Mariners and Clamming!

A couple of weekends ago Mike and I took Gracie and Cole to Seattle for a little mini vacation! Emily watched the little Isley men for us! (Thanks Em!) Gracie had her annual check up with her endocrinologist, which by the way went very well and she is as healthy as a horse!! Since we have to go to Woodinville for this annual appointment we try to make a long weekend of fun to go along with it! First stop was Game Stop where the kids (okay Mike and I too) had a blast! The played video games until they didn't want to play anymore!! We headed over to Safeco after that for Gracie and Cole's first Mariners game!! We couldn't have asked for better weather or a better game! We beat the Detroit Tigers 11-3!! Woo hoo! Go Mariners!! We left Safeco around 10:00 and drove all the way to Long Beach! Late night but the driving was easy (okay well Mike drove so I guess he may say differently!) We stayed with Ned, Sonia, Mia, Jeramy and Sage in a three bedroom condo that overlooked the ocean! It was beautiful, Thank you Ned and Sonia!! Saturday morning we woke up bright and early and headed out into the wind and rain to dig clams! Needless to say we didn't do so well! Mia got the most at nine clams and the rest of us pretty much struck out...oh well there's always tomorrow! We spend the rest of that day walking around town, swimming and the kids even got to get on a horse! Mia really wanted to ride on the beach with Gracie and if the weather wasn't so terrible and the price so high, I might have wanted to too! Mia took Gracie over to where the horses were and asked if she could get on a horse "just to make sure she doesn't get scared"....LOL Good thinking Mia! Gracie and Cole both got to ride for a few minutes at least and it didn't cost a thing! Next year maybe...?!!
We got to meet Jake the Alligator Man which Cole was deathly afraid of (that's why he isn't in the picture! He wouldn't even stand by the glass...geesh.. LOL). Mia and Gracie even scored some new shoes! Check out those trendy high heel rubber boots! No Mia did not clam in them, but I really think she should have!!

Towards the end of the day we got a break in the rain and walked down to see the whale bones! Pretty cool!! Didn't stay out long as the rain came back as soon as we got out there!

Sunday morning we woke up to beautiful blue skies and NO wind!!! It was gorgeous and the clamming was so easy and fast! Mike and I, Gracie and Cole got our limits in less than 45 minutes! Sure goes to show how the weather can make a huge difference! We beat the westsiders that morning! Mia, Jeremy and Ned went over to a different spot a few miles up the beach and we decided to just walk out in front of our hotel! We were walking back to the hotel with 4 limits when they drove back to where we were and tried again! So everyone got their limits that day! We played on the beach for a while and the kids found some sand shrimp! So tiny we could hardly tell what they were! Of course they wanted to keep them so we put them in cups of water and they made the trip home with us only to be dumped out when we got back....I guess they didn't like the car ride! :)

After we left Long Beach we headed back to Seattle where we ate at the Crab Pot!! YUM YUM Here is a little video of Cole! This kid was in HEAVEN!! He loves any kind of seafood really and Crab is his all time favorite!! He was cracking us up! He really is serious about his crab!!

We stayed at the Edgewater hotel and got up the next morning and headed to Pike's Place Market! It is always so much fun there! The flowers are beatiful and there is so much to see!! We all had a great time! Last but not least we headed to Woodinville for Gracie to see her doctor and she got a good bill of health! What a great weekend it was! We sure did miss our little guys but it was sure nice to spend some time with the big kids!