A Visit with Family

I have an extremely small family.  And when I say small, I mean small.  I have my parents, 1 brother, 1 aunt, 1 uncle and 1 cousin and his family.  And unfortunately every one of them lives in another state.  I get to see my parents and brother at least a few times a year.  But I rarely get to see my aunt, uncle and cousin who all live in Dayton, OH.  The last time I saw my aunt & uncle was the summer of 2007 when Kate was still a baby (and Jack didn't exist yet).  And I haven't seen my cousin since before Kate was born!  So it was a rare treat the past few days when my aunt and uncle passed through town after a 2 week-long cruise and vacation in Alaska.  After their shipped docked in Vancouver, they spent a couple of nights taking in the sights up there, and then took a train down to Seattle on Labor Day.  Kate and I picked them up at the train station downtown.  Kate was very excited!

We stopped off at the produce stand on the way home to get some corn on the cob for dinner.  Since Marcia and Richard had been up since early that morning, we decided to just have a relaxing rest of the day close to home.  We gave them the grand tour of our house and introduced them to Jack for the first time.  Then they rested a bit while we took the kids to the lake to play in the water.  When we got home, Dave barbecued some steak and salmon and I cooked up the corn.  After dinner they got a chance to enjoy one of our famous pink sunsets from our deck. 


I was able to take some time off of work to spend time with Marcia & Richard during the remainder of their stay.  Tuesday was our one full day to get some sightseeing in.  I decided to bring Kate along as well.  Jack got to go to daycare - being 2 makes it hard to go anywhere for longer than about 1 hour.  So spending all day walking around Seattle would not have been his cup of tea (or milk I should say).


Before leaving the house, Kate did some coloring with Marcia.  Coloring is Kate's favorite activity (I wonder where she gets that?).  And usually at least 50% of her hands are covered in marker at all times.  Marcia drew Kate a picture of the ship that they were on during their cruise.

We then headed out and spent most of the morning walking through Pike Place Market and enjoying all of the beautiful things and delicious food.  

Kate with her snack of fresh raspberries

Marcia and Rich getting samples of a nectarine

 Kate with the famous market pig

We were thinking of you Jack!

    
After the market, we stopped at Etta's, one of Tom Douglas's restaurants, for a tasty lunch.  And then we stopped in at my favorite eyeglass shop, Ottica, that I had to share with Marcia.  We have very similar taste so I knew she would love it.  And sure enough she found a pair of frames she had to have.  And surprisingly, so did Rich!  Kate did a very good job of keeping herself entertained while we shopped.

After spending a small fortune at Ottica, I drove them by the Olympic Sculpture Park and then stopped in at REI so they could see the flagship store and the company that I work for.  Rich found some good running socks, I got new winter coats for the kids, and Kate played in the treehouse and had a smoothie! 

We then picked up Jack from daycare and headed home for a short while to relax a bit before dinner.  Jack decided he wanted Rich to play some catch with him.  Luckily he chose a soft ball, because Rich quickly discovered how hard he throws (even when he is only a few feet away from you).  

We then headed to the Rock to meet Dave for pizza.  Unfortunately Jack didn't last long and I spent part of the meal walking around with him outside and then Dave took him home so we could finish our meal.  But Jack was in much better spirits when we got home because he was in the backyard practicing with his new set of golf clubs that Dave bought him!  Jack currently likes playing golf as much as Kate likes coloring.  So Dave couldn't resist taking him to the golf store for his first set of real clubs over the weekend!

He can actually hit the ball pretty well when he makes contact!

This morning the kids went in to daycare and I just spent a leisurely morning at home with Marcia & Rich before they headed back home.  They looked through some of my scrapbooks and we caught up on various things.  But before long, it was time for them to go.  I showed them the REI corporate offices where I work on the way to the airport and then it was time to say goodbye.  It was a very short visit and there is so much more I would like to show them, but we had a wonderful time.  I hope it won't be another 4 years before we see each other again!