Mini Vacation

We took a little mini vacation to Seattle this past weekend, 3 days and 2 nights. What was supposed to be a 3 hour drive turned into a 4 hour plus drive. Driving with a 15 month old is interesting. Ava hates driving in the car for more than 5 minutes, so I knew this drive would be rough. We moved her to a forward facing seat and thought this would making driving a little easier. She did love it, but was still loud and fussy and only slept for 30 minutes! We ended up stopping at Walmart in Chehalis to get the kids some toys for the car, stretch our legs and have some lunch. When we finally got to the hotel the boys went swimming while I tried to get Ava to nap. That didn't last long, so we decided to walk around downtown before meeting Nate's college room mate. We had dinner with Nate's buddy Mike and his family. They have 2 girls around the age of our kids. Ava thoroughly enjoyed watching Hadley at dinner. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of the 2 families.

Ava LOVING her new carseat (Andrew's old carseat) and finally falling asleep!

We had these huge windows that overlooked the freeway and the water and Ava loved them. She would stand on the little ledge and be very entertained.

The next day we went up to Queen Anne for coffee at Starbucks and pictures at Kerry Park before back to the hotel. Nate and Andrew left for the Mariner game and I put Ava down for a nap before heading off to one of my college friend's house. Ava and I had a great time at Andrea's house. It was so nice to catch up and Ava really enjoyed exploring their house....she was a busy girl! Unfortunately her baby Molly was sleeping, but I got to hang out with her other daughters who are just adorable! We didn't get any pics of the girls together, but Andrea took a few adorable ones of Ava....she's really good at photography and taught me a few things while I was there. (thanks AZ!)

Pictures taken by Andrea, isn't she so talented?!

Nathan didn't take very many pictures of the game, but I was told they had a great time. Andrew asked a lot of questions, ate lots of food including some cotton candy that he didn't really like, played with his cars, watched a show or too on the iPhone, played at the playground, and of course watched some of the game. Nate really enjoyed his time with Andrew.

That night we went to Maggie's Bluff, a favorite of ours from college. We sat outside, had a great dinner, and took some fun pictures by the boats. After dinner we enjoyed some frozen yogurt on Queen Anne before heading back to the hotel to try and get some sleep. It's a little rough having all 4 of us in one room, especially with a baby, but the kids did pretty good.

The next day we wanted to take the kids to the aquarium but Andrew was pretty grouchy from the lack of sleep and said he didn't want to go. So we decided to just walk around Pike Street Market. We ate tons of food and got some fun pictures before heading back home. The ride home went smoother than the ride there. Ava took an hour nap which helped. All in all it was a great trip just the 4 of us. I LOVE my little family!

8.20-22.11

A funny little side story: Nate pointed out the Space Needle to Andrew. He asked Nate why it was called the space needle and if it went to space. Nate told him that it used to go to space, but now it's broken. Every time he saw it while we were driving around town, he'd say, "look, the space alien!" It was just so funny!