We woke up and worked through our school work and business stuff then had to jet out the door. We had a climbing session with an instructor at Vertical World scheduled for the kids in celebration of Isaac’s 10th birthday.

It was such a cool place. We have been to several rock climbing gyms, but this was laid back and had so many climbs which the kids took full advantage of.

They worked on their bouldering techniques and pushed themselves on several routes that were pretty difficult. All of them have that Dalrymple determination and don’t like to lose to a wall or any challenge. It was nice to see.

Isaac was sweating through it all as he exerted himself. I think he felt pretty special with his birthday continuing through a second day.

Gabe’s forearms were about to burst. But he enjoyed the challenge and took a bit to recuperate.

Jadyn was all over the place and had such dexterity in her climbing technique.

We grabbed some great local Mexican food at El Camion after before heading to some other sights.

We headed to Pike Place and loved all the selection. The seafood was so fresh. We will probably head back to grab some to grill at some point.

We ended up buying some novelties, and Gabe picked out an exotic caramel we could use in different desserts. The kids loved the whole experience.

We even headed over to the wall of gum. It was both artistic and disgusting. The wall was completely plastered. We didn’t find the geocache we were looking for, but we were certainly in awe of the spectacle:

We debated on Halloween and decided to take advantage of our detachment on the road in order to do something solo as a family. We have had so many memorable little kid times, and we were wanting to head in a different direction from the festivities. It might be good prep for living more intentionally around the mad holidays that are highly commercialized as we approach them. The road is affording us this luxury.

We enjoyed a great time as a family back in our Seattle place laughing together over a movie.

Oh, and Gabe and I had a memorable run. I pulled the car over randomly downtown, and we ran home for the last couple of miles. It was an adventure. We had to cross the West Seattle bridge, run through some shady areas and get up a big hill. He’s a tough kid and loved the adventure. We did it in street clothes at a good clip.

Another life lesson to always be ready for any adventure.

We feel at home in Seattle bouncing around and hanging out with all kinds of people in all kinds of locales. Such a cool place to grow as a human being.