I've been lovingly scolded for my lack of attention to this blog lately. I know. Life isn't affording much down time these days, but here I am, 2 hours before we begin attempt #2 to get up to the mountains for our ski weekend. We tried last night with two kiddos in the back seat only to realize that Berthoud Pass (the pass needed to get to our ski resort) had been closed due to an avalanche. Awesome. Try explaining that to your six year old in terms that won't make him afraid to ever enter mountain territory again. We chose to tell them there was too much snow and the road closed. Done. The pass is open this morning, so we'll try again and hope our lack of snow tires Pilot will deliver us to our destination.
I haven't touched our Seattle trip yet, mainly because it includes a ridiculous amount of photos, fun and emotion. I'm going to keep the verbiage simple and let the photos speak.
Scouty, Uncle Phil and Aunt Katy's little love. And the push we needed to start talking about getting a dog of our own. I know. We're wackadoo.
Seattle Aquarium - pretty sweet destination.
Lunch on the water with Aunt Mary and her daughter, Amelia. In reality, Amelia is our cousin but it seemed more logical to introduce her as the kids cousin. Whatever. The girls bonded like 3 year olds do. It was fun to catch up with their crew.
These are the views from Phil and Katy's hood, Queen Anne, where we stayed for part of our trip. It's a blessing to spend time there. God's country at it's very finest.
This was, hands down, the cutest thing we saw on our trip. His owner was doing a photo shoot with him that day, which happened to be Valentines Day.
The market - a place of overstimulation in every regard. Dude managed quite well I must say. Below is a new-found tourist location for our brood. Katy told us of its greatness and we made sure to stop. It's a massive wall of gum. That's right. Chewed gum. Art, some might call it. We allowed the children to chew their gum and add to it's grossness. And that they did.
Tim has 3 sets of aunts and uncles and a few cousins who live in the Seattle area, so we pizza'd with them at Phil and Katy's on Friday night. This is Tim's cousin, Tim (copier) with the children. They flocked to his massive self. He stands a head taller than my Tim.
We sure do love our Aunt Katy. She's something special.
And yet another Seattle landmark we knew not of. The troll under the bridge on Troll Street. Don't be fooled by Dude's confident body language. It took him about 5 minutes to build up the nerve to climb up on this creepy masterpiece and then he leaped off when the photo was taken without flinching. He about killed himself.
On our way to meet Miss Amber....
We took a day to go meet Amber. Dude was really excited about this part of the trip and Squirt was excited to meet baby Gwen. We all were. Mom and Dad were maybe a bit more anxious, but definitely excited. We stopped in at their apartment first, where Amber greeted us at the door. Her eyes welled up in tears when she caught sight of Dude. I had to stop and remember what that must have felt like for her. It's her firstborn and she hadn't seen him in almost 7 years. That's big stuff. Emotional stuff. I just have to force myself into her shoes because it feels so different on our end.
He greeted her with a nervous giggle and started asking lots of totally appropriate questions like, "Are you crazy and hyper like me? Do you get car sick like me? Do you have blue eyes like me?" He understood. There were pictures and drawings we've sent over the years hanging all over the apartment, evidence of her constant thoughts of him. He was rather touched when he noticed them and perhaps a bit confused too. Amber was patient and kind, gracious, soft spoken and thankful for our visit. She was a good mom to her two little girls and they seemed very well cared for and loved. I was so nervous that we would leave, feeling unsettled, but we didn't. I felt calm and so grateful that we took the leap and offered both Amber and our son the opportunity to experience each other and explore their relationship. I always want them to have a relationship. They each deserve that.
As you can see, their coloring is the same, their hair color, their eyes and even the way they walk. And she said she grew out of her ADD, which was music to our parental ears.
Kira, on the right, is Dude's half sister. She's unbelievably beautiful.
Baby Gwen is seeming to take on Dude's features. He was quite enamored with her.
Me and my name sake. Still weird, but pretty cool at the same time. We kinda spoiled her with new "me-like" clothes. I couldn't help it.
Despite the POURING rain, we had a nice afternoon. Kira had never been on a ferry, so we took a ferry ride to another island and had lunch at a local pizza place. Amber's boyfriend, the father of the two girls, joined us. He was also wonderful and has so much love for him family. We were so glad this day worked out as well as it did.
Amber, Mark and the girls took the ferry back home and we headed to Phil and Katy's farm, where we spent the remainder of our time in Seattle. That deserves its own post. The fun was too much to fit into this already jammed post.
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