We’re now at my dad’s place in Oregon (the Beaver State), & recently returned from visiting Erick in Seattle (the Emerald City).  I know I haven’t written anything since we left for our trip so here goes:  The trip did not start out well to say the least.  Joshua did not enjoy being woken up at 5am to catch our shuttle to the airport (neither did I but he didn’t take it as well as I did, although being a toddler is a very good excuse).  He cried for much of the ride to BWI & was a little hellion at the airport.  Once we got to the airport, I was the one who felt like screaming.

I chose for us to fly on Southwest because we got a good deal & because it was a non-stop flight.  Well, it turns out that neither were true.  Southwest recently changed their baggage policy (after I bought our plane tix but before the flight).  When I asked about checking in the carseat, I was told that there wouldn’t be an extra charge for it, but as of the day we flew, it was no longer free so I had to pay $25 to take it with us (which no longer made this the cheapest flight I’d found).  And to make matters worse, the “non-stop” status of the flight really meant that we didn’t need to change planes.  We took a detour in Salt Lake City, which was certainly not mentioned on the website—it had a big fat ‘zero’ under the column that mentions number of stops.  And they wouldn’t even let us pre-board to get a good seat like I was told we could do & have always done before when flying with Joshua.  At least not many people wanted to sit in the back which has been good for us on previous flights so that’s where we ended up.  And since they don’t assign seats, Joshua ended up getting his own since they weren’t completely sold out & no one wanted to sit in the seat where he was sitting/playing as people boarded the plane.  And fortunately a nice gentleman sat in the window seat & didn’t mind a toddler climbing on him, throwing toys/books on him, & otherwise being a nuisance.  He said it was worth it for the extra legroom he got since Josh wasn’t fighting him for it.  The flight was pretty turbulent & one time we went to the lavatory to change a diaper, the flight attendant said we needed to stay in there until the turbulence got better so we weren’t walking back to our seat when the plane was rocking so much.  Joshua did not take this confinement well so he started screaming to be put down.  The only way to calm him down was to nurse him.  I didn’t imagine sitting on the toilet in an airplane lavatory to breastfeed, but it worked.  Josh was passed out in less than 5 minutes.  And that’s when the flight attendant knocked on the door to say we needed to hurry to our seats.  Fortunately, Josh stayed asleep & slept all the way through the landing & only woke up right before they closed the door to the plane after the layover (he even slept through the mechanics testing the very loud smoke detectors!).  The leg from SLC to Portland was only about 1/4 full so Joshua had plenty of room to play without disturbing anyone.  I was very happy to have gotten to Portland without too much of a problem, other than a very, very long day.

We had a nice few days with my dad before taking him to the airport to leave on a trip to Arizona.  Joshua & I got to see Kristen, a friend of mine from junior high which was very nice.  Josh enjoyed playing with her cat & his toys while we visited.  Kristen has a little niece who visits often so there were other little toys to keep Joshua occupied, although he enjoyed playing with the cat’s toys just as much.  Silly kid.

Last Thursday, we drove up to Washington to see Erick.  My good friend Leilani has a house that’s between Seattle & Fort Lewis, & she graciously offered for us to stay at her place.  It was a very long drive from Salem (& Joshua stayed awake for all but the last 15 minutes of it!), but fortunately traffic wasn’t that bad.  We got to her place, unpacked & settled in a little, & then drove down to Fort Lewis just as Erick was getting off work.  Joshua got a cute smile on his face when he recognized the guy in uniform walking toward us was Daddy & not the many other men in ACUs we see all the time.  We had a quick bite to eat & visited for awhile, & then Joshua & I went back to Lei’s place while Erick got back to his studying.

