Day 5

The next morning, our friends recommended a hike and a drive. By day's end, Jeff and I both agreed that we had just experienced the most visually beautiful day of our entire lives. The pictures don't do the places justice, but believe me, I was walking around with my mouth hanging open.

The hike was a nature walk along a river through the most lush terrain I've ever trod upon.



Huckleberries, anyone?


When we'd had our fill of that kind of beauty, we moved on to beauty of a different sort. We drove on a mountainous road for about an hour when it suddenly opened up to this:


At the very end of the road is a big parking lot with the best vistas ever:


The following pics are not photo-shopped. We really did go sledding in August. :)


That night, we went to one of the nearby lakes.




Jeff and Tobias played Chicken on the paddle board.

Day 6

You'll notice there are four little booklets in the above picture. Yes, Delaney's passport finally arrived TWO DAYS before we left.

You may be wondering, "Aimee, why would you spend so much money to get your kids passports if you were just going to the state of Washington?"

Well, geography students, if you examine your U.S. map closely, you'll see that just north of Washington is a place called Canada.



We took a day trip up into the city of Vancouver and went to the...


...where they had multiple species of Jeff's favorite animal...the jellyfish:


Next we went to Granville Island and ate pierogies which I've decided are the perfect comfort food. Yes, I could grow quite fat on those tender little dumplings.

We went to a rock store where I purchased this prehnite pendant.


The lady I bought it from looked very unusual and when she opened her mouth, things only got weirder.

Her: "This is a very important crystal. It's wonderful when people are attracted to it. It will really help strengthen your shakra and when you put it on you'll see that it will begin to glow."

Me: "Ummm...it's really...pretty."

Whatever...

Then we went for a walk in a park.

Is it just me or does it look like this guy is behind his dog with a frying pan and spatula, ready to cook up anything the canine drops?


Ewwww...

Then it was back to the U.S. of A. for some sailing on a catamaran.




Our Washingtonian friends:

Day 7

This was kind of a sad day (for spoiled babies such as ourselves) because we all knew it was the last real day of vacation.

We drove to Seattle and met up with my cousin, Devon, at the Washington Park Arboretum.

Here she is with her cute little kidlets:


The arboretum was fantastic! I'd love to spend hours there walking all the different woodsy trails. As it was, the one trail we did take went past a lovely pond, full of lily pads.


Soon it was lunch time and we drove to Lucy's house. She's an old friend who served as our tour guide for the day. Here she is with the Blue Angels flying in the background:


The first place she navigated us to was Paseo, a Cuban sandwich shop in the Fremont area. It doesn't look like much, practically just a corrugated steel shack, but we soon found out why there was a huge line of people queuing up out front.


We told Lucy we'd buy her meal, so imagine our horror when we finally got to the front of the massive line and discovered that it is a cash-only eatery. There are few things more embarrassing than offering to buy someone lunch and then having to borrow money from them to pay for it. However, we soon found an ATM and made things right.

Jeff got the Midnight Cuban Press sandwich. After a couple of bites, he declared it the best sandwich he'd ever eaten. My Cuban Roast was amazing as well, but I must warn you, these are five-napkin-sandwiches. In fact, I couldn't take any photos of them while eating for fear of ruining my camera with the marinated gloriousness that was dripping off my hands.

After the mop up, we took a stroll down Troll Ave.


It's under the Aurora Bridge and if you walk its length to the north end, you'll meet this guy:


Tobias risks life and limb to investigate:

(See the car he's gripping in his left hand? It's a real VW Bug.)

Delaney shares a secret with her new friend:


Our family doesn't like to visit any major metropolitan area without sniffing out the local chocolatier, so Lucy directed us here:


Wow...this place is amazing! Unfortunately, all the tours for the day were full (I would have LOVED to watch one of my favorite substances go through its formation process, although I may have fallen into the chocolate river and gotten sucked up some pipe like Augustus Gloop), however, the show room made up for any disappointment. It was dazzling.

Little tables with HUGE PILES OF SAMPLES of every flavor were scattered around the room.

Imagine me circling this thing like a shark...


...and then going in for the kill...

...over and over again.

Yes, I must confess that I had more than one sample of many of these delectables, but we did buy a bag full of the goods before we left and, believe me, each bar cost more than a Hershey bar.

