Of course the thing we love the most about visiting Seattle is the people we get to be with. We sure love every minute we get to spend with our Seattle cousins, and so appreciate them having us even when they weren't having a break of any kind. I loved seeing my kids just immediately attach themselves to their cousins, especially Emma to Rosey and Chase to Smith. Romney and Laine are cute friends but their age difference feels more pronounced at the moment and I'm sure they'll hang out more as Laine enters teenage-dom.
Here's Mitt, the very happy pup who is now a free-range doggie and loves keeping track of absolutely everything going on on his property.
The kids really enjoyed the farm - there's a battery powered cart they had a lot of fun with - I think Emma liked driving it more than Chase did. What a hoot to see her maneuvering tentatively around the pastures.
A major source of entertainment for us was this little man right here, who just turned five in September. He is so funny. My favorite thing was watching him command the computer to play him the songs from Ghostbusters and Jurassic Park, and then dance like a maniac, occasionally taking flying leaps from the kitchen counter and (unintentionally) into the arms of his surprised and quick-thinking mother. I'm pretty sure he thought he was set for take-off. As you can see below he was never not running.
What with the busy weekend we were sort of lame and never actually got everyone together for a picture. The one place we did manage to get the girls at least sitting still was of course Mora's, the favorite stop for treats on the island. The shop was host to us more than once on the visit. It even ended up being the selected spot for Emma to leave her Reading Rock - a rock decorated like a favorite book of hers and labeled with our school's reading rock facebook page. We'll see if anyone finds it as they gobble up their tasty ice cream!
One other spot that we visited we failed to get a photo of but I think we will definitely make it a stop in the future - it's called Bay Hay and Feed (notice Chase's BHF hoodie in the photos below - he pretty much hasn't taken it off since the trip) and it's like a mix of a super darling boutique and the farm equipment store, IFA. What cute things they had there! And great clothing and household items and toys and also hay and seeds and tools and just all of that stuff.
Happily, leaving Bainbridge Island did not signal the end of the trip. We made sure to set up some time with my former next-door-neighbor and his absolutely adorable family. They live in Ballard, a suburb of Seattle. We spent an absolutely stunning Sunday afternoon with them, enjoying the autumn weather. We had lunch and though I can hardly believe it, almost four straight hours of chatting. It was heavenly!
I wondered how the kids would do - they have had a good time together in the past, but like it often is with the children of adults who have been friends for a long time, they don't see each other for long stretches of time then suddenly have four hours together. I wondered if it would be awkward. It was. For about five minutes. Then all six of them headed to the back porch and sat and talked and evidently were extremely silly and got along tremendously. We adults sat in the dining room and I just soaked up that wonderful company and conversation for many hours.
Another beloved place full of beloved people, hard to leave.
But we weren't done yet!
We decided to change the way we get home. Seeing as how my brother lives clear out on an island to the west of Seattle, getting home means getting on a ferry, riding the ferry, then getting through the city before really hitting the road. It adds a ton of time to the trip, especially because you can't leave as early as you would like to - the earliest ferry is the earliest you get. That's still in the 5 o'clock hour, but when there's a 13 hour drive ahead of you, sometimes you want to leave even earlier. I remembered that I have a cousin, Carol, who lives in Issaquah, to the WEST of Seattle! I haven't seen her in such a long time. I felt a little weird contacting her, but I also have been feeling more and more that I need more contact and interaction with my cousins. It shouldn't be so long between visits, it shouldn't be up to our parents anymore. So I reached out on facebook and got an immediate and welcome response.
We drove to Carol's house, met her two youngest kids who are both older than Chase, sat in her living room and talked for a long time with her, her husband and her kids. It was so pleasant. What lovely lovely people. They live on this big property and rent out space for people to keep their horses. There are also goats and a dog and much to my daughters' delight, kittens! The kittens live in the barn and are there to get the rodents, but Emma was in absolute heaven. We helped feed the horses and goats. It was too bad we were only there in the dark - the property seems pretty amazing, up on a forested hillside. It was truly a pleasure to spend time with this neat family and feel a little more family connection. I'm very grateful.
We got up at zero o'clock. So early. It was dark for the first couple of hours, which was too bad because those are really the only pretty miles of the drive. By the time the sun came up we were way ahead of the game. It was great to get a jump on the drive, though by the end of the day we were just as tired as always and just as ready to get the heck out of the dang car.
I'm very grateful for another wonderful visit to Bainbridge Island and for all the people we got to spend time with.
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