spring break in seattle!

Spring Break!!  

We have been looking forward to head off to see some snow since LAST Spring Break.

It's become sort of a Seavey family tradition for us to head up to Seattle to spend a few days in the cold and snow during Spring Break.

This year was no exception.

 Since the girls got their very own suitcases for Christmas, this was their first time getting to use them!

They were super excited to put their presents to use...and we were super excited to NOT have to pack and haul THEIR clothes and toys!  It's truly a great thing to have kids be responsible for their own luggage!  Yay for kids growing up!  :)

 And yay for travel benefits! And for kids getting to sit together!

 At the airport, upon arriving...we bought our very first (of many) hot chocolates.  

Hot Cocoa simply tastes so much yummier in Seattle than they do in Hawaii...

 Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Something our kids look forward to whenever we visit Seattle is the donuts.

If you didn't know, Seattle has YUMMY donuts.  We bought donuts for breakfast nearly every morning.

 We hit up the mall to do a bit of shopping & preparing for our upcoming snow trip.

The weather warmed up a bit and so we indulged in a smoothie.

But drank it INSIDE the mall, of course, because it's still freezing cold outside, thank you very much!

 Lucky for us, the Sakuma boys also happened to decide to vacation to Seattle for Spring Break!

We met up at the Reptile Zoo with our cousins.

This is not my favorite place to visit...but Anna LOVES this zoo, as do the Sakuma boys so snake time it was!

This is the kids underneath the anaconda tank.

I'm pretty sure it's big enough to swallow some of these kids whole if it wanted to...

 And since we can't pass up on the opportunity to get even MORE creeped out, decided to do some snake handling as well.

These were little baby boas that the kids got to hold.

 Kaden's first time holding a snake.

Not pictured is the numerous time I had to push his face away from the snake's head....Kaden kept trying to kiss it.  Ew!

 Surprisingly, this girl was the bravest and held the snake more than anyone else.  She even let one crawl up her arm and around her neck.  This was not a little nerve-wracking for me.

You'll notice Daddy is no where to be seen in any of these pictures.

That's because he is not a fan of snakes and reptiles...and pretty much kept as far away as possible without looking too much a coward.  Ha!

 Another new adventure we got to experience this trip was Go-Kart racing!

It was nearly empty so our girls pretty much had their way with the tracks upstairs on the kiddie course.

Kela, Karen and Maya raced together...

 While Anna and Klair raced separately.

Haha, they looked like bobble heads with these huge helmets on...but according to them, this was pretty much the highlight of our trip.

Kaden and Jolee also raced on their own, but rode much smaller "Power Wheel" type cars.

Theirs was slow-going, but everyone agreed it was a super fun time. 

Cold inside the building....but fun nonetheless.

And then, the real reason why we traveled up to Seattle...was for this!

He drove up to Snoqualmie to hit some hills and get some sledding in.

We borrowed a couple of sleds from our friends and drove up to the passes.

We were worried that there wouldn't be enough snow since we didn't see much on our drive up, but sure enough, as soon as we hit Snoqualime limits, we started seeing some white stuff.

Thankfully, this little sledding hill we discovered was nearly deserted and so we had it all to ourselves!

 My girls always do this the first moment they hit snow.

Making snow angels is a requisite for snow play.

 Uncle Atau guys also ventured up with us and the kids had a blast sledding down the hill together.

There were no rope tows or anything-just a huge hill for sledding down, but it was enough for our kids!

 Kaden was quite a trooper for his first snow experience.  

Okay, technically, LAST year was his first snow sighting...but this was the first time he was actually able to walk around and build a snowman with Daddy.

Pretty fancy snowman, Kaden!

Daddy even built an igloo for Jojo!

It was small...only big enough for one tiny child to crawl inside at a time, but it was a hit with everyone.  Good job, Daddy! 

At the end of our trip, we were hoping to fly south to Arizona for a couple of days to hang out with the Seavey's...unfortunately, it was the Mariner's Spring Training that week and ALL flights from Seattle to Phoenix were booked solid!

We tried for about 4 hours to make it out, but alas....could not.

The kids were very sad and disappointed...

 Not to mention, exhausted!

After hanging around Sea-Tac airport for 4 hours, this is how EVERYONE felt!

We rented a car for one more day and headed back to Uncle Makoto's house.

Which, while a bummer, turned out to be a blessing because we got to celebrate Karen's birthday with the Sakuma girls!

All in all, we all agreed that Spring Break in Seattle is the BEST vacation ever!