Describe your perfect "Intro to Seattle" tour for a family with toddler (Tacoma: house, neighborhood)

[CarawayDJ]

Hi everyone. My wife and I have been searching for a great place to live for a couple of years now. We've looked far and wide. We are targeting 2012 for our move. We visited Washington briefly in Nov 08 and want to give it another look. The Seattle area is one of the finalists on our list. Anyway, we'll be visiting the city in October for about 6 days. I'd be interested in hearing from locals about a good "intro to Seattle" tour that has a good mix of the typical tourist activities plus the typical family activities you folks do with your kids this time of the year. My initial thoughts are:

1. Alki Beach park, Golden Gardens, and Discover park.
2. Waterfront, Queen Anne, Fremont
3. Whale watching tour
4. Trip to Leavenworth.

We don't want to only experience the touristy activities though. We want to experience ordinary life. Our son is 2-1/2 years old. We'd like to check out popular playgrounds, indoor playgrounds, children's museums, and anything else I'm not thinking of that residents do. At first glance, I suspect the east side is where we would live. With that in mind, activities closer to those areas are preferred.

A little about me:

1. I grew up in NH. I know all about miserable weather. In Seattle I'd be trading the freezing cold and snow for gray and gloomy in the winters. I've also lived in Germany for 7 years. Germany has pretty bad weather too. A lot of rain and gloomy days.

2. My wife is from the Czech Republic. The weather is often bad there too. However, we've been spoiled by living in some fairly good weather areas the past 9 years. We live in SoCal now. Are there any Eastern European communities/restaurants up there?

3. We will also visit Seattle again next summer when it is beautiful and then again in December when it is bad. We want to see the area in both good and bad, and somewhere in-between.

4. Our son loves parks, playgrounds, and even started toddler gymnastics. He can spend hours at a park without complaining.

5. We LOVE the outdoors and nature. I like sailing, fishing, some hunting, and camping.

6. We like cultural quirkiness. The San Francisco area is also one of our finalist areas.

7. I own a startup software firm.

8. I'm a new user to this forum, but I've been reading it for a long time. It seems as if every thread of this nature turns into a political war. I'm a true independent with moderate views. My circle of friends include everyone from the religious right to the far left. We can get along with anyone. With that being known about us, I'll ask everyone: PLEASE DON'T DISCUSS POLITICS!

Thanks in advance!

[Inkpoe]

For most part, posters here are pretty good about not turning everything into a political war. If anything, you should've said don't turn this into Seattle vs Eastside war discussion.

Anyhow, your list looks pretty good. I will say that that when you go into Leavenworth, do it on a weekend. It'll be Oktoberfest every weekend (in October), and they'll have a kiddie bouncy place set up, rock climbing wall. There's also a farm with a petting zoo (you can feed the animals!) in the area. I was just there yesterday and my child was so severely upset about having to leave. It is a fun fun fun place Weekend roadtrip: Smallwood's Harvest Farm in Peshastin and Bavarian living in Leavenworth - Seattle Family | Examiner.com (In that link, it does give the official website/address of the Smallwoods Harvest.)

There are several Children's museums around: Tacoma's, (Bellevue) Factoria's, Everett's, and of course Seattle's. You can't go wrong here in terms of children things to do. We have a zoo in Seattle (our biggest one), a zoo in Tacoma (very lovely) and a zoo in Issaquah (small, but my 3 y.o. kid LOVES it). Speaking of kids gymnastics, I wholeheartedly tell people to check out: Building Success One Step at a Time! — The School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts

[CityGirl72]

I moved up from California (originally born in Santa Monica, and went to College up in NorCal), but I moved to Seattle with a toddler. My son also loved parks. And we used to rid ethe bike over toa big one, and spend hours!

Much different story in Seattle. I hated going to parks - it nearly stopped. I would be standing in misty drizle and COLD - waiting for him to run around and get energy out. I would have cold hands (yes in gloves) and just jumping up and down trying to stay warm. Our park trips went from hours in sunny nice California to 15 minutes tops in Seattle. I'm sayin' that's my point of view, not everyone's.

