Seattle Weekend

This past weekend I took the kids on a little road trip. We left Spokane on Thursday morning and drove two hours to Ephrata to Will & Luke's new home. Of course, they all had a blast playing! We went to a couple of parks, but for some reason, I forgot to take pictures! Oops!

On Friday afternoon, we left Ephrata and drove to Gold Bar where Josh's mom lives. We stopped in Leavenworth for some ice cream before we headed over the pass. We got to Kay's fine. Her cat had kittens last week, so that was naturally one of thefirst things Levi & Claire wanted to see.

On Saturday morning the rest of the family came to Gold Bar to hang out. The kids played, watched a movie, went to the river, rode bikes, and had a great time being together again. Veronica and I got to go on a bike ride into Index and I got to do a morning run (outside!!)

Sunday morning we woke up early and packed everything up and headed to our old church in Brier. It was so nice to see everybody! After church we drove to Seattle and visited our old neighborhood and friends. Blakeley looked the same! The couple that moved into our old house even have a boy named Levi. Weird! But Levi and Claire did not miss a beat playing with the neighbors and at the

playground. It was like we never left! Being back made me realize what a wonderful place it was to be. I am grateful for the three and a half years we had there. Jule and I even took the kids up to Zoka's for some wonderful coffee!

After student housing, we headed further south to Ikea. Now, Ikea has a wonderful playroom for kids where they can play, for free, for up to an hour. The only problem? Kids have to be three. So on the way down, I asked Claire how old she was. She, naturally, said "two." I told her, no Claire, you are three. She bought it. I had her convinced that she was three. Then Levi chimed in. "No Claire, you are only two. We are just pretending you are three so you can play."

I tried to tell Levi that he can't tell anybody that. To forget about our conversation, etc. He couldn't! It was really upsetting him that I wanted Claire to lie about her age! I guess I should be proud that he was finding it hard to lie, but in reality, I was annoyed! Turns out there was a half-hour wait to even get into the playroom, so all the lying and frustration was for naught.

Oh well, Ikea was fun! I specifically wanted to get fabric and I

was super ecstatic to find that they had fabric on sale for $0.99/yard. What a steal! I got 20 yards! Also, for the beginning

of August kids eat free at their cafeteria. So our entire dinner, for all three of us, was $3.28.

The kids actually did really good at Ikea. Well, until we were leaving that is. Claire has this annoying habit where she likes to walk forward, but look to the right. So basically, she does not watch where she is going. She is always walking into things like walls and couches. It was only inevitable that her "blind walking" would get her into trouble. It happened at Ikea. She was walking, and not watching, and she walked right into somebodies cart. That person obviously did not have kids, or grandchildren, or nephews, because they decided that the best place to put their can of paint was in the child seat holder of the cart. On the edge. Right next to the leg opening. Claire bumped the cart and gravity did the rest. The can of paint fell through the leg hole and spilled all over the floor. Whoever had the cart was nowhere to be found, so I just left a pathetic note. "I am so sorry, my daughter bumped into your cart and the paint fell out. Again, so sorry."

What I really wanted to write was "what kind of idiot leaves a can of paint there? Do you not understand physics? Big leg hole, small can of paint, paint can fit through hole, must not put paint next to hole." So all in all, not a bad trip to Ikea.

After Ikea we drove to Kirkland to meet Christian and Veronica and the girls at a criterium race in downtown Kirkland. This

road bike race was 45 times around a closed-off loop of downtown. One loop was .6 miles. Crazy! These bikers were flying by us!

We spent that night at C&V's in Kirkland. But before bed we had a delicious blackberry pie that V made earlier in the day. She and Levi had picked a bunch of blackberries at Kay's the day before.

On Monday I got to go to Trader Joe's and stock up on some precious groceries. The best buy was definitely Kashi's cereal Mighty Bites. Levi and Claire LOVE that cereal!

We had a great time on our first trip to Seattle since we moved!