Tacoma 6 - Peter, Peter pizza eater...

I was fortunate enough to spend a whole day out in Seattle Center with my eldest nephew, Peter. He is a sponge for education, especially anything science related, so I took him on a couple buses from Tacoma Dome Station to the Pacific Science Center. Before we started exploring the land of dinosaurs, tide pools, insects and butterflies, we made a pit stop for the only thing he requested all day...Pizza. Lucky for us, there happened to be a youth orchestra in the food court doing a holiday concert. As most of you know, Peter has a great interest in violins and has started taking lessons to learn how to play it himself. This is the only time I've ever had to encourage him to eat his pizza, as he was so mesmerized by the performance. He was pretty excited about the concert!

Pete loved the butterfly house. We had a butterfly chart in which we would find the names of the various butterflies flying freely around us without inhibition. He thought they were all pretty cool, but his favorite were the big brown ones that looked like they had eyes on the outside, but when they opened their wings it was electric blue!

Notice the lack of two front teeth...makes him even more adorable!

We learned about what they eat and got to watch them unroll their massively long tongues (comparatively to their body size) and pull the nectar out of the fruit.

When we were done at the Pacific Science Center, we headed over to the Space Needle.

Pete loved the different ships we could see in the harbor. He was most fascinated with the barges (pictured). He also loved his hot chocolate and lovely snack mom packed for us.

Seattle with Mt. Rainier in the background...

Sunset...it was only like 3:45p.

Once the sun went down Pete got pretty cold pretty fast, so we improvised and made him into a little Babushka.

A sign of a good day!

(on the bus ride home)

The whole family met us at the bus stop and took us out to Vien Dong for some great Vietnamese food. Everyone in the family loved the complimentary tea!

Patrick telling us about his day!

Like mother like son!

I had such a wonderful time not only in Tacoma but in all the places I visited on this US tour! But this does conclude my postings for it!

Thanks again to everyone who took the time out to put me up and visit with me, I really appreciate it and really enjoyed myself!

Tacoma 5- Rebecca and the Chocolate Factory...

I took Rebecca for a girls day out at Theo's Chocolate Factory. For a mere $6/person you get an hour long tour through factory, learn where and how coc0a beans grow and how their chocolate is made. It's pretty amazing. The best part...eating way more than $6 worth of free samples. Or was it the sexy blue hair nets (complimentary with the tour).

Roaster from Germany from like 1967 or something...

Roasted cocoa beans from Ghana...

nibs...shells...cocoa butter...and the final product...the nectar of the gods...

The confection room where they were making ganache chocolates...

When they make any kind of bar that has any add in flavors (anything other than a solid chocolate bar that is), they hand mix in the add in...

Here he's mixing in the chili powder...that's a lot of chili powder...

pouring it into the machine that spits the chocolate into the molds...

The packaging room...we weren't allowed in there.

We really had a great time and learned a lot. After the factory we made our way to Whole Foods where we delighted in the warm buffet bars. It was a good day!

Tacoma 4 - Move over Bavaria...

Rebecca wanted to get some stuff done around the house, so Peter, Patrick and I were kept occupied with some pretzel making. My first time, so Peter and Patrick helped me out. They are expert rollers after all...

They weren't too keen on the traditional pretzel shape, so we had a menagerie of letters and shapes...

You boil them for a short time in baking soda water at a rolling boil...

Then bake them to a Golden brown...

This is what was left of our three batches that afternoon...even less by the evening. I believe only four made it to the next day, but definitely not beyond that.

We learned they are quite tasty with good old mustard...although a nice cheese sauce would have been perfect too!

During the cooking of the last batch, we kept ourselves busy with a game of hide-n-seek. Peter and Patrick were pretty tricky hiding in the same place each time...but getting just as excited about me finding them each time, so I had to video the last time!

Enjoy!

Tacoma 3 - NW Trek...

On that Saturday, Rebecca, the boys and I left Mat to his slumbering self and met up with Liz and her two children for some wildlife adventures at NW Trek. We started the day with some picnic lunch of PB&J, zucchini pickles and cheese and apple slices.

The kids got along really well. Actually, Peter seemed quite smitten with Mariel (pictured below). It's easy to see why.

First thing we did was go on an hour long tram ride throughout their "free roaming, herbivore" area where we saw Bison, Roosevelt Elk, Moose, Longhorn sheep, mountain goats and many other creatures.

Look at that there elk little lady...that thing's HUGE!

(thank you little Elvis)

Once we were done with the tram, we walked around the trails to the various viewing areas to see the bears, wolves, big cats (cougars, lynxes...), racoons, wolverines, badgers, beavers, river otters and such carnivores at those. Oh, we also took in some bird sightings of barn and great horned owls and Golden and Bald eagles.

We treated ouselves to some Sonic (good old American food...am I right?) where I left the kids with Rebecca whilst Liz and I caught up in her vehicle...

Once home, the boys were extremely excited to show papa all the stuff we saw on their map, plus tell all the stories of the animals.

Pete was pretty content just sitting on the couch, sipping on his treat of sugary drink. They slept pretty hard that night!

Tacoma 2 - Mat's wound...

As previously mentioned...Mat had reconstructive knee surgery. I helped him with the dressing one day...this is what it looked like. When I redressed it, I may have been a bit too liberal with the tape for the gauze...that ended up being pretty painful for him next day, as it tore off a good deal of his leg hair. Sorry Mat...although I think it was pay back for all the times he pestered me in his own special way when we were kids ;)

The boys were pretty interested in seeing dad's wound...although I'm not sure what they made of it.

Tacoma 1 - Around the house...

Mat had knee surgery the day before my arrival so there was plenty of time for naps.

I love a kid who requests apples as a snack...

Rebecca's duty of making the fire...I took it over by the end of my trip as I loved gathering the wood from the wood pile in back, wheel barreling it up to the front and starting up the fire. It's good, honest manual labor and quite meditative. Plus, the former was always a great way to spend 1:1 time with either Patrick or Peter since they had their own "wheel barrel" for helping out and it always ended in a wheel barrel ride. It was difficult for Patrick to pick up the wheel barrel to give me a ride, but Peter did fine ;)

These two played so well together!

Peter and I read about wolves all over North America, therefore he became a wolf during much of his play. The laundry basket was his cage.

This little guy sure liked the phone...

Lot's of putting it to his ear and saying something that sounded similar to "hello."

Guys...can you keep it down, I'm on the phone! Sheesh!

I spotted a real cowboy during my visit...that was an unexpected surprise for me!

Of course many boardgames were played while enjoying Rebecca's delicious stove popped popcorn. Later she let it slip that they typically enjoy popcorn as a Sunday treat, where as we had it almost every night I was there. I reminded her how much of a treat it was to have me there everyday, therefore the popcorn was still a treat! I beat Mat in Backgammon making me the Grand Champion of the World. I was not so lucky in Qwirkle...which is my new fav game...and Rebecca and I tied 1:1 for Catan! Good times as usual!