Gurgle Gurgle

What's up with this rain? I'm not ready for summer to be over. It's been a busy one with vacations and activities. I feel like we've taken advantage of the time together and the nice weather more than we usually do. On the other hand, in summers past I've had my kids doing some kind of academia every weekday. That lasted about 2 weeks this summer then things got busy. So I guess Miles and Emily won't jump back into school as well as they could have but we have a lot of memories that I wouldn't trade.

Last week Matt had to be in Seattle for work. Have you seen that episode of News Radio when Beth is jumping up and down on a bed yelling, "Free hotel room! Free hotel room!"? That's what I was thinking. So we joined him. The weather was perfect. Unfortunately Matt didn't have a lot of free time but we had fun doing things not normally available to us.

There is this fountain in the middle of the shopping district that has a tunnel going through it. The kids loved it and consequently spent the next 30 minutes wet. This place is right by a See's Candy hence the sticks in their mouths.

This is one of hundreds of frightened pigeons blessed by my daughters' presence.

Miles took the gentle approach.

After the pigeons became virtually extinct we took a stroll to the public library. I love that place! My kids spent two hours entertaining themselves in the children's section. And no, I didn't stage this picture. Okay, I suggested they sit there because it would be cool but they were that in to their books.

Lucy entertained us with a puppet show. Next she insisted I perform one so I put down my biography of Molly Brown and entertained myself with my own puppet show. (I also eat Trix cereal on occasion).

I'll let you figure this one out.

You should have seen Miles and Emily trying to hail a taxi when it was time to leave. There were about two cars on the whole street and they were jumping up and down yelling like our house was on fire. I'm surprised any taxi driver thought, "Hey, those kids are good for a fare".

Now what better timing could we have had than to stay in a hotel with plasma screens during the Olympics? That beats our 27 inch screen with rabbit ears. The kids were fascinated and loved cheering on our country's atletes. I think I had just as hard of a time as they did turning it off so we could go to bed. And what hotel stay with children is complete without at least three hours of swimming? I decided swimming at a hotel in the middle of the day is best. You get the whole place to yourself.

The next day we walked down to the aquarium followed by the public market. I had to get some raspberries and peaches...and corn, nectarines, and pluots...and flowers and donuts. Okay so I got a little carried away. How can you not?

I came home from this dream to a clean house (thanks to an unbelieveable amount of help from Miles the day we left) thinking about how much I love my family and how many wonderful opportunities are available to us. Life is good.