at Mia's house.
Jonathan had a lot of fun at Mia's party, but once I got him home, he and Ethan both took very long naps. Bob's parents said the boys did well. Jonathan had planned out the whole day playing trains, cars, race, etc. though they did stay up really late and had trouble falling asleep. We had let Jonathan choose where he would sleep since his bed was the guest bed where Gung Gung and Po Po were sleeping and he chose to sleep on the living room couch so Ethan slept there too. Jonathan apparently kept going upstairs saying stuff like Ethan was too loud, it was too bright...just excuses. Overall though, the boys did great. So proud of them. Jonathan also got ready to go to Mia's party and Katie's mom Susan was running late so I guess Jonathan had to wait unexpectedly. Susan told me that when she got there, Jonathan asked her why she took so long and made him wait. Oh well. I guess we'll work on our manners.
I would call this a success. Bob and I had a great anniversary and the boys successfully had a night without us. This summer we'll have to work on this, but it was a good start.
-Dina
