The Seattle Temple

The Seattle Space Needle

Downtown Seattle from atop the space needle

Where to begin? DAY ONE-Last Sat. B drove the 3 big boys to the farm and Jo Jo, mom, and I drove to Seattle. We got there in time for dinner and found a hotel in Bellevue just outside Seattle.

DAY TWO-Sun. morning we woke to rain, but set off for the day anyway. Our first stop was a little midsummer festival at a park right on a lake. It was so beautiful and green there. I've never seen so much green in my life. Jo Jo got to go on a free pony ride. There really wasn't that much going on so we set off for the space needle. Basically you spend $17 to ride up an elevator and walk in a circle. But it was still really cool. It was windy and cold outside at the top, but I didn't let that stop me from taking a few pictures of downtown Seattle. Then we went back inside and read all the cool info about how they built it. We ran across in the rain to a little gift shop so I could get the boys some of those flat pennies with the space needle on them. The older boys also got a pen and Peanut got a pencil. We got back to the car and headed off to find Pike's Place Market or whatever the name is. We went down to the waterfront and walked back and forth trying to find something that resembled what we'd seen in movies. We never found it and wandered back and forth to find something to eat that wasn't fish. Yeah right. Actually once we went down far enough we found a McDonalds. We figured we needed to get on the road to Port Angeles where we would stay the night. We asked a guy from a harbor cruise about where we could get the ferry we were looking for. He looked it up and said it was about an hour north, or we could drive around the island. So we opted for that thinking it would be just as quick. Well once we figured it all out on the way back on Wed. we realized how dumb this had been. We could've actually taken a different ferry that was right next to where we had been walking and it would've only taken a half hour and then about that same amount of time to get to Port Angleles. I can't even tell you how annoyed we were with that guy when we found this out. It took us FOREVER to get there on Sun. Oh yeah, and as we were driving up the road from the waterfront, we saw the market. I always thought it was on the water-apparently not. So around 7 or 8 that night we made it there and got some fast food and found our hotel. Can you say icky? Too bad the money was non-refundable or we would've been out of there fast. The carpet was filthy and we wore flip flops the whole time we were in there. So we opted not to stay there again the next night.


A lake on our beautiful drive towards Port Angeles

DAY THREE-LA PUSH The breakfast consisted of two kinds of cold cereal and oatmeal, so we found another McDonalds and ate there. Then we drove up to La Push-where Jacob was from-deciding to work our way back down to Port Angeles since we would stay there again that night. The res was so sad. I can't believe they live like that. Everything was in complete shambles. I feel so bad for them. The beach was gorgeous however. I love the smell of the ocean. Now I realize the movies were shot in different places, but the point was to go to where they would've actually lived, so we got pictures of the cliff Bella jumped off of in New Moon, the beach, the driftwood tree from Twilight, and picked up a couple of rocks and I got a small little piece of wood that was smooth from the water. It ended up being a beautiful, warm, sunny day. I've never seen so many dead crabs in my life. I guess they get washed up on the shore at high tide and then the tide goes way out and they're stuck there and become lunch for the seagulls. There was also a giant fish head, and a whole fish. It was so weird. I thought of taking pictures, but thought that would be too gross. I got the top of a crab shell for the boys and some claws, but the claws still stink so I may be chucking those.

The treaty line


The cliff Bella jumped off is behind me

Jo Jo on First Beach where Bella first learned out about the "cold ones"

After the beach we headed back to Forks. On the way, we found a house that looked just like Jacob's and his motorcycle and mail box were even in the front yard. We also got a picture of the treaty line sign.


FORKS-In Forks, we wandered from place to place that were on the map we had picked up at our hotel. We found the police station where I took a picture with the sheriff's car, Dr. Cullen's parking spot at the hospital (although there's an ugly green hose on the wall under his sign), the high school where the sign had been moved because the entire school was being ripped up to be re-built because it was in poor condition, Bella's house (which was actually a house we happened on while we were looking for the one on the map, but the one on the map was blue and looked nothing like her house, so we decided it should be the other one), the Cullen's (which was an inn and looked nothing like their house so I only took a picture of the mailbox and the white board which Esme leaves messages on each day for fans), Forks Outfitters where we found two cool postcards and a magnet that says, "It's Always Twilight Somewhere." We also ate at a kinda crappy diner-ish place. Our waitress never once checked on us. And we finally found the visitor center where Bella's truck is. I discovered why Bella didn't want to move to Forks in the first place. That place is tiny (Pop. 3175) and it's a hole.

