See-Att-Uhl, Day 2: Seattle Center (AKTJA* Monorail)

*Also Known To Jonah As

Seattle Center, location of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair and the famed Space Needle, was our destination for day 2 of our trip. After a bite to eat at the hotel, we hit our first Starbucks in Seattle just outside Westlake Center and the entrance to the Monorail.

Before getting coffee, though, a couple things caught our eyes:

This clothing store had a great collection of old sewing machines in the windows.

The trees in Westlake Park are painted blue!

Then it was on to the Monorail. Jonah was *VERY* excited about this. Per recommendations we had read online, we were sure to get seats up at the front so Jonah could watch out the windshield. He loved watching the cars (and City Buses, of course!) driving below the track and watching the buildings go by.

So excited, his tongue was hanging out!

The Space Needle from the Monorail.

The "Red" Monorail we rode to Seattle Center.

First order of business was to get over to the Space Needle to retrieve our City Passes (a great way to get discounted entry into common attractions, and better yet, expedited entry! - This message is NOT sponsored in any way by City Pass. This is just the second city in which we've used them, and it is almost worth it alone just to get through the lines faster). We were able to go directly to the Will Call window to pick up our City Passes, which actually got us two trips to the top, had we chosen to go a second time). This allowed us to bypass the long line for tickets and to go right to the entrance line.

We enjoyed the view from the top and probably picked the best day of our trip as far as visibility.

Olympic Mountains

Mount Ranier was visible, but it was hazy enough that it looked painted to the sky in the distance.

Jonah and me at the top of the Space Needle.

After the Needle, we looked at what we could of the Chihuly Garden from outside because it wasn't open yet. With more time, we might have gone back to see that, but it looked like tickets for it were scheduled and needed to be purchased in advance when looking from our phones.

That was fine because we headed to the Pacific Science Center, another location on the City Pass. We wanted to take Jonah to see the butterfly exhibit, and opted to see how he did with the IMAX seeing it was included and the worst that could happen was that we would leave (We chose To The Arctic in 3D).

As usual, Jonah loved the butterfly exhibit. He did get really sad about one butterfly that wasn't doing so well and wasn't moving. He does so love seeing the butterflies, though, and he was always very careful not to touch the butterflies while watching them!

Butterflies on the ground

Butterflies on the plants

Up close with the butterflies

Later Jonah got his first taste of chess. He needs a little work on how the pieces move, though.

"I don't care how it is *supposed* to move, Mommy! I want it over here!"

When we got to the IMAX, I was a little concerned Jonah wouldn't make it because he refused to keep the 3D glasses on, but even without the glasses, he LOVED the movie and kept going on and on about the polar bears and sat enraptured for the entire 40 minutes of the movie. His favorite part was one where they showed how they disguised the cameras to film the polar bears, but the bears discovered the camera and started batting it around. Or maybe his favorite part was the cup of popcorn he got to eat while we are watching. I'm not entirely sure.

After the movie, we found a big table that made him feel really small, but he didn't want to leave.

"Where's lunch? It will be proportionally sized to the table, right?"

We finished up at the Pacific Science Center in the fountain area, where Jonah got giddy seeing the water spraying from the fountains and firing the water cannons.

Ready? Aim! Fire!

Cool fountain!

It was time to get some lunch, so we headed out to brave the crowds at the Northwest Folklife Festival. As with all our meals, the tough part was trying to find something Jonah would eat. We ended up with pizza from a pizza by the slice vendor and sat by the International Fountain to eat. After lunch, Jonah wanted to splash in the puddles created by the fountain, but he didn't want anything to do with the jets of water spraying from the fountain (and, frankly, we didn't want a wet Jonah to carry around for the rest of the afternoon, so we were a bit glad for this). He also enjoyed seeing some brief rainbows.

"Puddle!"

With little interest in dealing with the festival crowds, we made our way to the very interesting building known as the Experience Music Project. It would have been neat to explore this museum more and partake of some of the hands on activities they have, but it is not really kid friendly at all. We took them up on their free stroller to get Jonah around with the laughable idea that he might take a nap so we could enjoy the museum. First of all, they have no single elevator that will take you to every floor, so to get from the entrance to the third floor requires going to the second floor on one elevator, traversing half the building to get to a different elevator. It isn't even a problem with the elevators not going all the way. They only allow the public to go to certain floors on the elevators.

Second problem was the "Sky Church," which had a painfully loud band playing right in front of the music museum entrance. Jonah went on for a bit about "too loud," covering his ears.

