A grand time in Seattle

Friends David and Laura Shepherd went with us to on an excursion trip to Seattle. We had planned for quite some time that the ladies would have some quality shopping time (and boy can they shop!) while the guys would hang out and do some quality guy stuff... like hang out in flight museums.

We ended up going in late March. It turns out it was a well needed break for all of us, and we had a blast. Whilst in Seattle, we stayed at the beautiful and antique Marqueen Hotel at a great rate thanks to Priceline. (Our stay was very enjoyable and the staff were excellent.)

I don't have too many photos of Karen and Laura's shopping experience (though from what I hear, they did try to outshop each other and they certainly filled up the car), but Davey, Erich and I did get some cool photos in. We decided we would visit not just the Children's Museum and Museum of Flight as Erich and I had done in the past, but also the Boeing Future of Flight museum in Everett. Although the museum itself wasn't as impressive as the Museum of Flight, Erich enjoyed being able to walk right up to certain components of the airplane. He also enjoyed watching the 3D films as evident in this photo.

I also got to experiment with off camera remote lighting....and ended up with this cool looking photo. Only problem was trying to get a rather bulky and odd looking radio triggered flash into the wheel well of an airplane without getting suspicious looks from onlookers.

Big impact for little man

Our family took a well needed get-away to Seattle this past long weekend. It was part birthday gift to my wife (she got to go shopping) and part opportunity for me to spend some male bonding time with the little guy. So we booked a hotel in Seattle, and headed down there right after small group last Thursday.

Friday morning, I took him to the Museum of Flight. He fell asleep on the way there, but when he woke up, he could not contain his excitement! He said, "hehe, Daddy! Airplane over there! It's the airplane musemum!"

What really amazed me though was when we went to see the airplane park. Situated in the "parking lot" was Air Force One and the Concorde. As we were walking up to the Concorde, he said excitedly, "Daddy! It's the Concuarde!" Now that was astonishing. He had only seen the Concorde once before (the last time we went to the museum), so for him to recall that must have meant that the first visit had a big impact.

Here's a photojournal of our Concorde visit:

In front of the magnificent bird. The Concorde is really quite an
elegant plane to look at from the outside.

Better watch that maximum weight per step!

The inside of the Concorde is actually quite small. My head was close to
touching the ceiling, and Erich appreciated that it was more his size.

Erich looking up at the belly of the Concorde.