Best Friends, Cool Fish and No Such Thing As "Fun For the Whole Family"

How much fun can one pack into three days? Let me show you. My dear friend, Melissa, who I have known since 5th grade, was visiting this past week from Missouri. She and I had made plans months ago to go into Seattle to the Aquarium and maybe to Pike Place Market on Monday, March 17th. Meanwhile, Todd and I had been trying to fit in a trip to Whistler/Blackcomb for some skiing and of all weeks, this last one was the only one that worked out.

So, Monday morning we met Melissa and went into Seattle for some sight seeing at the Aquarium and the waterfront area. I hadn't been to the Seattle Aquarium in years and they have just completed a wonderful new renovation and added new exhibits. Amazing! Finley loved it. We were all on sensory overload I think. What great exhibits! When you walk into the lobby there is a "ginormous" fish tank taking up the entire wall, probably 30 feet high and even wider. We were there in time to see the diver go in to feed the fish. Really neat. Finley's favorite part was the jelly fish exhibit or the "Jelly Donut" as Todd calls it. A giant glass tank in the shape of yes, a donut, that you can walk through and watch the jelly fish float over, around and underneath you and back up. There were cool red lights on one side that highlighted the otherworldliness of these creatures. There were some wonderful tanks of colorful coral and tropical fish, all sorts of sea horses, a tidal pool with star fish and sea anemones, sea squirts, mussels and sea cucumbers. I would love to go back to take more of it in. A four year old's attention span is of course, about 4 minutes, so many of these spectacular fish and exhibits will have to be viewed another time. If he had had his way, we would still be sitting under the jelly fish.

Melissa as a giant jelly!

We had fun watching the sea otters frolicking and wrestling underwater. The harbor and northern fur seals were very canine in appearance. I kept wanting to throw a tennis ball for them and fully expected them to bring it back! After the aquarium we had the requisite lunch at Ivar's Fish and Chips in their little enclosed lunch area. Great fun watching the hungry and aggressive gulls oogling over all the french fries and shrimp. We also took Finley and Evelyn for their first visit to Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe on the waterfront. We had fun looking at all the old mummified creatures and gimmicky knick knacks. I told Finley he could pick out two things. What did he choose? A small bag of pretty semi-precious stones that he "mined" from a bin, and I am embarrassed to say, a pile of fake dog poo. Well! What else do you buy at the Olde Curiosity Shoppe????






Evelyn did really well in our new Ergo baby carrier, enjoying watching all the kids at the museum and falling asleep on the way back. It was too short a time with Melissa, but was nice to at least catch up a bit and get to spend some time in person.

We dropped her off and went home to finish packing to the theme song of the William Tell Overture. We jumped back in the car and went to pick up Todd's sister, Erica, in Issaquah, got gas and hotdogs at the Costco in Issaquah and hit the highway for our trip to B.C.

Finley and Erica at the famous Smokey Point rest stop on our way up to B.C. How many times have I stopped here with family, bus loads of friends on the way to Samish Island or trips to see friends in Vancouver?



Ahhh. The wonderful world of cable television with 24 hour children's programming. We vegged out on Tuesday morning. The ride up to Whistler was one of the worst I've ever experienced. I know, I know. The road used to be really bad and narrow. Well, it's back to being really bad and narrow with all the improvements being made in preparation for the 2010 Olympics. In the dark, with huge road construction equipment, earth movers and excavators just a few feet from the road with glaring spot lights and who-knows-what holding up the retaining walls above sheer cliffs it was a nail biter for most of the way up to Squamish. We didn't get to Whistler until after 11:00 p.m. We had to call security to let us in to our condo since the Whiski Jack office had closed at 9:00 p.m. The poor kids were so tired of being in their carseats. Mercifully, they both slept most of the way, but the last 20 minutes they were both awake and crying intermittently. I have to admit I had Evelyn out of her carseat for some of that time trying to console her. Suffice it to say, it wasn't the most pleasant ride. Poor Erica! It may be the last time she wants to carpool with us to Whistler!



Evelyn checks out the condo at the Snowbird. Our standard accommodations. They had done some remodeling with new paint, new tile in the kitchen and new furniture. Very nice!



When do I get the other ski, Mom?

While Erica and Todd went skiing on Tuesday, Evelyn, Finley and I lounged around, watched too much television and did manage to get outside and enjoy some snow and sunshine for a little while. Finley is getting better on his skis, learning to turn them and make a "pizza" to stop himself.






MMMMMmmm. Breakfast on Wednesday morning at the crepe place. The name escapes me now. Going out to eat with children is an exercise in frantic improvisation as one tries to feed them, eat ones own food and remember to pick up all the toys dropped on the floor under the table. Thank goodness we had Erica along since it seems that with all the stuff we carried around and maneuvering to keep little ones happy you need at least one more adult than the number of children... We also went out on Tuesday night. Crazy making. Poor Finley fell asleep with his head on the table before his food even got there and we took turns walking with Evelyn to keep her happy. I made lots of notes for what NOT to do next trip up there and what TO DO as well. As in, make sure everyone gets out and gets lots of exercise instead of watching TV all morning, get a nap early in the afternoon if we are going out to eat and have dinner in if we didn't get naps. Oh well. I have a whole new appreciation for my mom and Todd and Erica's mom, getting ready for family vacations and trying to keep everyone happy and fed and well rested. I now understand that mothers don't really get vacation for a long, long, long time....


