Seattle, Insanity and Roses

 We went to Seattle to take care of the Visa process for our trip to Japan. There's a Japanese consulate in Seattle, super hard to find, for us country folk but we managed. There were about four hallways of elevators, but all of them went to, clearly labeled, different floors but for some reason it was just so confusing. I have to say the Consulate, hope I'm spelling that right, while full of super polite Japanese people willing to help us, was worse than the DMV. We'd called ahead to ensure we had all of the correct paperwork, alas somehow there were still extra things they needed. We had to call and get some paperwork faxed and emailed from various organizations. Poor Kevin was put on hold four times with Delta and not just a "please hold" but a "let me transfer you..." That phrase meant let me recycle you back through our computer system. Anyway, we got it taken care of, we think and are expecting our stamped passports within the week. After that, we spent some time enjoying and exploring Seattle. The picture above is us either on the light rail, or the ferry.

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 We had to check out the ferris wheel, which was recommended by several friends, and the view was spectacular. We were in enclosed little pods and had to share with a dad and two little boys, but it was a fun fifteen minutes. Something worth doing once.

This is the view to the right of the wheel. The blue building next to us was the aquarium, probably the most fun part of our trip.

We all really enjoyed all the fish they had on display. They also had tide pools that had stars, and other creatures in them that you could touch. It was awesome. Alexander preferred splashing the water everywhere to touching any creatures, and I'm sure the creatures for the sake of their lives preferred it that though.

This little man was enthralled with the jelly-fish! There was a wheel you could walk through that was full of changing colors and jelly fish. The picture is a little blurry because he was literally bouncing with excitement.

 So we decided he wanted to BE a jelly fish! Ok maybe, it was at our bidding but he makes a pretty dang cute gelatinous zooplankton, don't you think?

... and an adorable eel! Who is that good looking scuba diver?! It was Saturday, and there was a special visitor at the aquarium, who is an octopus, and so it was so unbelievably crowded!

This is our child's favorite past time. He loves to make noise, and I'm learning to tune it out. While he was napping in the ergo, the baby carrier we had attached to Kevin all weekend, we went and picked our his birthday present at an amazing toy store! It was called, Magic mouse toys, I think. I'll have to look at the bag but anyway we got him "band in a box" It's a tamberine, drum and some other instruments for him to play with. I'm super excited about it and even though he's 1, hope he gets plenty of fun out of it.

In other news, this week has been good and busy. Kevin made it through his first week of insanity, and did really good even when it was really hard. I've had a nasty cold all week and haven't been able to breathe out of my nose but am FINALLY feeling better. The roses Kevin surprised me with sure helped. He was a saint this week with taking caring of me, the house and Lex. It's been a lot. We have two more weeks of school and then finals, and then we'll pack up and clean out the house! Just a few more things we have to do, like find a storage unit and some other logistics. That's all for now. Hopefully, enough will happen this week to merit another post next Sunday. Happy week everyone!