The Chai Tea was my favorite.

Next we went down to the Seattle Center to stare up at the Space Needle.


It costs about $17 per person to ride the elevator up to the top, so we forewent that pleasure, consoling ourselves with the fact that we had a bag o' chocolate.

It was getting late and we needed to get to Portland for the night, so we said goodbye to Lucy and hopped on the freeway. Look at the beauty that surrounds one even on a Washingtonian freeway:


The creepiest part of our entire trip was when we saw this guy:

He kept staring and staring at us. (Click on the photo to enlarge it for the fully unnerving effect.)

It was so freaky, my heart was racing until Tobias declared, "It's a mask!"

I breathed a sigh of relief and began to giggle as I grabbed my camera. By the way, his hat says, "I heart Bingo." :) What a delightfully entertaining weirdo.

I won't bother to detail Day 8 since it just involved us awakening at 4:00 AM to catch our plane home and that's about it.

All in all, this was my all-time favorite vacation. The beauty was nearly overwhelming and the time with all of our friends was fabulous.

So when I got home and again saw our shower that has needed to be replaced for two years (Jeff is seen here doing some of the demolition work)...


...I had to concede that I'm glad we spent the money we had on the trip instead of fixing the shower. Our kids will only be with us to make beautiful memories for a few more years and we do have another shower so it's not like we're all stinking in the meantime.

*Sigh*

I heart Washington.

Donuts. Grrrr....

I think donuts are evil.

Kind of.

Okay, I realize how ridiculously dramatic that reads. It's not that I abhor donuts themselves.

After all, who can't appreciate an old fashioned buttermilk with its slightly tangy softness or the delicate, moist hollows of a french cruller?

I can. Oh yes, I can.

*drip, drip*

It's just that I detest what donuts represent.

My beloved yet very anal husband can not think of donuts as anything other than a breakfast food. (If he has something a certain way in his mind, good luck getting him to think otherwise. This is a guy who can only eat mac and cheese with a spoon if it's served in a bowl, but if it's on a plate, he requires a fork. No, really.) So, it's not possible for us to go to a donut shop after 11:30 am.

That's where my problem with donuts really is.

I mean if you start your day with 15 grams of fat and 22 grams of sugar (we're talking apple fritter here) then what on earth are you going to end your day with? A tub of Crisco and a bottle of Karo syrup?

On the rare occasions that I have started my day with a donut, I felt like I was somehow giving up on my entire day, like I should have just stayed in my pjs (or dressed in sweats at the very most) and watched TV all day, occasionally yelling at my kids, "Shut up, I can't hear Jerry!"

However...

...I promise not to give you the evil eye if I ever see you toting a big pink box early in the morning.

...and please don't cram the rest of your maple bar down your throat at my unexpected approach.

...and please don't mention this post if you ever see me with a few rainbow sprinkles clinging to my lower lip.



Okay?

Okay.

Multiple Choice

Of what is this a picture?





A. A man sitting by a wall

B. A man wearing a large hat

C. A man scraping away old paint

D. A major aphrodisiac for the woman who is co-owner of the house which is about to be painted









The correct answer is:

E. All of the above

:)

The Big Reveal?

I know some of you are dying to hear all about where the surprise vacation took us this year, so...

*dramatic clearing of the throat*

...we flew to Moscow on the 14th and ate black bread and borscht with Anastasia, the disputed daughter of the former Czar. This was after the KGB tried to recruit our entire family to work for them since we're all fluent in Russian (and who would suspect cute little Delaney of espionage?) but unfortunately I dropped my camera into the Black Sea during the cruise portion of the trip so you'll all just have to believe me that it was the best vacation ever!

*Ahem*

Okay, the truth is...

...we haven't gone yet. (Thus the question mark in this post's title.)

Another truth is that Delaney's passport has not arrived yet. Rong Aid really screwed things up by supplying us with crummy photos for our expensive and highly official documents. That drug store bungle pushed us back a couple of weeks or more, thus we wait. However, Jeff will vouch for me that I'm surprisingly calm about our youngest's lack of a passport even as our day of departure edges ever closer.

What means this inexplicable sense of serenity and quiescence in a woman who frets over lost 45 cent coupons?

Well, it could mean that our passport-applying-trip to the PO was simply an elaborate hoax that I cooked up with a very cooperative gal who works there.

