start planning your next trip to the “Emerald City!”  As my last post stated, I was actually in Seattle to shoot a wedding with a friend of mine.  My hubby was able to come with me on this trip, so we decided to stay an extra day and explore Seattle (thanks Grammy & Pappy for taking such good care of the kiddies while we were gone!!)  Seattle is such a cool city with lots to see and do!  When Matt and I are in a new place, we like to do our exploring without the assistance of any kind of official tour guide.  But we heard that “Ride The Duck” was a good way to see a lot of the city and we figured since we only had one day there, we should give it a try.  Here’s what “The Duck” looks like and the reason I was a bit hesitant to jump on board and mark myself with a big fat TOURIST sign:

But this is what made the ride SO WORTH IT!!  Meet our “Duck Guide” Johnny (I think that’s what his name was, I was a little distracted by the fact that a straight man was wearing a boa and belting out the theme from Love Boat).  They even sell “Wacky Quackers” to passengers.  What is a “Wacky Quacker” you say?  Well, it’s a noise maker that sounds like a duck, which they sell to parents of pint sized passengers.  We got to hear duck calls for the first 45 minutes of the trip, definitely reinforcing the tourist sign.

And this was our entertainment for a full 90 minutes!  Every time we were approaching a new part of the city, our pal Johnny would put on the appropriate head gear and bust out a song.  I’m talking full on singing and even some dance moves!  Gotta love the “Man in the Big Yellow Hat” on the bottom right… reminds me of Curious George.  I love to laugh, so major kudos to our tour guide for making me laugh so hard that I thought I was going to pee my pants!  And we were thoroughly impressed by the fact that he probably does that over and over again with the same level of enthusiasm… this guy obviously loves his job!

Here’s a bit of what we saw on the “land” part of our tour… and if I thought there was a Starbucks on every corner here in AZ, it was because I hadn’t seen Seattle’s collection of coffee shops!  The colors of the city were amazing and there were lots of random artsy things to see!  Like the tree a couple of images below on the right… totally fake… and the orange something or other two images down on the left… all just city art for your viewing pleasure.

The next part of our tour, The Duck magically became a boat as we drove right into the water!!

Check out the view:

And I got to see the house from “Sleepless in Seattle!”  My husband has not seen that movie, so he was wondering why all the women on the boat were so excited.

I couldn’t believe how quickly our tour flew by thanks to our on-board entertainment and all the spectacular views of the city!  So if you are ever in Seattle, ride The Duck and look for Johnny!

And you can’t go to Seattle without seeing the Space Needle.

This thing is actually pretty amazing!  Built in 1962 for the World’s Fair… the structure and technology pretty impressive for the time.  Yes, I got my geek on and read all the history and fun facts in the observatory tower.

Here’s hubby and I at the top.  I love getting to see new places with this man!

And the view from the top:

I couldn’t believe how cool the light looked shining on the water!!  I think there are some pretty cool man-made parts of the city, but nothing compared to what God creates…

We had lunch over at Pike’s Place Market… I loved watching these guys toss the fish and wrap ‘em up as people ordered!  They just look like they are having a really good time…

And the reason I want to move to Seattle:

We ate the sweetest, crispiest, Honey Crisp apples I have ever eaten!

Good bye Seattle… you were so kind to give us a weekend of sunny weather!  Our Duck Guide actually told us that the amount of rain that Seattle is known for is not as extreme as people think… he said the locals just spread rumors that it rains all the time to keep everyone from moving there