If you visited in Nov 08 - I'm going to guess you didn't have the baby yet? And if you did - he was probably small. It's such a different place to live once you have kids. I couldn't figure out how to parent and enjoy my children in the cold wetness. I didn't want them out in that crap weather and would have to bundle them up year round, and then of course they'd ask me to go out with them, and I just hated it, so we stayed indoors alot. And I don't know about you - but indoors with kids day after day is craziness. We moved back to California, and have happily spent 98% of our time outside again.

[seattlefanatic]

There is alot of cultural quirkiness here for sure. I would check out Capitol Hill, Fremont, parts of Ballard, and parts of Queen Anne. Queen Anne is more wealthy than quirky, but in parts, it's still relatively quirky. Fremont is also becoming more gentrified(hipsters), but it's still pretty neat. Surprisingly, there are alot of Eastern European communities here. I myself am from Poland originally, and moved here as an infant with my parents. There is a Polish community center called Polish House that serves traditional Polish food every night, dancing, and other things. I'm not so sure about Czech things, but I know that Russians immigrate here alot, so yes, there are alot of Eastern European things here.

[CarawayDJ]

Thanks for the info so far. Leavenworth will be a must visit for my trip. CityGirl72, I can understand where you are coming from. It is so much easier enjoying the outdoors with your kid when the weather is nice. That said, I grew up in NH and loved my childhood - all four seasons every year. My wife grew up in gloomy Central Europe. I can easily see though how someone who grew up in nice weather would not like Seattle, or NH, or Central Europe, or... Nice weather can spoil you, and might have spoiled us.

[Ira500]

West Seattle has the Little Prague Bakery. It's just dangerous to go in there. Not because it's a bad neighborhood, but because it's really hard to exercise any degree of restraint there.

[CarawayDJ]

Originally Posted by Ira500

West Seattle has the Little Prague Bakery. It's just dangerous to go in there. Not because it's a bad neighborhood, but because it's really hard to exercise any degree of restraint there.

Thanks for the info. I think I know what you mean by exercising restraint :^) It looks like they close until November. They work the farmers markets. That's something I need to add to the schedule, farmers markets. We also enjoy them.

[eskercurve]

Piroshky Piroshky is a place in the Pike Place Market if you like piroshky's.

Also, how did Green Lake slip through the cracks? Check that place out.

[city_guy05]

Originally Posted by CityGirl72

I moved up from California (originally born in Santa Monica, and went to College up in NorCal), but I moved to Seattle with a toddler. My son also loved parks. And we used to rid ethe bike over toa big one, and spend hours!

Much different story in Seattle. I hated going to parks - it nearly stopped. I would be standing in misty drizle and COLD - waiting for him to run around and get energy out. I would have cold hands (yes in gloves) and just jumping up and down trying to stay warm. Our park trips went from hours in sunny nice California to 15 minutes tops in Seattle. I'm sayin' that's my point of view, not everyone's.

If you visited in Nov 08 - I'm going to guess you didn't have the baby yet? And if you did - he was probably small. It's such a different place to live once you have kids. I couldn't figure out how to parent and enjoy my children in the cold wetness. I didn't want them out in that crap weather and would have to bundle them up year round, and then of course they'd ask me to go out with them, and I just hated it, so we stayed indoors alot. And I don't know about you - but indoors with kids day after day is craziness. We moved back to California, and have happily spent 98% of our time outside again.

Well like the OP has mentioned, he grew up in bad weather so it's not something he's unfamiliar with. For east coasters, Seattle weather is usually pleasant because it's not freezing and snowing all the time. It's only southern Californians and southwesterners that complain about some rain. And maybe if Los Angeles got some rain, it wouldn't be the second most polluted city in the world (#1 in US). Not only is the sky and mountains brown, that place just smells nasty too. Well I'm glad you enjoy your time outside, because Angelenos can expect a decrease of 5 years in life expectancy due to carbon monoxide poisoning. Just throwing that out there.

[city_guy05]

I like SF too. I would say Seattle and SF are pretty similar, i.e. the culture, diversity, lifestyle. Obviously SF isn't as green as Seattle, but you do get better weather. Only downside to SF is it's a lot more expensive to live there, including a high state income tax (WA doesn't have one).