Friday, September 3, 2010

Claudette & Susan do Seattle

Claudette and Susan arrived in Seattle with a purpose.  
They wanted to visit the Sea Otters. 



The Scuba diver has arrived to feed the fish in the giant window on Washington tank.  



Each tank in the Seattle Aquarium has an upper viewing spot as well as a lower viewing window.  


Skates and Sturgeon prowling the underwater dome. 
Simone and Claudette watching the Skates and Sturgeons in the underwater dome.


In the Tuffed Puffins and Auklet house. 


The divers talk via speakers to the kids and answer questions.
We learned that the glass is about 12 inches thick.



The girls started to droop.  David can still carry both of them!


Back to the tower for dinner and to hear about the Victoria trip.

Great catching up.  


The girls were thrilled to give Susan a tour.


Susan and Claudette do the Experience Music Museum.  What a space! 



Shall we tape a music video?  Lets call ourselves "Otter Wild."


One of the fun things you can do at EMP is create a rock band and karaoke style, tape a song in front of a faux screen of an eager audience. Claudette on the keys, Simone on drums,  Susan on guitar, David as lead singer and Naomi with me on back-up.  It is set up so that you can't actually hit the wrong notes. 



Decided to "Ride the Duck" around town and into Lake Union.


After the ducky tour, Susan, Naomi and I went to see the Freemont Troll. He lives under the Aurora Bridge and holds a real Volkswagen bug in his hand.



At one point during our visit, we started talking about gardens and growing pumpkins.  I shared that we had tried for three years to grow pumpkins on our office decks with no luck.  Lots of flowers but no fruit.   It dawned on her that our decks are 7 and 22 stories up and perhaps not frequented by pollinators. She suggested that Naomi and Simone try using a paint brush to pollenate.  

Success.  We have pumpkins and squash aplenty!  


The Troll is great for climbers and geocachers.


Hurrah!


Naomi - "I'm really big. Can you see?"


Dan Lahaie and family joined us for dinner at the tower on the second night. 


Naomi, Billy, Brooke, Justin and Kristin chill on the couch 
while David, Claudette, Susan and Dan share family stories.


Simone sitting in the window with her bear watching the ferries come and go on the Sound.