Third is that there wasn't much to visually attract an almost two year old in the music portion of the museum. There were some interesting exhibits, but it was taking me longer than a tired baby had the patience for to read. With Jonah not going to sleep though, we couldn't stick around for the Sci-Fi portion and opted to head back to the hotel to get the poor kid a nap.

Back to the monorail, which got Jonah excited!

The EMP Museum

The monorail tunnels through the EMP

"Monorail!"

While Jonah slept, I paid a quick visit to the REI flagship store, which was huge and beautiful. There are trails to test bikes, waterfalls, trees... it is like a little oasis in the city. In the shoe section, they even had a little trail you could walk to test your shoes on terrain.

We finished the evening with dinner. Jonah was requesting "Pasta!" We found a couple places in the area and settled on one that was pretty close. When we got over there, it was closed for the holiday weekend (really?). So we opted for one of the backups, Il Fornaio, which shares a name with one of my favorite little Italian restaurants in Little Italy in NYC. We were able to get right in, and everything was fantastic. The staff was wonderful with Jonah and generally great from a service standpoint. The food was really good. I would highly recommend it.

One last anecdote because this post is getting way too long. Traveling with kids is a totally different experience. People talk to you and make comments to you completely out of the blue. As we were finishing up our dinners at Il Fornaio, one couple came over to comment to us about how well behaved Jonah was and to interact with him a bit. They said their grandchildren would have been little terrors at dinner. At least the comments were positive! Though Jonah usually is very good, so I wouldn't expect otherwise.

More pictures from the trip are available in our family album.

A Fun Winter Day

Today truly was a day of ups and downs, but my hope is that the good memories are the ones that last. In an effort to preserve them and the reasons they were highlights over the rest of the day, I wanted to do this quick post.

We were going through a bit of cabin fever yesterday, especially after swim lessons were canceled. Michelle suggested that we go to see the butterflies at the Milwaukee Public Museum to make sure we got some time outside the house. It was a particularly good suggestion, because we've been talking about doing it for a while. Jonah loves The Very Hungry Caterpillar and this book Butterfly, Butterfly that we discovered at the library (and later picked up a copy), and he always gets excited when he sees butterflies in books and pictures.

So we headed to the museum and made our way right to the Butterfly Garden. Jonah does what he usually does when he is very excited about something: He was stunned silent. At first, anyway.

The first butterfly Jonah found when we set him free to walk.

Checking out some butterflies on the floor with Mommy.

"These butterflies are so cool!"

"Look but don't touch, Jonah!"

After our visit to the Butterfly Garden, we started to wander the museum. Jonah's favorite part wasn't any particular exhibit. He just liked the stools that they have in various places around the museum. The first ones were in the bug room next to the butterflies. He walked around them, climbed them, spun them around...

No, he isn't into planking. He's just short and climbs this way.

He had an uncanny knack for finding them, too. At one point he ran down a hallway, seemingly with purpose, and turned into a room that had a bunch of the stools, as if he knew they were there.

He also enjoyed finding any place he could practice going up and down ramps and steps. in one room, there was a ramp up and then four short steps down that he could handle pretty well on his own. He did a few passes on that loop. There was another room with a wooden floor that required you to step up to get in. He liked going around in circles there, too.

This spot was a particular favorite to walk in circles going up and down the step.

Jonah did really well handling stairs today.

Jonah fell asleep on the way home, and the transfer to his crib is not usually a problem when he falls asleep in the car, but I managed to wake him this time, and the past few days have been Go the **** to Sleep days.

Michelle had already planned to do a little shopping with a friend this afternoon, so she left and I read to Jonah to calm him. He nearly fell asleep again, but I couldn't get him into the crib without waking him. He stood right up bawling. I'd rather focus on the good stuff for the day, but he never did go back to sleep, even though he did later calm down. He just started talking and playing with the window blinds.

Later we went for a little walk outside and then the three of us went grocery shopping. Jonah seemed to have a great time. He was happy and smiling.

After dinner, we put on a Pandora station based on Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Jonah and I had it on earlier in the day and had some fun marching and dancing around to it, but it was even more fun with Mommy there, too! Jonah was having such a good time, he decided to give Mommy some "kisses." You'll see what this in quotes in the pictures below. We kept "cutting in" and switching, and Jonah would get upset each time because he didn't really want to switch, but we were all having such a good time, it didn't take him too long to get over it.

Who's leading?

Jonah's future dates beware: you can't tell if he is going to kiss you or eat you...

"You step on my toes much more than Mommy does..."

One of Jonah's favorite parts. Though, what kid doesn't like hanging upside down?

We wore him out good, because he went down for bed better than he has in the past few days.

More pictures from the day can be found on our family photo site.