Seattle in October

And then suddenly I was flying to Seattle!  

I guess I should explain: we hit a weird issue with this whole "Bentley stays with my sister in Seattle" when most of my family decided to go to Hawaii!  Great plan for them, but Bentley couldn't take that much time off from his new job and I didn't want him stuck all by himself for a week.  Natalie was still in town, but she lives too far away for him to be able to stay with her and still go to work.  We thought about asking if he could stay with someone in the ward, but that made him (understandably) uncomfortable.  So finally we decided I would just go and stay with him!

So I was off!  As the plane took off, we flew right over Albemarle High School, so that was cool:

Craig's old school!  See the "A" in the field?

Everything went pretty smoothly.  My long flight from Chicago to Seattle was pretty uncomfortable-- middle seat, I couldn't get my headphones to connect to the TVs, and for reasons I don't understand, my backpack couldn't fit under the seat in front of me.  AND, I later learned that United charged me for my carry-on suitcase, which still infuriates me.  But I got there on time (maybe even a few minutes early) and Natalie was there to pick me up, which was lovely.

Looking over my seatmate's shoulder, I could glimpse this gorgeous sunset with those mountains dotting the horizon.  I finally asked her to snap a picture for me, it was so lovely!

We hung out a bit that evening but I was pretty exhausted.  And then I woke up at four in the morning, because it turns out that three hour time difference is rough.

I rode along with Natalie to drop Caleb off at seminary just to have more time with her.  Then we grabbed Bentley and picked Caleb back up, and the four of us headed to the temple to do baptisms!

The back of the Seattle temple is surprisingly impressive!

And I learned that this is one of only four temples where the Angel Moroni is holding the gold plates!  So that's cool!  I never appreciated that before!

We got lunch at Cafe Rio and then stopped by the cemetery where both Janine and Patrick Rex are buried and shed a few tears while we visited them.  It was my first time ever going and I was so glad to finally make it there.  It was also the ONLY time I saw Mt. Rainier that whole trip, so it was nice to say Hi when the mountain was out!  (I didn't take any pictures because I never know how to pose in a cemetery.  I live in fear of recreating that one meme...)

Caleb had to get to orchestra, so we returned home to retrieve his violin and I got my stuff packed back up again so Bentley and I could head to Bainbridge!  We were staying at Tracy's house, but we made a detour to my parents' house so I could steal my mom's new car.  It was really weird going to their house when they weren't there-- they had to tell me beforehand how to get in!  I've never gone home and had all the doors locked!  I also had to figure out how to drive a new car, which is always a bit of a challenge.  Fortunately, Mom had explained how to shift into reverse and park-- that new car was complicated and I never would have figure that out on my own!

Finally we arrived at Tracy and Adam's house!  I put my stuff in their bedroom and we hung out for a bit and then decided to get dinner at Meadowmeer.  My Dad has been telling me how much he loves the restaurant there for years now, so it was fun to finally go!  (Although I wasn't hungry enough to tackle their 1/2 lb burger and settled for a BLT instead!)  Bentley dropped me off back at the house and went to Activity Days and I settled in for some reading and some time chatting with my family on the phone.

The next morning I was up early again.  Bentley was going to work, and I sat down at the computer to work on writing up my interviews for TOSVA.  And then Adam finally sent me our family portraits (from August!) and I spent the rest of the morning going through them and trying to decide which ones needed to go on our Christmas card!  I love working on my Christmas cards so much!!!

Once I felt like I'd gotten a fair amount of work done and I was tired of sitting in front of a computer, I decided it was time to venture out of the house!  I started small by just sitting in the backyard and reading for a bit.  And I also texted a couple of old ward members about meeting up.  Then I drove to Safeway and got a few odds and ends that Bentley had requested.  I stopped by Bay Hay & Feed to see if they had any pig shirts for Ryder-- no dice there, most of their stock was just Halloween shirts.  I went to Fay Bainbridge and sat looking at the water for a bit...

I can really never get tired of that view, but I was getting sore from sitting on driftwood (and a park ranger was blowing leaves, so it wasn't as peaceful as I wanted), so then I went to my parents' house and sat in their hot tub for a bit.  And then I sat in their very comfortable chair reading my book.  I was trying to decide if I should say Hi to Gail on my way out (she'd been up on her roof also using a leaf blower to knock the moss off when I'd driven up the driveway), and just when I was thinking I was too lazy to bother, I spotted her daughter Allie walking up the driveway from getting my parents' mail for them, so it seemed mean to NOT stop.  So I popped by and we caught up for a bit and she showed me pictures of her granddaughter.  I was glad I pulled over!

