Seward Day 1

I had the day off on Friday, and it was so beautiful so I packed up the kids and drove to Seward. It is about 130 miles, so not a short trip, but not too long either.

Here they are after we arrived  around 1PM, watching some cartoons and eating lunch while I brought up the bags.

 A view from our window

 Me relaxing too, watching some Peter Pan

By 2:00PM we had the bikes out. The Sea Life Center would close at 5PM and I wanted to make sure we got there before 3PM. The Sea Life Center is about 1.5 miles from the hotel, so I expected it to be a short trip, but we left a lot of time since we had never done it on bikes before.

I put Van in his snowsuit just in case. He was too warm, but I wanted to make sure.

Esther in the Burley. She loved wearing that helmet

Van biking through the streets of Seward

I wasn't sure if the whole ride would be on the streets, but luckily there was a great bike path 80% of the way.

It's not in the picture, but during this part I saw a group of 6 seals and then I saw a whale! I was so excited. We never saw any other whales the whole trip so I wish I had stayed to watch this one more. Van missed it altogether. But we were so focused on getting to the Sea Life Center.

We made it, this is inside the Sea Life Center.

It's funny because the main reason for the trip was to go to the Sea Life Center, but we probably spent 45 minutes there. It's pretty cool. But for whatever reason, it doesn't hold the kids attention for that long. We had passed a really cool playground on the way there though, so I suggested we go back to it.

 Cool playground

And the playground had a skate park nearby, Van's favorite.

The biggest hit of the trip was this new bell I got for Van's bike. I bought it as we were driving out of town, I was buying a bike lock as well. When we got to the Sea Life Center a man at the front desk helped us install it. Van loved it.

Van and Esther at the skate park

Then we decided to play at the beach. Van had to go in the cold water.

Esther wanted to follow him of course.

Now it was about 5:30 and we needed to find some dinner.

We biked to 3 different places until we found one that was open. Luckily this Chinese place was great. The kids eating their egg soup.

At the end we got fortune cookies. Van's said, 'You have the making of a great leader instead of a follower'
He took that very literally and wanted to lead the whole bike ride home.

When we got back to the hotel, it was time for the pool.

I was going to swim too, so I didn't bring my camera. Here they are post pool, watching some final cartoons before bed.

At 9 I turned off the cartoons and Van was asleep within 60 seconds. After all, he'd probably biked 6 miles that day and done a lot of great playing and swimming.
Esther, not so much. I think it was about 10 when she finally fell asleep.