Rinnah hadn't been feeling well the last few days, so we've just been doing errands like grocery shopping and Walgreens. She seems to be on the upswing though. We went out to a nearby park this afternoon, and that was really nice. Here are a few highlights, starting with a favorite shot of Rinnah:
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| From Seattle |
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| From Seattle |
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| From Seattle |
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| From Seattle |
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| From Seattle |
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| From Seattle |
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| From Seattle |
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| From Seattle |
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| From Seattle |
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| From Seattle |
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| From Seattle |
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| From Seattle |
We made it to Everett, and so did my mom, and we're more or less settled. The campground is pretty nice by urban RV park standards. It's all paved, and there are tall shrubs between each site. It's not that big, and they only had pull-thrus so there is a lane in front and back of us, but we're toward the back of the park so it's quiet and my mom is parked pretty close by. We're also right next to the laundry machines, which is a plus.
The only downside is the wireless. Or lack thereof. They are supposedly still installing their system here, but the launch doesn't seem exactly imminent. They gave us a username and password for the RV park next door (nice, huh?) but the signal is pretty low and the network drops out frequently. Occasionally we can get on though, like now, and sometimes is better than never. I'm trying to decide what the odds are that the kids would behave if we tried to go to a library to get wifi.
It's a little colder and rainier here. We haven't seen much rain for months, but now we're in the Seattle area so I think it's to be expected. We're trying to decide if we're going to do anything more adventurous than grocery shopping today or if we'll hope for a little warmer day tomorrow. There are so many things to do around here! I hope we have a few warm days to walk around downtown Seattle.
On Sunday we're going to meet up with a friend from college. I haven't seen her since before we left for Thailand, and I'm so excited to catch up with her! Plus, she has high-speed internet, so hopefully I'll be able to put up some pics from this last week or two then.
We made it to Everett today! So weird to know that we're done heading west. That's been what we've been mostly doing since we left, but we're just about as west as we can get now!
The kids were pretty good in the truck today. We only had a few hours to drive. We were aiming to stop at a Target for one last chance at some free cheese and stumbled across another children's museum in our membership. Both kids had just woken up from a nap so it was a perfect time to stop and play for awhile. We spent a few hours there and the kids had a blast.
Now we're in Everett, just outside of Seattle. Looking forward to catching up with some friends, and my mom will be getting here tomorrow. It should be a fun couple of weeks.
Right now we don't have wifi, just the aircard, so no pics for now. Hopefully we'll find some wireless soon.
Amber is an amazing photographer, and last night she did a portrait session for our family. I can hardly wait to see how they turned out! She showed me one picture today of Ian and it was so adorable! She has also been gracious enough to show me a lot of tricks she uses in Photoshop and she let me watch her process the picture of Ian to see how she made the colors pop. Very cool! I'm trying to 'repay' her by teaching her about coupons and checking her girls' car seats, but it sure feels like I'm getting the better end of the deal.
We went to the park today and I tried to use some of her tips on this picture I got of Rinnah. I like how it turned out-what do you think?
We've spent the last few days with Amber and her girls, Eva and Sophie. Eva is Ian's age and Sophie just turned one, so she and Rinnah are pretty close too. I think Ian is getting a little crush on Eva. He keeps asking about her when we're not with her. Yesterday we got home and he immediately started picking up sticks in an area near our truck. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was making it so Eva's car wouldn't have to drive on the stick. This morning he was trying to decide what shirt Eva would like, and he spent awhile agonizing over which book she would like. We got almost to the park (he was pushing his bear in the little stroller) and he suddenly asked if we had his books. When I told him they were at home, he turned around and started walking back. There was no talking him out of it-we were not going without the book for Eva. He and Eva play very well together, and it's really cute to see them together. Rinnah tries her hardest to keep up with the big kids!
Here's a picture from the park today of Ian pushing Rinnah on the swing that I thought turned out okay. I still need to tweak the color but until I get that figured out here's a preview:
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| From Pullman, WA |
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| From Pullman, WA |
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| From Pullman, WA |
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| From Pullman, WA |
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| From Pullman, WA |
Today we spent the morning over at our friends' house. Ian and Eva had a blast together, and Sophie and Rinnah enjoyed chasing after the big kids. It was really nice and a little strange to be in a house again. I think the last time we were in a regular house was in Kansas City, way back in June. It's like college all over again to feel weird in a house. I think Ian thinks it's like a children's museum where you don't have to wait in line to play with the toys.
It was really nice to be able to relax and not have to spot the kids every 5 seconds since I knew they were somewhere safe. And I really enjoyed visiting with Amber. I think tomorrow we're going to take the kids to the park, as long as it's a bit warmer tomorrow morning. It was only about 50 degrees first thing this morning, although it warmed up to the high 70s by afternoon.
I think my sense of direction is getting better. I made it all the way to Amber's house today (only the 2nd time I've been there and first time I drove) making only one wrong turn, and that was turning the wrong way onto her street. And I even figured out how to get there a different way that avoided climbing the giant hill next to the RV park, thanks to taking a wrong turn on the way home from RiteAid yesterday. That made me proud, since I've always been a bit directionally dysfunctional. Frequent travel is definitely helping me improve.