I went back to Tracy's house, trying hard not to speed on an island where they've lowered ALL the speed limits since I lived here.  I swear you can never go above 25 mph on the whole island, and then half the drivers go even slower than that!  It's kind of the worst.

I read my book and chatted with my kids, waiting until Bentley was off work.  But he ended up staying late, so we finally decided to just meet up at Isla Bonita for dinner.  We were both starving by then, so that made our meal taste even BETTER!

The next day I was back at work on my Christmas cards and deciding to postpone writing up my second interview until Saturday.  It was raining ALL DAY and I was glad I'd done some of my outdoorsy things the day before!  But I did meet up with Carole Faltermeier, who was my Mia Maid advisor WAAAAAAAAAY back in the day and we had breakfast at the Streamliner Diner.  It was THE BEST time.  I love Carole so much.  We just talked and talked and talked-- it was hard to even bother eating, there was just so much to say!  I was so glad Tracy had suggested I look her up!

This is a terrible pictures of me, but you can see how cute Sister Faltermeier is!

I had a few hours to kill after that-- I think I mostly napped and chatted with Craig and the kids?  maybe I kept looking at Christmas cards?-- then as soon as Bentley was home from work, we drove to the ferry and met Natalie at the Seattle Center food court.  It was POURING rain that whole day, so this traveling was not super fun.  Plus, we were going to the opera (!!!), so I wanted to actually look nice!  Alas, I had to wear my tennis shoes with my dress and rain jacket, but then I did put on my pumps once we were in the theater.

Natalie had two extra tickets to The Pirates of Penzance at Seattle Opera, and it was so nice of her to share them with us!!!  You may recall, but I LOVE this show so very much!  When I told Bentley we'd be going, he asked if I hadn't just seen that at Cville Opera this summer, and I was like, "Yeah, so?  I also watched the movie again this summer!  My love for Pirates knows no bounds!"  And indeed, it does not.  I thoroughly enjoyed this performance, too.

Unfortunately, we did not manage to hurry out of the theater at the end, which meant we were stuck in the parking garage for quite a while, which in turn meant that we missed the 10:50 ferry by about ten minutes and had to wait until the 12:15am ferry.  So that was a very late night.

Bentley snoozing on the ferry

After our initial grumpiness of having barely missed the ferry wore off, Bentley and I actually had a pretty good time hanging out at the ferry terminal and watching all the weirdos trickle in.  There must have been some crazy stuff happening in the city, because there were several people wearing zombie costumes.  Interesting.  Bentley decided he was too tired to go to work at 6am, and was much more cheerful once he'd decided to skip it.  Since I was the one keeping him out so late, I figured it wasn't a good time to lecture him about the Zoomer Generation's terrible work ethic.

Instead, he got to come with me as I visited my old friend Carolyn Zane!  Carolyn was a member of my ward for forever, but she also worked as a substitute teacher at my high school and was beloved by all the students (which should tell you how awesome she is-- NO ONE likes their substitute teachers!).  Carolyn divorced when I was in college, and then remarried in 2020, but I hadn't seen her in ages, so I hadn't met her "new" husband yet.  It was a pleasure to meet him and Carolyn (even at 86 years old) is sharp as a tack and it was so fun catching up (and introducing them to Bentley)!

After our visit, we went to Sluy's.  That was actually a big pain-- it was pouring rain AND there was no parking ANYWHERE in Poulsbo.  We kept seeing cars pulling out and anxiously trying to grab the spot they'd vacated, only to discover that they were either parked in handicap spaces or in spaces that weren't parking spaces at all!  I'm not brave enough to try that (especially in Mom's new car), so we finally got a customers-only spot at a mini-mart and Bentley bought himself some gum there so we weren't breaking any rules.  

Anyway.  Once we'd finally acquired our doughnuts, there was nowhere to eat them!  And Bentley was starving.  Like-- teenage boy, I need Big Food NOW starving-- so we headed to what used to be Central Market and got Real Food and sat in their restaurant chowing down.  Then we grabbed a few groceries and drove home through a few small lakes (this was a LOT of rain, even by Seattle standards!) and ate our doughnuts.  Not quite the day I was hoping for, but not terrible, either.  Later, when we realized we needed some more stuff for dinner the next night, I tried to bribe Bentley to do the shopping for me by offering to pay for his Subway, but he refused.  We had to venture out to the store yet again in the rain!  