One of the nicest things that happened on the trip was stopping on the way back down at Samish to have dinner with Grandpa and Grandma Sargeant. Grandma Cleo made a great home cooked meal (with help from Costco:)) that tasted so good. It was really pleasant to eat in a home and not have to worry about what the little people were going to eat or say or do. Finley gobbled it up and Evelyn enjoyed the calm and serene setting without too many distractions while she ate. Or was it that I enjoyed the calm and serene setting without too many distractions? In any case, that was a wonderful way to break up the car ride and end what had not been such a successful trip for me and the kids. Todd took some pictures of the new cabins at the campgrounds, too.





Perhaps it was a fitting experience for the end of the Lenten season. A time for reflection and abstinence from pleasurable things... Hahahaha. Thank goodness for the resilience of my sweet babies and their forgiveness made manifest in a new day, all ills forgotten in the excitement of another fresh, unspoiled morning. Maybe that's my Easter lesson. Muddling through, forgiving myself for putting my children through unpleasantness and tiring them out needlessly for what we adults call "vacation". Realizing that some of what I claim is too hard on them, is in reality, too hard on me. The effort just doesn't seem worth it at times, but I learn too late.

One of my favorite quotes to end this folly of a week, Holy Week, with all of its religious symbolism and meaning, is from St. Catherine of Siena, 14th century Christian mystic. Here's my rallying cry:


Get up!
Get up out of darkness!
Rouse yourself;
open the eye of your understanding
and look into the depth
with the deep well of divine
charity.

For unless you see,
you cannot love.
The more you see,
the more you will love. Once you
love
you will follow,
and you will clothe yourself in God's will.

My Mother Told Me There'd Be Days Like This...

Oh Lord, the past few days have been hard. I feel as though I am in a motherhood funk; loving my children so much but just not in synch with them. Everything seems more like a chore than a privilege. Finley is fighting off the last of a cough and fever, Evelyn is teething and going through acute separation anxiety. Bless their little hearts. They need their mother to be on top of her game right now so I do my best.

To make things even more pleasant we are off to a bad start with our neighbors who just built a lovely home next to the vacant end of our property that we plan to sell to my parents. They brought in a backhoe to create a planting bed for planting a hedge and without asking, used our property as the staging area. We had a nice pull -in area off the road up there that made a place to park on that side of the property and was also the access to the road up on that side of the property when we go for walks. The neighbor kids also ride their bikes through our property as a shortcut, with our permission. I was going for a walk with Evelyn and Finley on Friday and after having to plow my way through the dug up ground with the stroller, which by the way, usually handles anything off road with aplumb, I was irritated enough to go knock on the neighbor's door. They had also knocked down a dead fir tree that was on the property line and just left it on our property where it lay across the main path through the lot. I tried to be nice and give him the benefit of the doubt but he seemed irritated that I was asking him to move the tree since it was blocking our easy access to our yard. A reasonable request in my estimation, especially when he had not asked permission to tear up 50 square feet of our property. ARGGHHH. I hate confrontation but I abhor a breach in principal even more!


That little interaction with the neighbor didn't help my mood as we went on our walk. We were testing out a new route through the back of our neighborhood that was recently linked up with a new little shopping area and convenience store. The developer put sidewalks in all the way up to the strip mall so it was potentially a great little stroll to run an errand without having to get in a car. What we didn't count on was the huge mud puddles on our back roads and Finley slipping and falling in the mud on the way home, and then having his boot sucked off his foot when he tried to step out of the mud so then he had a wet and muddy stocking too. Poor little fellow. Evelyn decided at that moment that she had been in the stroller long enough and began crying and it began to rain on us again. After trying various versions of a piggyback ride with Finley and Evelyn still screaming in the stroller, Finley got in the stroller instead, and I held Evelyn all the back to the house. I was exhausted and still in a foul mood. The neighbor had actually moved the tree off our path way by the time we returned from our walk.

Walks usually put everything right with the world but not this time. I think my late nights have caught up with me. So what am I doing up right now???? We are getting ready to leave for Whistler tomorrow and my friend is coming in from out of town to visit so it will be a busy day with a lot of time spent in a car. I hope it doesn't do us all in!

On a brighter note, we had a blast on Saturday night, March 15, doing a Sound of Music Sing Along at the church. We had a good crowd and lots of kids. We brought Finley's sleeping bag and a bunch of big floor pillows and the kids sprawled out up front and we enjoyed the big screen experience made possible by our new screen, digital projector and video license. How fun! I forgot how long that movie is, however, and we didn't get home until almost 11:30 p.m. We actually made it to church the next morning which seemed a small miracle in itself, since we woke up late and we still got both kids bathed (and we even got showers!) and out the door in less than an hour and 15 minutes. Phhewww!