We are now in Pullman, Washington. It's a little town in eastern Washington. We needed someplace to stay for a week to break up the drive to Seattle, and one of my good friends from online lives here. She's a very talented photographer so I'm hoping she can teach me a few things while I'm here. We went over there for lunch today and the kids had a great time playing together. She has one girl the same age as Ian and another little girl who just turned 1 last week, so they're very close in age to our kids. Ian and Rinnah had a blast playing inside with all different toys, and we really enjoyed visiting with them. I think Amber and I will get together with the kids a few mornings this week. It will be nice.
It was sort of an adventure getting here this morning. It was only supposed to be about 45 minutes from where we stayed last night, but we learned an interesting quirk of our GPS. When it's on a state border, it tries to find directions staying in the same state. Even though we were in Washington and going somewhere else in Washington, the best route took us back the 2 miles over the border into Idaho to catch a major road, but our GPS wanted to go a different way. We turned around at the signs "Primitive road-no warning signs" and "Road not advised for trucks" and "Road not advised for cars in inclement weather". It looked like a one lane dirt road on the side of a mountain, not a place we wanted to take our 36 foot trailer. We did eventually get here safely despite our GPS.
We are kinda limited on the internet though, since we only have the aircard and we have to watch our bandwidth. I'll have to go easy on the pictures this week.
We are well on our way!
We managed to squeeze out close to three hours of driving time last night, although it took closer to five hours to actually do it. We got in late but Rinnah fell asleep in the car and stayed asleep when we put her in bed, and Ian fell right to sleep. And as a bonus, we all got to sleep in until 7:45 this morning!!
No internet where we stayed, so I'm adding this from the truck on our way to Boise. Hopefully our first stop will be about two hours down the road, at Camping World, where we're hoping to buy more vacuum bags for the central vac in the RV. I know, we lead an exciting life. :)
Ian has been asking almost every day for the last three weeks if we are moving the new house today. I think he started getting stir crazy when we stayed here longer than a week. He was excited to hear that tomorrow we are moving the new house. We are almost through with our time here in Salt Lake City. It's amazing how much we've unpacked since we've been here, especially since we've had a shed outside with our campsite. Yesterday and today we spent quite a bit of time finishing our big reorganization project, doing laundry, and doing all the deep cleaning. We are probably 80% ready to hit the road.
Assuming the kids cooperate with our plans (ha, ha!) we're hoping to head out mid-afternoon tomorrow and drive for a few hours. We're headed to eastern Washington next, spending a week near a friend of mine there to break up the drive to Seattle. It definitely puts the bigger half for this weekend. We've got about 11 hours of driving and we're spreading it over three days, so it shouldn't be terrible. We're hoping to get 2 or 3 hours in tomorrow, then a long day of 5-6 hours on Saturday, then the rest on Sunday.
Between the flaky campground wifi and all the packing up we've been doing, I don't have any more fun pictures to share right now. Maybe tomorrow we'll get some as we hit the road again.
We have no idea where we'll sleep tomorrow (maybe somewhere in Idaho?) and that's such an exciting feeling! I love the freedom that we have being on the road.
Ian took his nap today so we got to take our train ride!
We got off to a bit of a late start. We would have made it, but we got delayed by, of all things, a train. Between starting on a later train, the trains running a bit behind, and a long delay we weren't planning for at the other end it took quite a bit longer than we planned. But that's okay. Everything takes longer than we plan, and Ian really enjoyed the ride. It was his birthday after all.
Waiting for the light rail to take us to the transit center
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| From Ian's Birthday |
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| From Ian's Birthday |
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| From Ian's Birthday |
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| From Ian's Birthday |
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| From Ian's Birthday |
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| From Ian's Birthday |
Today Ian turned 3!!
We asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday. We offered parks, museums, indoor playgrounds-but what he wanted was to ride the trains. We were planning to ride both the light rail and the double-decker commuter train today. But Ian didn't ever take a nap, and Rinnah took only a short one and is grumpy, possibly from teething. Plus it was thunderstorming. So we're rescheduling the birthday train ride and party for tomorrow, assuming the kids take better naps tomorrow.
It was my birthday today too, so I picked having our long-awaited Tony Caputo's for lunch. That's where we tried to go the day the house sold, but they were only open for lunch. We got some very delicious sandwiches there today. And we let Ian have one birthday gift today, a bubble gun. He LOVED it. Worth every penny (somewhere between they paid me and $2 from Rite Aid, depending on how you do the math).
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| From Ian's Birthday |
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| From Ian's Birthday |
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| From Ian's Birthday |
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| From Ian's Birthday |
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| From Ian's Birthday |
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| From Ian's Birthday |
Today we drove out to Park City, which is where they held the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. We took a quick tour through the museum first.
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
Much to Ian's disappointment, we went back to the Children's museum today.
He really wanted to ride the light rail again. I thought he would be happy in the end with going to the museum, but when we got home and Jeremy asked him what he got to do today, all he would talk about was driving by the train and watching the train stop at the station while we sat at a red light. Oh well.
Rinnah had a good time at least. Still playing with the camera and the new speedlight. I signed up for an online photography class today that's supposed to be pretty good. Hopefully I'll start to see a difference in my pictures over the next few months. Here are some shots from today, anyhow.
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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| From Salt Lake City |
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