Kevin's 32nd Birthday

On Sunday, we celebrated Kevin's birthday.  I know he's starting to feel old, but he's not to me!

Being such the great dad that he is, he took the girls to the Tacoma Children's Museum on his day of celebration.  The girls had fun,  but Kevin and I weren't impressed.  Maybe we were spoiled with the awesome museum that Normal had back in IL, but this just seemed small and disorganized.  The girls had a blast playing at the water tables and playing pretend and what not, but there was only one floor of activities and the girls couldn't really climb the pirate ships and other things because of their size and the fact there were bigger kids up there.  To get to the reading room, you had to walk through the art room.  That was a mess.  We attempted to let the girls paint. Lauren did great and Kaelin, not so much.  I then tried to get her to play with clay, and she just ate it.  To try to get her into the reading room from the art room, just turned into a full blown tantrum..so back to the water tables we went. 
The price is right and it is donation based only but we were surprised we had to pay for parking (guess that comes with big city life)..so after we made a donation and paid for parking we had spent $20 for the girls to splash in water, have a pretend tea party, and throw fits.  Next time we are going to check out the museum in Olympia, hoping it's better. 

After the museum, we went to Duke's for lunch.  Talk about amazing!!  They specialize in their award winning chowders.  It was so delicious!  Kevin had fresh panko crusted fish and chips and a bowl of their Dungeness Crab and Jack Daniel Whiskey Chowder, and I had a Blackened Salmon Taco with Wasabi aïoli, black bean and corn salad, tequila lime aïoli, all natural hand– stretched tortilla, and a bowl of the Cajun Chicken Corn Chowder.  Oh man, my mouth waters thinking about the Chicken Corn Chowder.  It was like a tortilla soup but creamy and rich and a bit spicy! YUM! 
Not to mention, the view was fantastic.  We were on a pier, right on the Puget Sound.  It was so so pretty.  I didn't have my camera with me, so I haven't been able to take any pictures, but hopefully soon. 
If you aren't familiar with the west coast (like me).  Here is an image of the area that I am talking about.  Fort Lewis is located just near Tacoma, not right on the water but in and around the surrounding "suburbs". 

After lunch, the kids were beat so we decided to just go back to our hotel. Of course they fell asleep on the way back so we decided to just drive around and familiarize ourselves with the area. 

An hour or so passed and we were ready for naps too and maybe a little birthday dessert.  We didn't have many options on the Army post, so we opted to split a cinnamon roll from Cinnabon and call it a day.  I honestly can't remember what we did the rest of the evening. I know we all slept like a rock though that night.