That night, while I was sleeping, Tracy and Adam and Cora all got home from Hawaii.  (I had vacated their bedroom and set up a bed on the floor for Cora, and then taken over her room.)  It was so nice to get up in the morning and get to talk with them and hear all about their trip!!!  And then I was busy zooming the primary program in our ward (Camille did such a great job with her talk-- I was so proud of her!) and then we got to go to church together, which was also nice.  And I saw so many other familiar faces, so that was also delightful.  It made up for the fact that it was STILL raining.  Ohmygosh, so much rain.

Finally, the next day the rain finally stopped the next day, and Tracy and I took the opportunity to go on a little hike with a friend of hers.  I was so excited to be outside looking at all the trees!

I used to read books where people could find their way in forests by orienting themselves from which side of the trees the moss grew.  That always perplexed me-- in Washington, moss grows ALL OVER trees!

Seriously-- so much moss!!!

Can you see the ferry gliding by through the trees?

I loved how this fallen tree was caught by the other trees!

And here's the beach!

And then we stopped by Ace Hardware so I could see Bentley at work-- why is that so fun for moms?  Look-- my son is gainfully employed!  Maybe I've done something right!

I love how the expression on his face is so clearly, I'm embarrassed by my mom!

We had to return my Mom's car, so we were going to enjoy their hot tub while we were there, but then I realized that I was more interested in spending a little more time at Fay Bainbridge, so we went there instead.  We sat on the benches eating sandwiches and chatting (and watching some bald eagles) while Cora played on the pirate ship, and then we hopped across the driftwood to look at the Sound for a bit.  I really liked this fishing trawler:

And Tracy spotted this creature swimming around:

There's his tail as he dives underwater

We were thinking it was a seal, but the way he was sticking around pretty close to shore and not just swimming away from us, I think it actually may have been a river otter?  Hard to tell, though.  I also saw something jump briefly out of the water.  I assume a salmon?

Tracy and Adam were very nice and let me order all of my favorite Thai dishes from Sawatdy that night.  And it was all just as good as I remembered.  AMAZING.  What a great end to my trip!  I also got a really good hug from Bentley when I said goodbye the next morning.  Those are so rare!

Tracy felt bad that she couldn't take me to the airport, but I managed to take the lightrail without any troubles, and everything with my flights went very smoothly.  This airline had free shows I could watch on my phone, so I was very happy watching Shrinking and Ted Lasso the whole way to Charlotte.  I was very nervous about catching my connection-- I only had about forty minutes, and that airport is ENORMOUS.  But we actually got in a bit early and I got there with time to hit the bathroom before they began boarding.  And my last short flight I was seated in the one seat in its row so it was both an aisle AND a window seat!  I tried to take a picture to show off my good fortune, but you really can't even tell.  Oh, well.  

I listened to the audio book of Emma M. Lion for that short flight.  It was so good to see Craig again when he picked me up.  And so good to be home again, too.  (He'd done a great job keeping up with the laundry and making sure I came home to a tidy home-- awesome work, Craig!!!)

There's no place like home.  My other kids had really missed me, and I missed them.  But I'm glad it worked out for me to spend a week hanging out with Bentley!

October In-Between

We got home from Leah's Monday evening, and then I had one week home before I headed out of town again.  But that week sure was busy!!!

The Teachers Quorum held a thank you dinner for all their mothers, which was really lovely of them:

Clockwise starting bottom left: Noah, tony, Alex, Karyn, Kim, Daniel, Ryder, me, Sandy, Gideon, Truman, Megan

My family is continuing to keep Bentley occupied, and I sure appreciate them for that!

My Mom took him out to lunch on his day off!

And here's the Nilsen family after church with Bentley!

And Tracy and my Dad took him to the temple!  The big news there was that a temple worker asked my Dad if Bentley was his son or his nephew, so that made his day!

Adam and I continue to find look for free days when we can enjoy the beautiful fall weather by hiking the Trails at Monticello:

Camille's class went on a field trip, and when they returned, they found themselves having recess at the same time as the kindergarten classes.  So she and her friends organized the biggest game of Ring Around the Rosy EVER:

(There's Camille in the purple shirt with her back to us)

And speaking of Camille, here's a class picture where you can actually see her!

I'm very excited that we've entered fuzzy socks season!!!

And this picture of Craig and Camille (getting pizza at Costco after we've cleaned the church) is just so cute:

(Not sure what Colton is doing in the background there...?)