Or it could mean something else.

In the meantime, I'm loving this opportunity to mess with Jeff's head. He doesn't know which way is up, poor-soon-to-be-vacationing-schmuck. (Yes, he was familiar with my sadistic side prior to proposing that we spend the rest of our lives together. He's okay with it, really.)

In other news:
The kids both have great roles in another theatrical production. :) It's a simplified version of Alice in Wonderland and all the players are 18 or younger.

Tobias will be playing the Mad Hatter...

...and Delaney is preparing for the part of Tweedle-Dee.


I can hardly wait to see their costumes. :)

Both kids have several lines and some solo parts in a couple of songs, so it's all quite fun. They're both enjoying themselves considerably except for that Tobias fears some of the choreography brings his orientation into question.

I told him, "Hey, at least you're not pirouetting while donning leggings like you did in Camelot." (Small comfort for a 15 year old boy, I'm afraid.)

The whole production is shaping up quite nicely. Some of the shows they've been in, I've been able to highly recommend and others I've realistically regarded as enjoyable because my babies are in it and for little else. This one looks like it will be in the former category, so if any of you who have kids want info then please contact me privately. (I don't like to publish specifics like city names or even our last name in such a public forum.)

Speaking of anonymous cities:
A few days ago we drove to a restaurant to sample their pizza. We had heard it touted as the best ever and that got Jeff salivating, so we all hopped into the car. Our drive took us to a scary looking dive in the ghetto.

But not just any ghetto, Friends.

This ghetto was the one and only ghetto in which my beloved husband grew up!

The kids and I were treated to a personal tour as we cruised the streets.

"That's the alley where I got hit by a car."

"That's where I got punched in the throat."

"That's the corner where I got offered drugs for the first time."

"That's the park where some guy chased me 'cause he wanted to steal my bike."

"That's the hill I stood on and B.A.ed all the cars on the freeway."

"Right in front of that church is where some guy punched me and ran off with my skateboard."

I didn't know whether to cry or laugh, but Jeff was relaying all the information in a rather cheerful manner, so I opted for laughter. I'm just so thankful he survived his childhood in the 'hood. It sounds like it was rather touch and go for a while there.

Back to the topic that seems to be constantly niggling some of you poor souls:
Keep checking back because it won't be too long before the genuine big reveal occurs. I'm actually a bit worried that all this build up will result in a bit of a flop in everyone's minds. The real vacation might seem a bit anti-climactic, so I apologize profusely in advance. For those of you who want to be surprised, leave this site now. For those of you who just can't take it anymore, scroll down to be put out of your misery...
































Did you really fall for that?

*Abundant scoffs and tsks*

The Horrific, Yet Minty Fresh, Phantasm

Okay, so last night I dreamt that we signed up for this service where someone would come into your room each night as you slept and leave a piece of candy or a quarter under your pillow so that when you awoke in the morning you'd have a little treat waiting for you. It was like the tooth fairy, but every night and no tooth required, just a credit card number. (Like I'd ever opt for such a thing.)

We were warned not to be startled if we ever woke up when the goody deliverer was in our room because, after all, it's just the "treat guy".

Well, in my dream, I awoke in the middle of the night to see this man (wearing a tie, no-less), bending over me, trying to stuff a mint under my pillow.

I screamed so loudly and shrilly that I woke myself up. (You know, to real reality). It wasn't a 'Hey, knock it off' kind of a scream. Jeff later described it as sounding as if I'd just found a dead child. :(

Poor Jeff was tripping out. "What's going on? Wake up! Are you okay?"

I mumbled something about a guy with a mint as all the dogs in the neighborhood barked frenetically outside our open window.

My first clear thought was, "Delaney probably thinks I'm being murdered!" so I jumped into my robe and ran down the hallway, calling, "Everything's okay, Honey!" I threw open her door and the hall's light fell across her face, revealing shuttered eyes and a lax mouth. Yeah, she was sawing some serious logs.

(Tobias is at camp this week, so I wasn't concerned about him.)

I went back to bed and laid there with my heart racing for about five minutes as I listened for the sirens of approaching cop cars. What would I say if questioned?

"No, Officer, there was no home invasion, I was just scared of the business-man-tooth-fairy-guy."

I never did find the mint...