Sean and Mom's visit

We were lucky enough to have a visit from my mom and brother Sean. While they were here we did a few touristy things. Neither of them had visited Snoqualmie Falls, so we headed up there one evening.

Sarah and Megan my little beauties.

We tried to take a quick family photo, but Thomas didn't want to be in on it. Here's a funny series of the event: "Come on Thomas...we want to take a picture."

"Fine. But I won't look up."

"Ok. I will look up, and I will lift my shirt up so you can see my great abs."

This was the only photo with his face in it. It really made me laugh when I downloaded all the photos and saw what transpired.

Sean, Thomas and Mike - "Boy Power"

I slowly walked to the lower view point, pregnancy slows me down a lot, and was rewarded with an even better view with a rainbow.

At one point I couldn't find Mike and the kids and was rewarded with a perfect photo opp. They were waiting for me all posed on this giant rock. Kids just love big rocks they can climb on.

One afternoon while the girls were in school, Sean and I took Thomas to Lake Wilderness Park to feed the ducks and geese.

Thomas always wants to eat some of the bread so I have to be carefull to not bring too old of bread.

I love Sean's smile.

I liked this shot with the beautiful lake and trees in the background and Thomas' bright hair shining in the sunshine.


Uncle Sean was very good at pushing Thomas on the swings. I'm too tired for that these days, so we were lucky to have Sean around to come at Thomas' every beck and call.

On the last night Sean was here, my mom decided to stay home and rest, we decided to really pack in the fun. I had never been to see the Ballard Locks and neither had my kids, so we went to check it out even though the big salmon weren't going upriver right now.
Here we are in front of the locks that the boats travel through.

In this shot you can see the locks the fish swim through.Here are the locks down below. We were able to see some of the baby Steelhead Salmon traveling from Lake Washington back to the Puget Sound.

I thought these "waves" needed to be photographed.

After we left the locks we headed over to Seattle to go to the Mariners/Giants baseball game. My kids have never been to a game and were pretty excited. At least they were when we finally got off the freeway and found parking. It took us 30 minutes to travel about a mile, and another 45 minutes of driving around looking for non-existent parking. We finally found a garage that wasn't full and cost less than most of the lots we had driven by 25 times. Needless to say, we missed the first 3 1/2 innings. Probably not a bad thing considering the game went 12 innings and I had to leave early with the kids during the 8th.

A quick family shot before we headed home.

At the game enjoying some "baseball" food. Hotdogs, peanuts, popcorn and cotton candy. Thomas only had cotton candy on his mind. He had to be really patient while we got the "dinner" food done first. Boy was he happy when his dad finally went to get the cotton candy.

The girls were a little hyped up on cotton candy. Megan went from really rowdy and bouncing off the "walls" to crying because she was tired. Fits her personality quite well. Sarah was fine and didn't complain. Thomas actually started to tell me that he was ready to go home and go to bed. This coming from a boy that never wants to take a nap and never admits when he is tired at bedtime. "Never admit defeat!" I was able to hold him off for 1 1/2 innings. And then we were out of there. 10:00 pm is officially too late for them. The big boys didn't get home until close to midnight and I know my kids were besides themselves with exhaustion and tears when their heads finally hit their pillows at 10:45 pm. Fortunately they just remember the fun the next day.

I was so glad to get a chance to visit with both my mom and little brother. I don't get to see them as often as I would like, since I haven't been able to travel for most of this pregnancy. We had a great time relaxing and hanging out with a few activities thrown in. Mostly I just enjoyed chatting with them in the evenings after the kids went to bed.

Fun! Fun! Fun! Miss them already. :(