We bought Ryder the Halloween costume he'd been begging for and it was almost too perfect to be believed:

😂😂😂

The Stake organized a youth service project-- same as last year-- where they put on a Halloween party for CAFF (Community Attention Foster Families) and it was a big hit:

Our YM were in charge of the fishing pond-- Craig used the wall hanging from his office to great effect!

And the YW did facepainting again

Kendra and Ryder, however, had a band competition at Charlottesville High School, so I went to watch them: 

I didn't take any more pictures because I just wanted to enjoy watching.  Sorry, that's not exactly the best, but you can see Kendra conducting and Ryder playing the bells!

And Craig caught this beautiful sunrise for me:

And then I was trying to pack to go see Bentley!  He'd requested that I bring him a few items that he hadn't been able to fit in his suitcase when he flew to Seattle.  Unfortunately, when I tried to put them in my carryon, this was what it looked like:

His axolotl costume, temple bag, camera, tripod, and backpack...

That's fine, I don't need any clothes...

Homecoming

While we were in New York, Kendra was having a lovely time for homecoming weekend!  And it was a good thing Adam was in charge, because he was the one to realize that we'd forgotten to order a boutonniere for Emmett!!!  😬😬😬  But Adam just called around to his florists until he found one who had a wedding in town that day, and asked if he could steal one of their extra boutonnieres!  All Kendra had to do was run out to Clifton Inn to pick it up!  And then it just happened to match the flowers in her corsage, too!!!  Adam is a magician!

The lighting is a little off here-- her dress is actually Cinderella blue-- but you get the idea!

It's also very sparkly!

Here's Kendra with Emmett (and his boutonniere)!

And a bunch of Kendra's friends

And then Kendra was also very excited about the flowers Emmett got for her:

So I'm glad that all worked out and we didn't make her miss out on her senior homecoming dance!  Next time we'll plan more carefully!  (Who am I kidding, we probably won't.)

New York in the Fall

We had planned on going to visit my sister Leah back in May, but things got so crazy busy that we decided to postpone.  Until October!!!  In May, Craig had been planning on seeing Stranger Things on Broadway.  I lost interest in that show after the first season (I should say-- it's a good show, I just don't like seeing desperate moms searching for their kid), so I said I'd see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child instead.  Craig was slightly indignant-- "But I want to see that, too!" -- so we compromised and we all saw Cursed Child!  

But first, we had a big problem to figure out.  

In our rush to make plans with Leah, we'd forgotten to run it all past Kendra.  Who was already very excited to go to homecoming that very same weekend.  Big oops.  After talking about lots of ideas and throwing out most of them, we finally decided she would stay with Adam for two of the nights, and then the last night she'd spend in Culpeper with Grandma and Grandpa.  And all the grown ups were happy to have her (and Adam was happy to help her get ready and take her picture and everything!).  So we got that figured out at least.  (And homecoming will get its own post!)  

We also thought we'd have to wait until after the halftime show to pull Ryder away and begin our drive.  That was going to be terrible-- I was guessing we'd arrive around 4am???  Fortunately, it turned out that the marching band doesn't do a halftime show at the homecoming game, so that made things a lot easier.  I had started to dread the trip before it had even begun!  Now suddenly everything was very doable!

So, yes, as soon as everyone was home from school we finished loading the van and drove to Leah's!  Even then, we didn't arrive until well after midnight.  I would have felt bad about keeping Leah up so late, but that was one of the games the Mariners were playing against the Tigers in their final division series game, so Leah was still up anyway!  We dropped our suitcases, put the kids to bed, and kept watching the game with her and got to cheer as the Mariners won in the 15th inning!  Craziness, but a great way to start our trip!

I'd hoped we could make it to the Met in the morning before our show, but we were all pretty tired and slept a little too late for that to be feasible.  (We could have made it, but we would have had to rush like crazy just to have an hour at the museum, and that hardly felt worth it.  It takes me about that long just to find the right room!)  So instead we took our time, letting the kids hang out and play before we headed into the city.  Camille and Theo made the best of their time together:

Camille picked out costumes for Theo and he was very nice about indulging her!  

Then we took the train into the city. 

Usually we just drive, but since there were only five us (and since it's hard to find parking for the van), this seemed more cost effective.  And it was kind of fun for the kids

We got off at Grand Central Station and took a minute to let the kids enjoy the huge ceiling and everything there.  (Camille pointed out a mouse running around in the food court!  Welcome to New York, kids!  I guess I should be glad it wasn't a rat...)

