A Monday I will never forget

Monday morning Manda, Jon, Ryker and I went to the Seattle Aquarium. We thought this would be the most fun for Ryker. And it gave us the chance to bring out the kid in ourselves.  And what made it extra cool was that The Aquarium was right on the coast. Seeing the ocean on blue skied day in Seattle is sure to warm your heart.

Everything in the aquarium was the same marine life that they find right on the Seattle Coast. It was fun to see all the different kinds of fish that were in that area.

In the touch tank there were so many star fish. Along with some of the most colorful sea urchins I have ever seen. While we were there Manda pointed out to me a star fish that was moving. It was one of those kind that have more than 5 arms. I had never seen a star fish move from one place to another. We all know they do, and we have all seen it on TV in fast motion, but we got to see it in real life. I was surprised how quickly it was getting around. I guess those extra legs really do the trick.

The Jellyfish tank/tube thingy was pretty cool. Colorful lights were inside changing colors. It made to Jellyfish to appear the same color as the light. It was kinda interesting. Ryker's favorite color was of course green. I tried to get a picture of him by it while it was green...but it turned to blue.

While we were there I couldn't help but chuckle at Ryker. It was like watching a kid in a candy shop. He was running from one thing to the next. Shouting to me with utter excitement about everything that he saw. 'Mom, look at this...Mom, look at that.' As a mother you can't help but take a moment to sit back and soak in the excitement you see on your child's face.  I just loved it!

There were two Giant Pacific Octopus on exhibit. Both female. One named 'Noodles' and the other 'May.' I openly admit this was my favorite part of the aquarium....

...and this is why. At noon we got the opportunity to watch the Octopus be feed fish fillets. The four of us were just STARING the whole time in just AWE over this creature. So fascinating! She turned a really deep red color when she became interested in the food. Just pure AWESOMENESS!!!

I took a video of the first food she took off the stick, then took these pictures of the next one. It was just ABSOLUTELY one of the neatest things I have had the opportunity to watch. She slowly brought her arms up as she grabbed the fish from the stick and brought it to her beak which is under all her arms.

They were telling us that the Giant Pacific Octopus can measure as big as 30 feet from tip to tip, spread out. May here was about 15 feet wide.

Can you not help but look at these cool pictures? Or am I the only one that thinks this is not the neatest thing? Maybe it's because I was there in person. These pictures are great...but it was FAR better in person.

They tried feeding Noodles, but she wasn't interested in the fish on a stick. It made us that much happier that we got to see May cooperated.

After staring in awe for over an hour at the Octopus we set out for Lunch. We found an Old Spaghetti Factory close by. It's an all time favorite of mine and Amanda's. Both of our husbands can't figure out why we like it so much. Haha. But whatever it is... We sure do love it.

Once we had full bellies we went for a little stroll along the coast. Oh it was just BEAUTIFUL!!! I couldn't believe how I lucked out with blue skies (It was time for some good luck, so thank goodness).

Jon was Ryker's buddy on this trip. Everything Jon did...Ryker would do.  Them boys gotta stick together right?

I loved this view where the water and the city were close together. 

Such a cute little man. I look over at him and he was just posing. I don't think I have taken enough pictures of him (wink wink).

The park along the coast was very pleasant and beautiful. So many different fall colors. Love it!

Along with the leaves falling came the twigs. Which of course Ryker started to collect...

...he carried them just about the whole rest of the way. Every person we passed made some sort of comment about his twigs. Some said he could start a fire, others mentioned he had quite the load. But Ryker made sure to let me know that they weren't sticks... they were his SWORDS!  It's either that... or a gun... such a boy!

And if we hadn't done enough...we went back to the Aquarium for another hour or so. We wanted to get our money's worth and see the rest of the Aquarium that we had missed. 

THEN...we walked over the Pikes Place Market. It was the end of the day so most of the stands were closed or closing. Mostly all that was left were the flower stands. They had the prettiest flowers. AND you could buy a bouquet for only $5. I told Manda if I lived there I would be done there every week getting flowers for my house. Since I didn't think a bouquet of flowers wouldn't live through the travel home, I bought some for Manda to have in her apartment.

We left downtown right as the sun was starting to set. Just a beautiful way to end a perfect day. It made it for the crazy long day the night before. If only it could have lasted longer.

The start of a Long Day

Yesterday morning Ryker and I headed to the airport to fly to Seattle to visit Manda and Jon. We were flying on JetBlue from Salt Lake to Long Beach, and from Long Beach to Seattle. The Long Beach flight left at 6:30am and SUPPOSED to land at 7:21am. Then the plan WAS to hurry over to the flight to Seattle that left at 8:00am and land at 10:40am. Then we could have a whole day with Jon and Amanda.

