There is something very festive about being in the city at Christmastime. The year before last we began an unofficial tradition of going to Spokane for a Christmas day. We missed last year because we were busy with our brand new baby girl! We decided to give it another try this year. It is always a little difficult to plan such a long day, wondering how the kids would do, what our timing of events should be and how missing naps would go. After the day was over, we were amazed by how well the kids did. There were plenty of fussy times, but they had a great time for the most part.
We started out at the downtown mall. There is a HUGE Christmas tree in there, which is in the background of the above picture. We, very wisely, I think, didin't go to the mall with the intention of actually shopping for anything. We just had fun browsing. One of our favorite stores is Williams Sonoma. Katy Grace seemed impressed, too :)
We had arranged to meet up with one of Tim's friends from college days and enjoyed visiting her as we made our way through the mall. The kids loved her! We had lunch together there and then went our separate ways. Here are my guys being silly as always while we waited for our food!
At noon the huge train display started up so of course we spent a lot time watching it. Oliver was pretty intrigued by so many trains.
When the kids woke up, we made our way back downtown to visit the Davenport Hotel. We honeymooned there, so it has special significance for us, but it is also just worth going to as often as possible. That day they had a huge display of Christmas trees that were going to be auctioned off that evening. There were SO MANY people there. It was crazy! We walked around and saw the trees, but it was very stressful trying to carry kids, coats and diaper bags through an elbow-to-elbow crowd so we didn't stay long. We did find this corner to take this picture in. As you can see, shooting with a very slow shutter speed, resulted in fuzzy children, but it's still cute, right? It illustrates how hard it is to get them to sit still! We both wished we'd had the opportunity to photograph the lobby. It was breathtaking!
We had dinner at Frank's Diner, which is inside a train dining car. I had been wanting to take Oliver there for a really long time so I'm glad we finally were able to. He seemed to really enjoy it, though he was so tired by then it was hard to tell.
Tim entertaining the Little Miss while we waited for dinner.
It was a very fun, long day. We haven't decided if we're going to keep this tradition up, or if we'll transition to making it a day that Tim and I steal away just the two of us. We'll see, but for this year it was a great family day and great memories were made.
Kudos and Bravo to you for braving a day in the city with two itsy bitsy ones!! You packed a lot into one day--even for grownups. This gives me hope that we, too, will be able to continue to function in society with more than one child. ;-) Frank's Diner looks like so much fun! Eating in a dining car has always seemed like an adventure to me.
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