Seattle

We have gone on a road trip every other weekend since the middle of June...we are exhausted!  Also, Lenorah hates to ride in the car, have I mentioned that before?  We have decided to stop torturing her, no more trips longer than the hour and a half to Ione for a long time...

Last weekend we traveled to Seattle for tons of fun and a little relaxation.  Dietrich went over with Grammy on Tuesday and got to spend two days playing with his cousins Arielle and Nathan before we arrived on Thursday night.  Fortunately, he was thrilled to see us, which made me feel pretty happy :)  Our good friend Stacey won an amazing golf package, because she's one of those awesome people who wins things all the time.  And since she wasn't interested in golfing the three courses, she did one and let Bryce golf the other two with her husband Jeremy.  So on Friday morning Bryce headed out on the two hour drive from his sister's in Marysville to the golf course in Tacoma.  The kids and I met up with my Aunt who had my cousin's son Devin for the week, at a great beach in Edmonds.  The boys had a great time playing in the sand and throwing rocks into the sound.

 On Friday night Bryce drove home from the course in Tacoma and met us in Woodinville where we met up with friends, Brian, Reiko, Josh and Jill.  It was so great to see them, it had been over a year since we saw Brian and Reiko and 9 months for Josh and Jill.  We enjoyed a few drinks at the Red Hook brewery and it was so fun to catch up with everyone.

On Saturday morning Bryce dropped me off at the bus stop in Everett, the town next to Marysville, and I took the bus into downtown Seattle where I met up with Stacey for a girls day of shopping.  The goal was to find dresses for Paul and Kate's wedding in August and Mark and Bekah's wedding in September.  We had a great time and we found lots of fun clothes and good deals.  Although I did not find the dresses I was hoping to find, oh well.  We did happy hour at Ivar's on the pier and then caught the ferry over to her parents house.  I know I've been on the ferry from Seattle before but I think it was a foggy day, and on Saturday it was so perfect and beautiful, it is really amazing to see the whole city like that.  We spent the evening at Stacey's parent's house BBQing and relaxing on their deck.

Then on Sunday the guys headed out golfing again and we headed to the zoo!  The kids loved it and Lenorah especially loved the fish.  I think she could have watched them all day.  It really made me wish we had something like that on this side of the state.  It was especially awesome that Stacey's friend met up with us and she has a membership so was able to get us all into the zoo!

 This one is blurry but it cracked me up how Dietrich just went and pushed his way between these two young girls...

 There were two young tigers playing in here, they were so cute, jumping in the water and tackling each other.  But Lenorah was more interested in the man behind us.  She went over and stared at him.  He turned to his wife, "this little girl is staring at me, it's weird...I'm not your dad honey."  I looked up at him and he had a nice beard, so I told him, "but you have a beard, she's a beard girl."  I'm sure she was just trying to decide if she knew him!

 Lenorah powered through but she got pretty tired watching the seals.  And while taking this picture Dietrich walked out of the building with another group of people which induced a bit of a panic, fortunately he realized he was missing us and came right back, phew!

 After the ducks Lenorah was done, so we headed out of the zoo and she fell asleep on the way to the car.  We drove to Cle Elum where we had dinner and the guys met up with us.  Then we started the rest of our screaming trip home.  It was a fun packed, busy weekend!  We did so much in such a short time, and we did a WHOLE lot of traveling, nothing on the West side is close together and traffic is unbelievable which makes everything take longer.  It has taken me all week to get my house and brain back in order, but we are finally there.  Just in time for another busy weekend, but at least this time we will be staying home!  Next weekend though, off to camp!