And then it was a short walk to Times Square:

We go to NYC fairly often, but we don't usually go near Times Square, so it was fun to show it to the kids for the first time (although it would have been more impressive at night).  As we were standing taking it in, Colton commented, "That lady just picked up a pigeon!"  We turned to look and-- sure enough!-- there was an older woman clutching a pigeon to her chest.  As we stared, she pulled out a reusable shopping bag, put the pigeon in it, and clipped the bag shut!  Either she's a weirdo who finds hurt birds and patches them up, or (and this is probably more likely) that pigeon was dinner that night.  Welcome to New York, kids!

We had some time before our show, so Leah treated us to lunch at the Brooklyn Diner right there-- they actually managed to seat all seven of us right away, which was sort of a miracle!  Then Leah took Theo to a bubble show (she'd already seen Cursed Child twice in the last year and figured that was plenty for now) and we headed to our theater!

And we LOVED the show so much!!!  The story alone was very cool, but the special effects were AMAZING!!!  We were totally in awe of the whole thing!  So glad we finally got to see it!  Now I want to go back with Bentley and Kendra and see it again!!!

So that was just a fantastic afternoon.  We'd talked about getting Shake Shack after the show, but we were still pretty full from lunch and Brian had offered to cook for us, so we just took the train back.  There had been all these predictions of rain, but we hardly saw any at all, so that was a relief!  But no need to push our luck, either!  Brian made us tacos and we had a nice cozy evening with everyone!

The next morning we went to church with the Westchester Ward.  They had the coolest tree in front of their building, I just loved it:

I enjoyed sitting together as a family, and Craig enjoyed not being in charge.  (And it wasn't terrible leaving after the first hour, either!)  Craig took Theo, Colton, and Camille out in the row boat, and I mostly followed Leah around talking.

My Uncle Bob and Aunt Lorraine are living in Queens serving a mission right now, and they had to go to a stake conference in Connecticut, so they stopped by on their way home and it was so nice to catch up with them!  True to form I didn't take any pictures, but we had a lovely time!  It was especially brave of them to come by, since the last time they came Griffey bit Uncle Bob!  😬  But he stayed very calm this time, only pacing around so he could eye my Aunt's turkey sandwich (that is-- Griffey stayed calm and eyed the sandwich, not Uncle Bob!)

We had planned on going to Blaze and the Eastchester Columbus Day Festival that afternoon, but they were predicting a big storm so the festival got canceled and we kept watching to see if Blaze would be shut down, too.  (And while we waited, we watched K-Pop Demon Hunters, which was pretty fun and Leah was also watching the Seahawks win!)  But we never heard any news about Blaze, so we loaded up every rain jacket we could find and wrapped Camille's foot in plastic (since she was still wearing a boot for her broken toe) and headed out, fingers crossed that it might be fun and not terrible.  And it was awesome!!!  Not only was it NOT canceled, it barely rained while we were there (it was just picking up as we left, in fact) and Blaze (as I'd heard!) was so cool!  AND double bonus-- because of the storm predictions, there weren't too many people!  Jackpot!!!

We lost Brian for this shot!  But we've got everyone else, at least!  Those are all carved pumpkins making the sign behind us

Us Seattle-ites have to get excited about a kraken!  (This was in a lake with steam rising up all around it!)

They had different themed sections.  This one was mostly farm stuff and featured a moving windmill!

Ryder still likes pigs!

And Camille likes horses!  (I liked those sunflowers!)

There was a whole row that had various Celtic knots!

And I just thought this blue pumpkin was so pretty with all its intricate carvings!

Did I already say Welcome to New York?

Seriously, how cool is this???

Zodiac signs for our two pisces!

The Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz!

I think these dinosaurs were my favorite!

Another water-themed zodiac sign

And for the big finish, this amazing Headless Horseman!!!

So yes, we really enjoyed Blaze!  And I was so glad the storm held off for us!

Once we got home, Brian whipped up several dinners for everyone's dietary needs (spaghetti and meatballs for us, vegetarian for Leah, pizza for Theo, and non-acidic for himself) and we stayed up late watching the Mariners beat the Blue Jays in their first game of the playoffs!  It was a very happy day!  When I was finally turning off my light, I could just barely hear Ryder and Eliot still up talking and it just made me so happy that they got to spend some quality time together.  Cousins are the best!

The next morning we packed up and headed home!  Leah had zoom meetings so we were anxious to get out of her hair before those started, and I needed to get back in time for choir.  Considering all the major cities we were going through, the traffic wasn't too horrendous, and once we got on the express lanes around DC we were able to zip on home.  Yay for always being a carpool!

I was so glad we were able to have such a fun time with the Maddens!