Last Friday was a pretty busy day, Col did a spot of work from home (complete with the usual pre-trip insanity and sky falling that goes along with every trip we take) while I did more tidying and cleaning (the house is starting to look pretty good – if I say so myself!).

We did some last minute packing, went to Kroger to pick up some stuff in the Mega Deal sales (they had Crystal light for $1.50 a box so we stocked up – drawing some strange looks and an, ‘Is this stuff good?’ question from the cashier!) before heading up to the Airport.

At the airport we parked the car, took the shuttle in to the terminal (yay for terminal E’s ‘fair price’ policy!) and enjoyed a spot of lunch in the Fox sports bar (and by enjoyed I mean, didn’t.  It was cold and took ages to get to us – the one thing I did like was the insanely strong double shot strawberry daquiri I ordered, now that, I definitely enjoyed!

The flight itself took FOREVER! It was only 4 hours, but it felt longer than pretty much every transatlantic flight I’ve ever taken.  It just dragged on, and on…and on…but my Kathy Reichs novel kept me company!

Our luggage came off the plane almost as fast as we did, we picked up the car with no problems and drove to Lynnwood- quickly discovering that the Toyota Camry, while being America’s no.1 car, pretty cheap and reliable and all that guff, is actually a lump of crap.  We both hated it, after only a matter of minutes and at each stop junction, red light, any major OR minor braking situation, I got tossed around like a little rag doll and am pretty sure my back pains are coming from the most jolty, jerky and uncomfortable car EVER!

Anyway, we picked up the car, drove to Lynnwood where we’d booked a hotel for two days (Hotel count : 1), checked in (upgraded to a suite with a jacuzzi!) and had a (really) late dinner at the Olive Garden for Col’s birthday dinner…

…including a yummy (but too sweet) apple dessert thingy (which came out cold first time and luke warm the second time!).

Saturday, I woke up at 5.30am (Seattle is 2 hours behind Houston and it’s amazing how much havoc those extra 2 hours caused my body clock!).  I managed to get back to sleep and when we both eventually got out of bed and ready to go, our first port of call was the Great King buffet for lunch.

I can’t say I enjoyed the food and it was definitely overpriced!

When we’d finished with lunch, we headed up North to the Seattle Outlets.  We took a leisurely stroll around the shops for a few hours, though we didn’t happen upon much we liked (except a nice shirt that I got – which I know will annoy one Sam Madden when we get back to Houston!).

After our (lack of) shopping in the rain and drizzle, we returned to the hotel for a dip in the jacuzzi before the Silvertips hockey game.

I’ve never been to a game like it! Every time a penalty was killed (which was every single PK!) someone in the crowd got a prize, every time they scored on the PP, someone got a prize, dance for your dinner lasted about 6 minutes and involved the entire audience, chuck-a-puck was crazy (I’ve never seen so many pucks!!), T-shirt giveaway, a blimp dropping coupons into the crowd…

Not to mention, a HUGE winning pot of $2,691 for 50/50, which we lost by one friggin ticket – seriously, the woman who bought before me won! That ticket was destined for me by the way, I caught the sellers attention first and the woman who won grabbed her arm as she was heading up to me, to get a ticket from her! GAH! I was sooo close! LOL!

They also have a gameworn giveaway to a random member in the crowd and had a turn out of 6,179 people – it was electric.  We had a great time and are looking forward to going back on Friday!