Miles and Miles

The old homestead

HAPPY TRAVELERS: We spent a fair amount of the last three days driving. On Saturday, we drove down to Vancouver, visited G&G for about an hour and then drove to Portland. There, the kids got to hang out with their cousins Maggie and Ben and their parents, while we old folks went to a murder mystery dinner at a friend's house. The dinner was lots of fun, and neither Christian or I was the killer, in case you were wondering. But Christian did guess who the killer was, so we won the Best Star Trek Pumpkin ever, which my friend Holly hand painted.

After the party, we picked the kids up and headed back to The 'Couve for the night. They had fun with their cousins, playing games and watching Toy Story.

Sunday morning, after a lovely breakfast, we went to the kids' old stomping grounds and our former backyard, Felida Park. Here's a view from the roof of our old house. The shrubs we planted about 5 years ago are quadruple their size now - they look great!

The place was slamming busy due to a couple of soccer games. We got the last spot in the parking lot. Our first stop at the park was the spot that has the engraved bricks. After a couple of minutes of searching, we found the kids' bricks. Annabelle's was in need of some TLC, so Christian spent a couple of minutes rooting the moss out of her letters with the tip of his Leatherman's knife.

The kids played on the playground for a few minutes and then we walked around the paved path and nearby our old place, checking out what has changed and what hasn't. Then it was into the car for the 3-hour ride home.

VIADOOM: Upon our arrival back in Seattle, we did not take the Viaduct home, per usual. We couldn't because they're tearing it down. Its closure/demolition will mean about 90,000 cars will have to find alternative routes on already awful-and-clogged Seattle streets. Good times.

That said, it was kinda cool seeing the heavy equipment eating through the concrete and rebar. The section where this piece of heavy equipment was in the photo yesterday is GONZO today. Here's another photo I took yesterday ...

And now check this demo video out!

CAR WORK: Monday was out of the ordinary not in the cool, "extraordinary!" way, but in the way that we had to buy, pick up and install a new washer and dryer and of course the whole process was tortuously slow and mostly infuriating. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say that my Severe Unhappiness at the Complete Incompetence of the 'customer service' folks at the Bellevue, WA, Lowe's store resulted in us getting four-year service contracts for free on our new high efficiency washer and dryer - from the Renton, WA, store. That, and we got $160 off the washer and $250 or so off the dryer price, so in the end, I will swap happiness for cash, yes I will.

While killing time at Lowe's, we got to check out their super extensive display of Christmas decorations. Have I mentioned it's not even Halloween yet?

What with all of our running around, the kids did math and language arts in the back of a Toyota extend  cab today.

Which is better than not doing math or reading at all.