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Valentine's Day Road Trip 2015

This blog article was originally posted on my first blog In Our Pond.  I started out trying to put all my travel content on my homeschooling blog, but it grew to be too big.  So, I'm moving all the road trip stuff over here!  It'll probably take me a while to move all the posts, but I'll also be posting new content on here as well.  In Our Pond will now be exclusively for homeschooling and parenting content, while this blog (Party Through the USA) is for all the family travel posts.  Check them both out!


Seattle Road Trip with 3 Under 4 from In Our Pond  #roadtrip #travel #seattle #pacificnorthwest #aquarium #familytravel #travelwithkids #toddlers #preschoolers #travelwithtoddlers


Every year, my husband and I talk about how "Valentine's Day is just a made-up holiday" and that it "does really matter what we do for it."  It's funny, though, because of all the holidays, I remember the V-days the most.  Like the one when we were dating and he sent me a single fake white rose (purity) through the mail.  Or our first one after we got married, which was my first time out of the house after our ectopic pregnancy.  And, the one in Botswana.  And, last year, when an unknown someone paid for our meal.

This year, once again, we said, "Eh, it doesn't matter what we do."  Then, the Wednesday before the Saturday holiday, we decided to go to Seattle for the weekend.  This decision gave me exactly one day to plan our first family road trip.  Crazy!  (I'll write more about that aspect of it in part 2)


Seattle Road Trip with 3 Under 4 from In Our Pond  #roadtrip #travel #seattle #pacificnorthwest #aquarium #familytravel #travelwithkids #toddlers #preschoolers #travelwithtoddlers


We only spent one day in Seattle (two nights), but we packed that day full of fun.  First, we went to the Aquarium to see Nemo.  We got to the pier an hour early, so we walked around the docks and showed the kids some things they'd never seen before: the ocean, homeless people, multiple layers of roads running over the top of each other, cranes, ferry boats, skyscrapers, etc.  Just that hour made for a big day as my country mice saw the big city.

We spent about two hours at the aquarium, then got back in the car to drive to the next adventure.  Of course, we had hoped that the kids would nap during our drive.  Only one kid slept, which was a bit disappointing, since we knew that they all needed it.


Seattle Road Trip with 3 Under 4 from In Our Pond  #roadtrip #travel #seattle #pacificnorthwest #aquarium #familytravel #travelwithkids #toddlers #preschoolers #travelwithtoddlers


Our next stop was the Museum of Flight, which is located near the Boeing factory.  My husband and
Skimmer loved this place!  Airplanes everywhere!  Big ones.  Small ones.  Parts of ones.  Ones you could go inside and ones that you couldn't touch.  Dragonfly (and Skimmer, of course) loved the WWII hanger because each airplane had a button to push, which played the sound of that engine starting up.  Overall, we were very glad that we spent time there.

When we got back to the hotel after all that touristing, we were surprised to see that it was only 2pm!  Our kids were tried but very overstimulated and wound up.  We knew that a nap was just not going to happen.  So, we asked the woman behind the front desk if she knew of any parks in the area.  She had never been asked that before!  Fortunately, we were visiting the city that invented Google, and she was able to use the maps feature to find a park in our area (less than a mile from the hotel).

Another two hours or so was spent chasing the kids around the park/playground.  After that, we limped back to our hotel, ordered pizza, and called it a night.  All the kids were asleep by 7 that night.

Unfortunately, Tadpole woke up the next morning at 3am and wouldn't go back to sleep.  So, we started back home.

It was a great adventure and I'm really glad we went.  I can't wait until our next trip (we're talking about a zoo).




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Seattle Road Trip with 3 Under 4 from In Our Pond  #roadtrip #travel #seattle #pacificnorthwest #aquarium #familytravel #travelwithkids #toddlers #preschoolers #travelwithtoddlers

Seattle Road Trip with 3 Under 4 from In Our Pond  #roadtrip #travel #seattle #pacificnorthwest #aquarium #familytravel #travelwithkids #toddlers #preschoolers #travelwithtoddlers
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