Washington State, 2013

We just returned from an action packed week in Washington. It had been almost three years since we’d been there and some family members hadn’t met Conan yet, so we decided it was high time to make the trek back west. We packed a lot into our six day trip.

We left DC early the day after Halloween and made it to Seattle by 11 am west coast time. We collected our luggage and rental car and drove to the University of Washington to meet Kariah, Jeremiah, and Savannah. They were nice enough to take some family photos of us at UW and have us over for dinner. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get a very good picture of Lincoln and Conan with Savannah.

We spent the night at an old friend’s house (more on them later) and enjoyed a delightful breakfast of the finest donuts Tacoma has to offer before we headed to the Eastern side of the state to meet up with the good ol’ Davidsons. We, of course, had to stop at the first Zips we came to for lunch.

When we pulled up in front of my Dad’s house we were immediately greeted by my sweet niece and nephew, who were a huge help with the littler kids while we were there. Conan is still asking me about “Aba”. “Where Aba?” “Aba house?”

The two four year olds had a lot of fun together.

Our kids never fully adjusted to West Coast time, and we had daylight savings time to deal with while we were there too. As a result, we went swimming in our hotel pool at 6:30 am one morning.

We were all delighted to have breakfast with my two best high school friends, except Conan, who was a mixture of excited and exhausted.

More fun with family.

We’re all together so rarely that we had to take a bunch of pictures.

Grandpa was kind enough to take us to the train yard where he works so that the boys could check out the real life trains. Conan fell asleep in the car, which is too bad. I think he really would have enjoyed that.

When he woke up he wasn’t too excited about getting his picture taken with Grandpa.

On our way out of town, despite the frigid temperatures, we stopped at River Front Park. We didn’t stay too long because it was freezing, but there was a lot of beautiful foliage and plenty of ducks and geese.

We then drove back to Seattle and had dinner with my cousin and her delightful family. I wish we got to see each other more often.

We had one day to do some site seeing in Seattle and our hosts, the Crossens, were nice enough to take us around. Jonathan and I had never actually been to the top of the Space Needle, so that was our first stop.

When we were in the early stages of planning this trip Lincoln and I were having an unrelated discussion on the merits of monorails when I suddenly remembered that there was one in Seattle. It immediately jumped to the top of our to-do list and the boys were extra excited that they got to ride in the front, next to the driver, on our trip to Pike Place Market.

On our last day in Washington we were able to visit the cemetery where my grandparents are interned and have lunch with my Aunt.

We were also able to squeeze in one last friend visit for dinner. I hadn’t seen my friend, Nathaniel, in 7 years, so it was a special treat to spend some time with him and his lovely family.

Whew! And then we flew home at 6 am the following day. It was a busy trip and a bit overdue. I’m so happy that we got to see so many people and visit the place where I grew up. I feel like the longer I’m away from Washington, the more I can appreciate its charm. Hopefully it won’t be three years before we visit again!