This morning we flew up to Seattle, WA. Clay's mom, Deanna, picked us up at the airport. She took us up to Capital Hill and Volunteer Park. The girls loved the chance to run around the playground.
There was this HUGE crazy looking tree.
Just up from the park was the Conservatory. A very cool looking building. Unfortunately, it was closed on Mondays. Maybe next time we visit.
We had lunch at mexican restaurant. We were very surprised when they said Chips & Salsa cost $8. What?? A mexican place that doesn't offer free chips & salsa? Our waitress said that was normal. We most definitely disagree.
After our disappointing lunch we drove down to the harbor. Doesn't that ferris wheel look cool? It looked cool, but the price was too high for all of us. So we watched the jellyfish in the water for free. Then we went inside the fun center to ride the carousel and play games.
Our nephew Braxton was dying to go to a real amusement park while in southern California. He decided it had to be Magic Mountain. My girls really enjoy roller coasters too. And we wanted to spend time with everyone. So we went.
First ride of the day was Scream. My sister was demonstrating what to do on the ride. :)
Rebekah enjoyed riding on Goliath. The ride takes you up to 255 feet and then does a 61-degree drop into an underground tunnel. Yeah, I don't like that stomach-in-your-throat feeling.
Rebekah's only limitation was that she was only 48 inches tall. She was not tall enough to go on all the rides she wanted to. But if she COULD go on, she did. And had her hands up in the air laughing and giggling the whole way! I took the girls on a classic -Roaring Rapids. We were completely soaked when we got off the ride.
This photo reminds me of when I was 12 and my dad took my friends and I to Magic Mountain. We also took a picture of ourselves soaking wet on this ride.
Rebekah's absolute favorite ride was X2. Here we are innocently waiting in line. The next pictures show innocent victims riding up the roller coaster, reclining on their backs, with no view of where they are going...
The thing about this ride is that they do a good job of hiding the actual track from your view while you are waiting in line. I was starting to get a bit nervous about it. What I didn't realize is that the seats rotate around at different points during the ride. Well, here's a video to help you appreciate how it felt.
Needless to say, flying face first down to the ground with all my weight against the safety restraints nearly SCARED ME TO DEATH! And here I was sitting next to Rebekah, little 6 year old Rebekah, who on every other loop de loop ride had her hands in the air laughing the entire way. Not on this ride. She wanted to hold my hand as we started going up. She did not make a single sound on the entire ride, just kept a death grip on my hand against her shoulder restraint the whole way. I started panicking. Fearing that she was going to be traumatized for the rest of her life. That she was sitting right next to me crying and just as scared as I was. That I was the worst mother in the world for allowing my 6 year old to go on this ride. I started praying that she would recover from this experience and asked forgiveness for my irresponsibility.
When the ride finally stopped, I help my breath. I heard Rebekah take in a gasping breath and then exclaim "That was AWESOME!!" She asked if she could go again. She told everyone that X2 was her favorite ride of all.
My sister, Heather, and her family drove down from Utah to spend time with us. I'm sad that we missed my nephew, Tanner. He wasn't able to come with them as he just started serving a mission for our church. But I am so proud of him go going! He just turned 18 in April and just graduated from high school in June. He entered the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah on July 3 and is serving a mission for the next 2 years!
It was a beautiful day so we thought we would go down to the beach. It is only 4 miles from my parent's house to the beach. We went from beautiful to sunshine to a very thick gray marine layer and lots of wind at the beach. Without the sun it was very cold. We all ran back to the car to get our hoodies.
We went in to the Amusement Park. Everyone had a great time on the Tilt-A-Whirl. Rebekah had her hands up the whole time just laughing as she got spun around. (More on that in a later post.)
When we got too dizzy, we took the group outside. We enjoyed walking around the shops and looking at the live crustaceans.
The girls still wanted to hang out on the beach and play in the water.