Cullen's mailbox

The Swan residence

His parking spot at the hospital

Bella's truck

Edward and I

PORT ANGELES- We found the bookstore where Bella bought the book about the cold ones in the first movie, Bella Italia-the restaurant where they had their first date, the movie theater where Jacob, Mike and Bella saw "Face Punch" in New Moon, and the dress shop that was supposed to have a dress display in the window even though the store has closed, but they had taken it down, so I just took a picture of the sign. The hostess at Bella Italia seemed annoyed with me when we wanted to eat there without a reservation. It was going to be an hour wait, but someone ended up cancelling so we got in about a half hour early. Jo Jo was crabby from the wait and ended up on my lap the entire time. I had the manicotti and it was super yummy. We decided to drive back down the road to a little town called Sequim (which was actually bigger) and found a really nice Quality Inn that we stayed at the next two nights.




Downtown Victoria, BC, Canada

On the ferry ride

DAY FOUR-Oh Canada (sung to the tune of their national anthem). Our new hotel had belgian waffles along with everything else yummy. The ferry to Victoria was back in Port Angeles, so we drove back up there to catch the ferry in the afternoon. It gave us enough time to go to the store to get a souvenir that I didn't get in Forks. We had every ferry brochure we could find and luckily my mom had been looking through a new one the night before because we discovered that besides his birth certificate since Jo Jo was coming in with only one parent I needed written permission from B to take him to Canada. Luckily he was able to fax it to the hotel first thing in the morning. Since we took a ferry that could hold cars (because the walking one only ran on the weekends until after we were leaving-lame), it took longer to get there. It was an hour and a half of rocking. I decided to wait to eat the sandwhich I bought aboard until after docking. I discovered as long as I stared straight ahead I was okay. My mom gets boat sick too, so it was quite an adventure. Jo Jo was content to climb back and forth over the top of the seats in the center of the boat. I took him outside for a bit until he got too cold. Then as we were getting close they opened the front of the boat so we went out and took pictures of the harbor. They were really nice at the border. We took a picture of the parliament building and then hit every single gift shop on their main street. It was fun even though there was a lot of walking. Most of their stuff is uber expensive, but I got a really cute sweatshirt for only $20. The boys all got a pencil again and I also got a magnet. They had the most awesome t-shirt that had all the meanings of Eh? listed on it and then at the bottom it said, "So why do Canadians say Eh all the time? Because it's better than saying huh." We made it back to the boat in time, which we joked about because we had left my pillow at our hotel in Seattle, my Book of Mormon and my mom's coat at our hotel in Port Angeles, and my mom thought she lost her glasses. We joked that it would be just our luck to miss the last ferry of the day and be stuck in Canada overnight. The US border guy wasn't as nice. He didn't even care about the permission letter. I guess they only care if you're stealing a kid and taking them into Canada. He asked if I was still married to the father, though, and kept typing a lot of stuff into his computer while looking at his birth certificate. I guess big brother needs to look up my baby in the computer even though I brought the original document and not a copy. We stayed at our same hotel in Sequim that night, but in a different room. That was a horrible night with Jo Jo screaming until 12:30 am. I was so freaked out that the front desk would call because he was so loud. We found my mom's glasses in her suitcase that night, though. Oh and on our way to the ferry we got my scriptures and her jacket back.

AND FINALLY-We set off to Seattle on the ferry this time-which only took a half hour! We found my pillow at our first hotel! So the trip was complete. At least we recovered everything we lost. It was a long drive home coming all the way back down from Sequim that morning, so we made it home about 9:30 Wed. night. It was nice to be back in my soft bed. I'm not sure what hotels have against soft mattresses. Jo Jo didn't do very well on the long driving parts, so that made for an interesting trip, but all in all it was a great time. I'm so glad I got to do this with my mom. We've never done anything just us girls like this and it was great. We laughed A LOT-especially at our losing things. We had beautiful weather everyday but the first, so it was a great time to go. Plus, now we're ready for the release of Eclipse next Wed. The boys will be coming home tomorrow night and we'll hit the waterpark sometime next week before my mom leaves on Thurs. It's been an adventure this first summer month.