Thursday, July 24, 2008
Summer Vacation Part II
The North Carolina crew returned to Seattle for a 13 day visit, which concluded two days ago. We had a jolly good time with them, but we are once again upset with them for ever moving from Seattle in the first place. We will undoubtedly get over the anger soon and just focus on the almost two weeks of fun that we had with them. One of the perks of their visit was that we crisscrossed the greater Seattle area accompanying them often on their goal of seeing the city. Sometimes you forget all of the cool things that are around you, wherever you live, and for the past two weeks we took in many of the sights and sounds of Seattle. The highlight was a three day trip to Mt. Rainier that you see below.
Our friend Lee snapped this shot of Carson on the mountain, it's a great one. I told Lee that this will be one that we have around forever and I meant it. It looks like you could just run right up the mountain from here, but we are at about 5,000 feet and Rainier's peak is a bit of 14,000 feet...so not that close.
A perfect family shot, even if we did have to have Blake in it. As you can see, it was a gorgeous day so it was hard to take a bad picture. Unfortunately, our plan of taking a leisurely hike was squashed when we realized that all of the trails around Paradise were still snowed in from the unusually heavy snowfall this past winter and a cooler spring than normal. So we just played in the snow, which was plenty of fun in itself.
No words needed, these little guys loved every minute of hanging out together. Well, there might be a few words needed, Griffin is really squeezing the heck out of the two little ones.
There are more pics in the flickr account, enjoy 'em. Next stop....Spokane!
The North Carolina crew returned to Seattle for a 13 day visit, which concluded two days ago. We had a jolly good time with them, but we are once again upset with them for ever moving from Seattle in the first place. We will undoubtedly get over the anger soon and just focus on the almost two weeks of fun that we had with them. One of the perks of their visit was that we crisscrossed the greater Seattle area accompanying them often on their goal of seeing the city. Sometimes you forget all of the cool things that are around you, wherever you live, and for the past two weeks we took in many of the sights and sounds of Seattle. The highlight was a three day trip to Mt. Rainier that you see below.
Our friend Lee snapped this shot of Carson on the mountain, it's a great one. I told Lee that this will be one that we have around forever and I meant it. It looks like you could just run right up the mountain from here, but we are at about 5,000 feet and Rainier's peak is a bit of 14,000 feet...so not that close.
A perfect family shot, even if we did have to have Blake in it. As you can see, it was a gorgeous day so it was hard to take a bad picture. Unfortunately, our plan of taking a leisurely hike was squashed when we realized that all of the trails around Paradise were still snowed in from the unusually heavy snowfall this past winter and a cooler spring than normal. So we just played in the snow, which was plenty of fun in itself.
No words needed, these little guys loved every minute of hanging out together. Well, there might be a few words needed, Griffin is really squeezing the heck out of the two little ones.There are more pics in the flickr account, enjoy 'em. Next stop....Spokane!
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Summer Vacation Part I
The first part of summer vacation 2008 began with a red-eye flight to the east coast where we had our sites set on an 11 day 6 state tour, not a trip for the weak. I am beginning to see myself as a poor man's version of Chevy Chase's character, Clark Griswald, in National Lampoon's Summer vacation except I didn't share a beer with Carson or meet Christie Brinkley....anyway, here is a snap shot of our trip.
The first five days were spent in Pennsylvania and Delaware visiting with Grandad and Sittie and various friends. We spent a good deal of time in Chris and Danielle's backyard on the hottest day of our stay, somewhere in the mid-nineties with a bunch of humidity. Check out Seattle boy, he looks a little bit overheated.
As Carson gets older it is a pleasure to watch him develop stronger relationships with all of his family. He got to spend a lot of time with Grandad and Sittie during the trip (especially considering the 18 hours in the van). Carson can easily say 'Sittie"', which is Lebanese for grandmom, but he struggles with Grandad because the letter G is so hard. About halfway through the trip, he gave up and just started calling Grandad by his first name, John, after hearing Sittie a few times. In fact, he is now calling me "Cha-Cha" after his cousins repeated calls and also using Trish's name....funny.
We hit the road on July 2nd with Chapel Hill, NC on our mind. You may remember that my sister and family moved away from Seattle last year and back to NC. Well, we finally forgave them and visited their lovely home close to the campus of UNC. They treated us well and took us to a park where I snapped this picture of the crew.
Carson and Calder are becoming the best of friends. There was an intial rivalry between the two, but since we last visited with the NC clan in April, Carson has been super excited about hanging out with Calder. They spent a fun few days together in NC and VA.
After our short stop in NC, we(Grandad, Sittie, and the three of us) caravaned with the NC family northwest to Roanoke, VA where the heart of my mom's family lives. This was Carson's first chance to meet my mom's side of the family and we did it in style at the annual 4th of July gathering on Craig's Creek nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains. My cousin Rob even brought a few of his horses down from Cleveland for the family to enjoy. After a good bit of eating, socializing, and firework viewing we headed back to Mike and Jenny's for the night and headed back to PA the next morning. It was all a fun time and just the beginning of Summer Vacation 2008. If you want to see more pics, look at the July East Coast set in the flickr account.
The first part of summer vacation 2008 began with a red-eye flight to the east coast where we had our sites set on an 11 day 6 state tour, not a trip for the weak. I am beginning to see myself as a poor man's version of Chevy Chase's character, Clark Griswald, in National Lampoon's Summer vacation except I didn't share a beer with Carson or meet Christie Brinkley....anyway, here is a snap shot of our trip.
The first five days were spent in Pennsylvania and Delaware visiting with Grandad and Sittie and various friends. We spent a good deal of time in Chris and Danielle's backyard on the hottest day of our stay, somewhere in the mid-nineties with a bunch of humidity. Check out Seattle boy, he looks a little bit overheated.
As Carson gets older it is a pleasure to watch him develop stronger relationships with all of his family. He got to spend a lot of time with Grandad and Sittie during the trip (especially considering the 18 hours in the van). Carson can easily say 'Sittie"', which is Lebanese for grandmom, but he struggles with Grandad because the letter G is so hard. About halfway through the trip, he gave up and just started calling Grandad by his first name, John, after hearing Sittie a few times. In fact, he is now calling me "Cha-Cha" after his cousins repeated calls and also using Trish's name....funny.
We hit the road on July 2nd with Chapel Hill, NC on our mind. You may remember that my sister and family moved away from Seattle last year and back to NC. Well, we finally forgave them and visited their lovely home close to the campus of UNC. They treated us well and took us to a park where I snapped this picture of the crew.
Carson and Calder are becoming the best of friends. There was an intial rivalry between the two, but since we last visited with the NC clan in April, Carson has been super excited about hanging out with Calder. They spent a fun few days together in NC and VA.
After our short stop in NC, we(Grandad, Sittie, and the three of us) caravaned with the NC family northwest to Roanoke, VA where the heart of my mom's family lives. This was Carson's first chance to meet my mom's side of the family and we did it in style at the annual 4th of July gathering on Craig's Creek nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains. My cousin Rob even brought a few of his horses down from Cleveland for the family to enjoy. After a good bit of eating, socializing, and firework viewing we headed back to Mike and Jenny's for the night and headed back to PA the next morning. It was all a fun time and just the beginning of Summer Vacation 2008. If you want to see more pics, look at the July East Coast set in the flickr account.
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