We love Seattle!

We watched the playoff on Sunday morning. Seahawks are out of the playoff, but had a fun season following their games. Until next year!
It was windy at the waterfront, but we enjoyed the view from the pier.
Historic pier 55 - it was built in 1900, but collapsed in a year. They rebuilt it immediately and has gone through several face lifts ever since.

It's a city Mike and I visited when we were in college and a place where my plane landed when it had an engine trouble on the way to Japan. We've never imagined we'd end up living in the Puget Sound area, yet alone raising four children here.

I was five month pregnant when we left sunny but traffic stricken golden state. It was when the housing market had just passed its peak and prices were starting to fall. We were very fortunate to have left then, selling our house in four days at a gain. Everything went smoothly after we arrived to the evergreen state. We found our house on the first day of house hunting, gave birth to a beautiful little boy four month afterwards, blessed with adorable twins in two years, and even was given a surprise present aka "Saya" when the twins were six month old.

I am so glad we moved here! Sure, it's not perfect - it rains heck of a lot and I will never get used to that... But when it's sunny the place shines with energy and life! Not only nature, but people's spirits lift up because we are all happy to see the sunshine during the rainy season. We are yet to explore many parts of the area and the whole state and very excited to get to know more about them.

We took the kids to Elliot Bay on Sunday. I somehow thought that Sunday was Chinese New Year and wanted to get a special occasion food from China town. There weren't much going on there and it's because it wasn't the new year... It's in February according to Amy!

Sean these days are interested in continents, ocean, planet, map... that sort of thing, so he enjoyed looking at the ocean. He asked many questions like where the ships are going, where Japan is, why the waves are high (it was windy) and was in deep thought thinking about the new information he acquired. The younger kids were looking at the waves, ships and the birds flying around.

Extra:

We passed the "Ye Olde Curiosity Shop" in Pier 54 and of course that got me thinking about the famous real mummies that are displayed there. Once my curiosity gets going, there is no stopping! I was researching on the Internet until 1am last night trying to find out who "Sylvester" the mummy was. According to the latest information, "Sylvester" formerly known as "McGinty" was sold to the former owner of the shop by a famous gang boss named Jefferson Smith aka "Soapy Smith" in 1895. He charged 10 cents for admission to see the mummy and pocketed more money by having the customers waiting in line play gambling games. The popular story that goes with this poor petrified man is that he was an outlaw in Arizona who were shot and killed in the desert. Some researchers from University of Washington however did a CT scan and MRI on "McGinty" and found out that the it is very unlikely the man was killed in a desert. They explained that his body would be lighter and drier if it were the case since the sand would soak up any fluid left in the body (McGinty weighs about 130 pounds). They found embalmer in the body and speculate that the body must have belonged to one of the fallen soldiers from the Civil War. It was a standard practice before 1900 that a soldier killed in the war would get an injection of chemical to preserve the condition of the body for him to have a proper funeral. My speculation is that the man was killed in the Civil War, they injected the chemical, no one claimed the body, an officer who were short on cash and dignity sold the body to a criminal, the criminal sold it to Soapy Smith and after doing a tour around Colorado and Washington, it ended up in a glass case next to shrunken heads from Amazon and "stuffed mermaid". Now that I had written it out, I feel a lot better! I feel for the man and would love to know more about him. I may write to the researcher in UW and see if they are interested in doing more research on him!! Anyone interested in further research??