Sometimes our nest fills back up a touch.
As mentioned, we’d picked Mikey up from the airport on Saturday after some shenanigans with the airlines.
Sunday in Seattle
Sunday we made the trip to Seattle to support Tris by seeing her showing at Yoroshiku in Wallingford. We took the ferry across and left Ollie in the car in his kennel and he did so surprisingly well. Lou and I both checked on him a coupon times and he was contentedly waiting for us each time, not whining or fussing at all. This is astounding to me. It has not happened since that we’ve been able to leave him for even a moment, I say only semi-hyperbolically
Yoroshiku was able to accommodate our group of 7, though we were directed to a “waiting room” that I called Ramen jail. They had a few interesting Japanese objects on display such as an original Famicom with the disk drive and some models. The food was quite tasty! “Real” ramen is so delicious, though if course instant ramen is plenty tasty as well, except for all the sodium and lack of vegetables.
It was a lovely lunch and afterward we all went down to Gas Works Park to walk around for a bit. It’s a lovely little park that has this fun sort of post apocalyptic vibe. We saw a “fire twirler” practicing their craft, an “ice cream cruise” in Lake Union go by (something I suspect deserves investigation), someone dressed in a furry suit, and a bunch of folk dressed in homemade armor hitting each other with blunt weapons.
After our afternoon constitutional, we separated from Tris and her beau, and stopped over to Molly Moon’s in Queen Anne for some ice cream before making the drive around the sound home given that the Bremerton WSF service is terrible and I can’t drive the car into a fast ferry.
Spring Broke
This was Mikey’s Spring Break and we didn’t do a lot to fill it up, letting him take a breath before he powers through the rest of his sophomore school year. We did manage to find time to bond, we ate delicious foods from all over, played a fair amount of Fortnite, watched movies, and we all got out and about for some family bonding time.
Mikey and Oz went this week to see Creed III together. They watched the first two movies together and then saw the third at the local cinema after grabbing lunch together downtown. I think they even spent a little time at the arcade. Some real sibling bonding time. 🥰
The WIP House
In other news, Lou worked on making some updates to the basement bathroom. She hung a couple of new cabinets, towel bars, etc. It’s coming along pretty well. It’s perhaps not going to be featured Better Homes & Fancy Bathrooms, but it’s definitely a huge improvement. We’re still looking to update the janky washer & dryer with stacked units to give us just that little more useful state for another cabinet, and we’ve considered updating the water heater with a smaller on demand system… 😅 but I digress
The place feels cozier and cozier as we continue to try to improve and iterate.
Bit by bit we’re progressing.
We still have the side yard gate and floating deck and the plum tree removal from back by the fence so we can drop a trailer or an RV (eventually).
If only I were wealthy
And indicators weren’t pointing always to a recession
Celebrating Self Care
My Thursday Hike this week was 5.3 miles at Illahee preserve. It was a lovely hike and I had a lot of good time to reflect. I drafted several dev blog posts related to recent experiences; topics such as “Surviving the psychological impact of throwing away work (due to changing business requirements).” It was a great opportunity to, for mindfulness, for emptying my head and being present in the beautiful PNW.
I have been keeping up on my commitment to these hikes, and I’m happy about that.
I am feeling a bit more out of shape of late, and I’m trying to work through that.
☘️
Tris came to have family dinner on Friday before Mikey leaves. We ordered Mexican for St. Patrick’s Day. It was a lovely visit that resulted in a squad win in Fortnite after dinner. 😅
Long Saturday
Then this morning we were up by 4am and heading out by 5am to get Mikey to SeaTac for his 8 am flight. The drive was pretty swift through Tacoma and really the whole way up I5. We encountered resistance at departures but the signs directing us to arrivals instead worked in our favor when we pulled right up the doors.
Then I drove back around the sound, while Lou and Mikey fought their way into the airport, finally get Mikey on his flight with only a few minutes to spare.
The flight, it seems, was uneventful and landed close to on time. Lou’s journey was a bit of a haul, finally making it back on the state ferry that had to stop part way through the trip due to the need to let some orcas pass in front of them then, arrival almost at the same time Michael was touching down in the Midwest. 😅
All that is to say that it’s been a long day.
And to make it longer we took Ollie on a really long walk, stopping to play at not one, but 2! different parks where he had the opportunity to run around on a long lead and play! He fetched sticks, found leaves and pine cones! It was a busy afternoon.
We’re exhausted
But I’m continuing my weekly commitment to this blog thing, so I’m going to recognize that good as well as cut myself some slack for these posts feeling a bit like dear diary.
✌️