Seattle Trip

Since I mentioned the Seattle trip in my last post I thought I might as well elaborate. We were in Seattle in March for a few days to see the families and celebrate my Mother-in-law's 60th birthday. She didn't actually know we were coming so it was a huge surprise for her. She wasn't really excited to celebrate this birthday but in the end she had a really great time. We had been sending her 60 birthday cards before we arrived and she had been waiting for the last card to arrive (which we hand delivered out of the blue). Here is a photo of her card display:The other fun thing was that Greg's aunt came to town armed with 60 gifts for the birthday girl and we hadn't seen her since our wedding 7 years ago. We were really excited to get to spend some time with her.I drove down to Olympia to see my friend Katie and her oh so cute Ava. Greg had some time with his friends too including a trip to the bowling alley with Jeremy and his fiance. It was pretty surreal for us to be there since it was the sight of our 1st date and IT HAS NOT CHANGED IN 14 YEARS! So weird.
In addition to all the birthday festivities I managed to do some shopping and picked up 3 pairs of cute shoes at the Rack, some new clothes, craft and sewing supplies, and lots of cute papers, bags, and ribbon at Packaging Specialties. Also got to spend the day with my sister who is expecting a baby (the first Howard grand baby) this summer. More shopping for us girls! Even Greg did some shopping and got new used clothes at Value Village. That was another trip down memory lane since I worked there in high school. The store has changed a lot since then.Greg and I also went out to Mercer Island to cheer my mom on as she ran a 10K. It was supposed to be a half marathon but she is nursing an injury and her doctor told her no more than a 10K. We couldn't get to the finish line because of a mad parking situation so we camped out under the I-90 bridge and rooted for all the runners. We chatted with a nice race volunteer (who took our picture). We were right before a big hill (the course is really hilly) so we would yell "you can do it" "don't look to the right" "enjoy the downhill". It was really fun. We erroneously told people they were about half way (when they asked) only to find out later we were acutally at more like the 3/4 mark. Oops!The rest of the trip was spent hanging out with the families and working on a few small projects. While we were there we learned how to play my parent's new favorite dice game. My mom picked this game up while visiting my great aunt and uncle in Wisconsin last summer. My parents have played cribbage during meals for years and years but like this dice game so much they switched over. That's how you know it is fun! It is called "Oh Sh*t" or as my mom said while we played "That's too bad". It does involve gambling for quarters but it is a lot of fun and Greg and I have been playing at home during dinner ever since we got back. Here is a little video I took while we played. You can't see Rachel but she was still there (coming in last place!). Fun times.

I am sure I am leaving something out but we had a very nice visit and will be back again in August for Jeremy's wedding and to meet the our new nephew (we can't wait!).