As we were loading the plane in Salt Lake the cockpit was open and the pilot saw Ryker come aboard. The pilot told Ryker to go in and check out the instruments. I thought it was so nice of the pilot to offer. How many kids get that opportunity? Me being his mom I got to go in as well and take pictures. The whole time I was looking at everything I was very glad that the pilot knew what all those buttons and knobs were for because to me it looked like a whole lot of craziness. Ryker thought that was pretty awesome to sit in the pilot seat.

 I loved that it was just Ryker alone. It is very rare that we get to spend that much time together.

As we were coming into Long Beach the pilot came over the intercom telling the passengers that there was alot of fog (see picture below) and they were going to circle around until it cleared up. At this point it was a little after 7am and I was starting to feel worried if we were going to make our connecting flight to Seattle which started to board at 7:30. The flight attendant knew that I had a tight layover and she came and told me that we SHOULD be ok and that we SHOULD land in time.

The fog cleared up just a little bit for the pilot to attempt to land the plane... but as he got down into the fog and right as we were about to land, he would pull up at the last minute because the visibility level dropped again... He did this THREE times over a TWO hour period. Ryker mentioned to me that the plane was making him feel sick. Can you blame him? We just kept circling over the city until we unfortunately ran out of fuel and had to be redirected to ONTARIO to fuel back up. Once that happened we then flew BACK to Long Beach and landed around 10am. 

Obviously we missed our connecting flight. The biggest bummer was that the next flight to Seattle wasn't until 6:15pm. That's EIGHT hours we had to kill in Long Beach. UGH!

I guess I shouldn't complain because I got to spend the whole day with my little man. But when you are stuck in a city that you are unfamiliar with and no way around it's kind of discouraging. We hung out at the airport for a bit while my phone was charging. Then waited another hour at the bus stop. We caught a ride down to the mall where we walked around and had lunch. 

After that we made our way back to the bus stop. By this point Ryker was feeling really tired and didn't want to walk anymore. I carried him part of the way, but trying to carry him and my purse and his backpack was just too much for me to handle all at once. He was so happy to make it to the bus stop where he could sit and rest. 

We made it back to the airport with an hour before boarding. I thought to myself 'I can handle 1 hour since I just killed 7.' Ryker and I played games that he would make up..like pushing all his crayons into a bucket...or tossing a game piece (he found in his backpack) back and forth. He made friends with a lady that was sitting next to us in the waiting area.

We boarded the plane and we were on our way. FINALLY!!! I was so anxious to get there and see my sista.

Ryker fell asleep about an hour into the flight. Which I was glad because then I could get a little bit of rest. But he was out like a light even when we landed. I had to wake him up so we could walk off the plane. Oh I felt so bad. I was feeling so exhausted and I can only imagine how he felt. He could hardly walk and he just kept asking if I would carry him. So I did. All the way to the baggage claim.

Our baggage took forever to come. There was a baggage jam.. who has ever heard of a baggage jam? (Not our day). 

When we finally got everything we headed out to the curb to be picked up by Manda. OH JOY!!!! We had arrived! (10 HOURS later than planned).

I was so impressed at how well Ryker handled the long and tiring day. He really only had one meltdown and that was due to being hungry and tired. I had several people tell me how polite and sweet he was. He's such a good boy!!!

 Today we went to the Mercer Island Ward. Everyone there is so sweet! They totally remembered me when I was here in January! What great memories!

As we were leaving I just was so taken back at all the beautiful trees. Fall is just GORGEOUS here!

We are staying until Tuesday... so more still to come! Stay tuned!!!

Where has the time gone?

Honestly. I have no clue how the past few weeks have slipped away without blogging about them. So I need to get you caught up before I tell the most recent.

First I had to show these cute little boys in the tub together. I remember seeing pictures of my sisters and I in the bathtub together. So one day my boys can look back at these and smile.



 So cute in their towels.

Back on Tuesday October 11th,  Ryker, Cy and I went to Packs Pumpkin Patch out in Farmington with Courtney, Rafe and Mabel. The boys had the funnest time walking through the patch picking out pumpkins for our families. It was raining all that morning so the patch was muddy. But of course that made it that much more fun for the boys.

 There was a kids hay maze that the boys enjoyed playing in.

 Funny how a pile of squash makes for a fun time for a 2 and 3 year old.

So cute!

The following Tuesday, Courtney and I got sitters for a little ones and took the boys to see Lion King 3D. We went to the new Megaplex theater in Centerville. We were about 20 minutes late for the movie. But when we got there we were the only ones in the theater. And because of how late we were the movie wasn't even going anymore because there was nobody in the theater...so they were so nice and restarted the movie over for us...AND we had the whole theater to ourselves. It was pretty sweet. We didn't have to worry about the boys disturbing others and I could still use my phone without being bothersome.

I loved having that time with Ryker. We had a good time. I think we are going to have to do this more often.