Erick had work on Friday but Joshua & I spent much of the day in downtown Seattle.  We spent 3 hours at the Seattle Children’s Museum which was a lot of fun & I highly recommend it to anyone visiting with little ones.  Josh had so much fun going from place to place—there was even a little area just for little ones 3 & under that was pretty much completely baby-proofed.  The only time Joshua didn’t seem to enjoy himself was when he left the room that had an Alice in Wonderland exhibit & tried to take a spoon from the tea party table out with him until I stopped him.  I told Joshua we could either stay in that room & play with the spoon some more or leave it behind & go somewhere else.  He did not like those options so he sat down on the floor, flung himself backward, & flailed all extremities while screaming.  It was really kind of cute & spontaneous, as most of his tantrums are.  Another mom saw this & asked if he was between 18-20 months.  When I said yes, she said that hers were just like that & that “it will get better.”  That was nice to hear.  The nicest thing about the children’s museum is that the other parents there have either been there done that, or will be there soon, so no one seems bothered by little outbursts like Joshua’s.  Another mom there had a baby with a diaper explosion & was apologizing for the mess but the rest of us told her that it’s happened to us & not to worry.  She seemed to feel better about that, but then she was probably also a little scared about entering the stage that’s coming soon as evidenced by my son’s behavior.  I took lots of photos at the museum but didn’t really capture any good shots of Joshua smiling because he spent all of his time looking around at the neat things & didn’t want to take any time to look at the camera even for a brief moment.  But I suppose those bad photos are just a testiment to the good times we had.

After the museum, Joshua fell asleep in the car before we even got onto the freeway.  We drove down to get Erick & he stayed in Federal Way with us for the weekend.  On Saturday, the 3 of us went to Pike’s Public Market.  We strolled along with no particular destination in mind & had a good time.  Josh didn’t seem all that impressed by the flying fish at the marketplace but we still had to check it out because that’s just what you do when you go to Seattle, right?  On Sunday morning, we met up with Patrick, a good friend of Erick’s & mine from USC, at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.  We hadn’t seen him since our wedding so it was fun to get to catch up & to show off our little guy.  I wish we had more time to visit but we had to leave early so that Joshua & I could drive back down to pick Dad up from the airport & get home.  We dropped Erick off after the zoo & won’t see him again until we get to Hawaii in a couple of weeks.  We were going to go up again this weekend but the drive was just too difficult for Joshua & Erick can’t really spare much time to visit since his exam is coming up soon, so Hawaii it is.

Since being back in Oregon, we’ve managed to keep having fun & trying to make this as “vacationy” as possible.  Dad is helping with that by playing with Joshua so I can relax a little bit (& write this).  Josh is having a lot of fun playing with Grandpa, that’s for sure.  Unfortunately, the weather’s been the way it often is, which is why I moved away in the first place.  I’m still not a fan of the cold, wet climate here, but at least it’s above freezing unlike much of the time back in DC!  We had a couple of nice days where we could play & walk around outside but it’s been indoor weather most of the time.  My mom’s friend Sharon came over to babysit once while Dad & I went to see a movie.  That was a real treat!

On Wednesday, we drove up to the Portland Children’s Museum.  While it was a lot smaller than the one in Seattle, Joshua still had a lot of fun.  Most of the areas at this museum were targeted to kids a little older than Joshua so there was more I needed to steer him away from but he didn’t even seem to notice because there were plenty of other places he could explore.  My favorite section was a digging hole which had cool “rocks” of rubber with shovels, buckets, & dump trucks.  It was like ground up tires, similar to what’s used for surfacing playgrounds—perfect for playing in because it didn’t get you dirty like sand or rocks would.  And Joshua only tried to put 3 pieces in his mouth, which both surprised & impressed me.  He loved scooping but didn’t seem to get that shovels work best when they’re curved upward to hold things.  He liked holding it upside down & could only scoop a few pieces at a time but he still managed to fill his bucket, only to dump it out & start over.

So as you can tell, we’re having a good time on this side of the country.  I miss our friends from Maryland & our house (& the majority of my wardrobe that couldn’t fit in our suitcases!), but it’s nice to be back here again.  I will try to be better at updating this so you can read about what we’re up to without going through such a long novel like this post.  I don’t know how often I’ll be able to go online in Hawaii but that’s a couple of weeks away.  I sure hope the weather is beautiful when we get there because I need warmth & sun!