Every year the company that Matthew works for runs a year long contest called All Stars. To win, you simply need to be one of the top 10 sales people in your department, or to be the supervisor of one of the two teams that made the most money during the year. Matthew works really hard to keep his team motivated and working hard, and as a result his team is always one of the top three in the call center. Last year they barely missed getting first place for the year, but easily took second place which was enough to win the contest!
The prize is a two night stay at whatever resort/hotel the company chooses that year. This year they chose the Tulalip (pronounced Too-Lay-Lip) resort and casino in Tulalip, Washington. Employee's are welcome to bring their families along, and although Matthew and I would have loved to have a couples getaway we just don't have anyone that we can ask to watch our kids for 3 days. This must be what other families have grandparents for ;) So we dropped Ruger off at a doggie spa and made the 4 hour drive up through Washington.
We were pleasantly surprised when we saw our hotel room - I think its once of the nicest that we have ever stayed at!
I really want a bathroom like this at home:
Mainly for the shower!
Yup, that's three shower heads. All of us were suddenly very excited to get clean. The kids were even more excited when they found these folded on a shelf in the bathroom:
There was a little seating area that the kids completely look over with their stuff shortly after taking this picture:
After we checked in we headed up to a penthouse suite that had been rented out for the night, and stuffed with food and an open bar. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing that the kids enjoyed, so I headed back down to our room with them after a while. Matthew stayed and caught up with some friends and waited for the drawings they were doing for prizes. He came back with a Kindle! He already has a Nook, which he loves dearly so I don't know what we will do with the Kindle, but its cool that he won something. He also got a gift card for the casino, so we headed out to dinner and then back to the room to get some sleep.
The next day we woke up bright and early and took a short drive out to the Serpentarium, a reptile exhibit that claims to have one of the most comprehensive collections on the west coast. They did seem to have a little bit of everything - from lizards:
To incredibly long and dangerously venomous snakes:
To funny looking turtle things:
They even had a few alligators:
Thank God for plexiglas:
Look! A two headed turtle!
This snake decided that our visit would be a good time to shed his skin, so we watched that for a while:
We finally worked our way around to the cages of snakes that we could hold, which is what the kids had been waiting for the whole time. Rowan thoroughly enjoyed this part, I think we may have a future snake charmer on our hands!
She wasn't the only one having fun though - the rest of us did a little snake wrangling too!
Before we left, they brought out this big monster for the kids to hold. Rowan was thrilled with its color:
When we finished there, we drove down to Seattle to check out Pike Place Market. I haven't been in years, and the kids and Matthew have never been. When we first walked in, we were insanely jealous that Seattle had a place like this to buy fruits and veggies at:
But Pike Place Market quickly lost its appeal as we trekked through level after level of shops filled mainly with junky trinkets. We did find a few gems - like the very first Starbucks coffee shop:
An amazing cheese shop called Beecher's (although I was disappointed that they only had one sample available...I had been looking forward to stuffing my face with artisan cheeses). We looked at enormous eggs (with matching price tags) instead:
And we managed to catch the famous Pike Place fish flingers in the act:
But all in all, we found the market overly crowded with not much to offer...and I am not feeling so sad now that we don't have a similar place in Portland :)
We ate lunch, then headed back to the hotel so Matthew and I could get ready for dinner. The dinner most definitely geared towards grownups so after going over and writing down instructions on how to use the hotel phone to call my cell phone, what to do in case of an emergency, and how to engage the in-room lock (so that even with a key, the door couldn't be opened) we set the kids in front of a movie and headed downstairs to the dinner. This was huge for us (me especially) because I tend to be a tad overprotective, but Killian is old enough to know how to follow directions and to know what to do in an emergency so we felt comfortable leaving them alone. The meal (and open bar!) were wonderful, and Matthew and I had a great time together. I hooped and hollered along with everyone else when he went up on stage to accept his award - I am so proud of him for excelling at his job and it was pretty clear just how much everyone liked and respected him. I am married to a really amazing man!
After the dinner Matthew went to hang out with some of his friends, and the kids and I spent a quiet evening in the hotel room. We got up bright and early the next day, heading home to pick up our little guy from the kennel and get settled back into our regular crazy routine. Tulalip isn't a place that we would have chosen to go, especially being that its a casino and neither Matthew or I gamble, but we ended up having a good time and the kids really enjoyed their little mini vacation. I am looking forward to Matthew kicking some butt again this year, and heading off on another All Star adventure in 2012!
