Seattle weekend

Well, we had a total blast in Seattle (probably because I managed to suppress most of my worrying about my boss and about the magazine). Some highlights:

--We got up there in time to meet Amanda, Jenn and their friend Bill for a nice dinner before they went to the hockey game and Drew and I saw "Les Miserables." We wanted to see "Lincoln" but we just couldn't make the times work. Anyway, I had two drinks at dinner and, man, that was enough to get a nice buzz on -- nice enough to make it through the histrionic "Les Mis," which actually wasn't a terrible film, it just didn't translate that well from stage to screen. Rachel was very well-behaved at the hockey game; she managed to acquire a miniature stuffed version of "CoolBird," the mascot of the T-birds (the hockey team) and she even got her picture taken with the real mascot!

--On Sunday morning, by some miracle, we all got up, showered, dressed and left in time to meet Anne, David and Grandma Jean at Maltby Cafe, a famous breakfast place we try to visit whenever we're up there -- their cinnamon buns are great and although it's very crowded, it's worth the wait. What was nice about this visit was Rachel spent a lot of time with Auntie Anne, crawling into her lap and just hanging out with the women in the family (I had begun getting worried that Anne and Jean would be offended that Rachel was so tied up with Uncle David). I spent a lot of time doing fairy stickers with Rachel in a fairy sticker book I bought her a while ago. There's something very soothing about picking out outfits for various fairies to wear. You should try it sometime, even if you don't have a little girl in your house.

--Then we drove to Seattle Community College to see "Bye Bye Birdie" -- an all-kids version of the play by the Broadway Bound kids theater company for whom Jenn does the books. She was able to score us free tickets -- thanks, Jenn! -- so we couldn't say no, and Rachel seemed to enjoy the production (although I ended up needing to explain a lot). We promised we'd bring her back for "Shrek: The Musical," and "Aladdin," two productions they're doing in the next couple of months. The kids' acting skills were quite impressive!

We got back quite late, so we went to a kid-friendly brewpub and had a light dinner before unpacking and settling in to bed. All in all, a fabulous weekend! We are so lucky to have family in the awesome city of Seattle! I can't wait until Rachel is old enough for an all-girls weekend up there with Mommy....

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Right before we left for Seattle, Rachel said this unexpectedly at breakfast:

"I wish you could only be an astronaut at 4 1/2 and up!"
"Why?" I asked.
"I just want to be a astronaut to go up in space and see Venus," she replied.