Officially on vacation!

Greetings from Seattle! It has been quite a long day, but I wanted to post a quick update on our vacation while I wait for the Tylenol PM (known as "mother's little helper" -- even if I'm not a mother) to kick in, ensuring me a very good night's rest tonight! I don't know how often we'll have internet access on this trip, so I thought I had better take advantage of it while I can.

We left home at 3:30 a.m. today and have been up for 20 hours so far, with a long night's rest of four hours last night to keep us going. Needless to say, we've gone beyond tired into "punchy" and we're all being silly and goofy but have a tendency to fall asleep randomly mid-sentence. It's actually a lot of fun, and it's totally different to be really, really tired when you don't have to get up and go to work the next morning. All we have to do tomorrow is get on our tour bus at 9 a.m., ride to Vancouver, BC, and then get onto our Celebrity cruise ship. Should be easy, even if we're half-asleep.

To that end, we decided to see a bit of Seattle today instead of caving into our urge to take a five-hour nap this afternoon. We rented a car and then took Les's mom and his aunt and uncle downtown, stopping to get our National Parks Passports stamped at the Klondike Gold Rush site. The NP site was really well-done, but we didn't have too much time to spend there because Les couldn't find parking and was circling the block. The NP site is right near the Seahawks stadium and parking was $30 everywhere because there was a game that evening (love you, Matty!).

We then got a call from the other half of the family (we met up with three relatives who live locally) and we went up to the top of the Space Needle. The floor of the observation deck actually slopes downward toward the edge so that rainwater can drain off it easily, but it also gives you the impression that you're drawn uncontrollably towards the ledge of a very tall building. It's a bit unnerving, especially if you are afraid of heights. We had a very clear day (we saw four different mountain peaks on the plane ride in!) so we really got to see a lot of the city from the top of Space Needle.

For dinner, the party-of-13 family all went to Old Spaghetti Factory, where my parents treated us to dinner.

As Les's Aunt Dolores said, "We've had such an adventure today and we haven't even started cruising yet!"

It was a great day and we're looking forward to a good night's rest and a great day tomorrow.

p.s. It is SUNNY in Seattle -- how awesome is that? And the weather is about 75 degrees. We are in heaven!