The prize is a two night stay at whatever resort/hotel the company chooses that year. This year they chose the Tulalip (pronounced Too-Lay-Lip) resort and casino in Tulalip, Washington. Employee's are welcome to bring their families along, and although Matthew and I would have loved to have a couples getaway we just don't have anyone that we can ask to watch our kids for 3 days. This must be what other families have grandparents for ;) So we dropped Ruger off at a doggie spa and made the 4 hour drive up through Washington.
We were pleasantly surprised when we saw our hotel room - I think its once of the nicest that we have ever stayed at!
I really want a bathroom like this at home:
Mainly for the shower!
Yup, that's three shower heads. All of us were suddenly very excited to get clean. The kids were even more excited when they found these folded on a shelf in the bathroom:
There was a little seating area that the kids completely look over with their stuff shortly after taking this picture:
After we checked in we headed up to a penthouse suite that had been rented out for the night, and stuffed with food and an open bar. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing that the kids enjoyed, so I headed back down to our room with them after a while. Matthew stayed and caught up with some friends and waited for the drawings they were doing for prizes. He came back with a Kindle! He already has a Nook, which he loves dearly so I don't know what we will do with the Kindle, but its cool that he won something. He also got a gift card for the casino, so we headed out to dinner and then back to the room to get some sleep.
The next day we woke up bright and early and took a short drive out to the Serpentarium, a reptile exhibit that claims to have one of the most comprehensive collections on the west coast. They did seem to have a little bit of everything - from lizards:
To incredibly long and dangerously venomous snakes:
To funny looking turtle things:
They even had a few alligators:
Thank God for plexiglas:
Look! A two headed turtle!
This snake decided that our visit would be a good time to shed his skin, so we watched that for a while:
We finally worked our way around to the cages of snakes that we could hold, which is what the kids had been waiting for the whole time. Rowan thoroughly enjoyed this part, I think we may have a future snake charmer on our hands!
She wasn't the only one having fun though - the rest of us did a little snake wrangling too!
Before we left, they brought out this big monster for the kids to hold. Rowan was thrilled with its color:
When we finished there, we drove down to Seattle to check out Pike Place Market. I haven't been in years, and the kids and Matthew have never been. When we first walked in, we were insanely jealous that Seattle had a place like this to buy fruits and veggies at:
But Pike Place Market quickly lost its appeal as we trekked through level after level of shops filled mainly with junky trinkets. We did find a few gems - like the very first Starbucks coffee shop:
An amazing cheese shop called Beecher's (although I was disappointed that they only had one sample available...I had been looking forward to stuffing my face with artisan cheeses). We looked at enormous eggs (with matching price tags) instead:
And we managed to catch the famous Pike Place fish flingers in the act:
But all in all, we found the market overly crowded with not much to offer...and I am not feeling so sad now that we don't have a similar place in Portland :)
We ate lunch, then headed back to the hotel so Matthew and I could get ready for dinner. The dinner most definitely geared towards grownups so after going over and writing down instructions on how to use the hotel phone to call my cell phone, what to do in case of an emergency, and how to engage the in-room lock (so that even with a key, the door couldn't be opened) we set the kids in front of a movie and headed downstairs to the dinner. This was huge for us (me especially) because I tend to be a tad overprotective, but Killian is old enough to know how to follow directions and to know what to do in an emergency so we felt comfortable leaving them alone. The meal (and open bar!) were wonderful, and Matthew and I had a great time together. I hooped and hollered along with everyone else when he went up on stage to accept his award - I am so proud of him for excelling at his job and it was pretty clear just how much everyone liked and respected him. I am married to a really amazing man!
After the dinner Matthew went to hang out with some of his friends, and the kids and I spent a quiet evening in the hotel room. We got up bright and early the next day, heading home to pick up our little guy from the kennel and get settled back into our regular crazy routine. Tulalip isn't a place that we would have chosen to go, especially being that its a casino and neither Matthew or I gamble, but we ended up having a good time and the kids really enjoyed their little mini vacation. I am looking forward to Matthew kicking some butt again this year, and heading off on another All Star adventure in 2012!