Our first house guest!

The world we knew in Seattle is still out there! We got a visit from our good friend, Jill. She lives in 'the other' Washington (DC) these days and was in Boston for a conference. Yay, for old friends.

Trick or Treat?

Here is what out Halloween pumpkins looked like:

Let's go to the faire!

What exploration of Massachusetts would be complete without a trip to the King Richard's Faire? For this adventure, we travelled south to Carver to check out what a renaissance faire would be like if all the actors had Boston accents and an affection for 16th century vampires. Check out the pictures:

A juggler with somewhat sharp knives (the somewhat sharp knives are scarier!)
Man-powered rides!
Really big cats!

Horse rides!

Fire eaters!

Garden in the Woods!

Why yes, we are updating our blog for the first time in a couple of months.

This entry takes us to the Garden in the Woods, a beautiful wooded park in Framingham run by the New England Wild Flower Society. The main trail took us past a small pond loaded with frogs, turtles, water lilies and more kinds of dragonflies than we have ever seen. Next, we walked though a variety of native plants and flowers including some really cool carnivorous plants.



There was also a sad garden bed filled with plants from the Pacific Northwest. It was hard to feel homesick when the Oregon grape and salal looked that sickly.

Finally, we played by a small creek for a while and even climbed a rock that was made to look like a dinosaur. This place isn't going to run out of rock any time soon!

Play Date, the Movie!

Check out what we did on a rainy day back in September!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuIMGVupU6k

Gloucester!

We started to explore our new state in September. Here, we drove up to Gloucester to check out the beaches. As you can see, we feel right at home playing in the sand:

Then we took a ride out to sea to do a little whale watching. The whales were really cool (see below), but the best part was riding on the front of the ship while the waves splashed all around. The ocean may be on a different side than Washington state, but we can still have fun with the water.

Hi, whales!

We made it!

We sprinted the last two days, and ended up in Boston on August 11. After Mt. Rushmore, we drove through Minnesota and Iowa, stopped in Chicago, and then made a two-day drive to Boston. Pictures are below:

Here we are in Glacier National Park, getting ready to do some fishing.

Yellowstone was really great. We saw a bear and many buffalo and deer. Yes, that is a picture of a mommy buffalo feeding her calf!

And, of course, there were other interesting things to see in Yellowstone.

Then we moved on to South Dakota and the Black Hills, where we found a whole bunch of motorcycles (who knew that the Sturgis rally was the first week in August?). Here's a picture of us at Mt. Rushmore.

And what trip would be complete without a journey into space?

Oops, that's just Rosa checking out a space suit at the Kirby Science Center in Sioux Falls, SD.

Well anyway, we did discover that a really, really large amount of corn is grown in Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois.

And the windmills in the Midwest are a little different than they used to be!

We went on to enjoy the Chicago Children's Museum before the mad dash to Boston. What a trip! We sure were ready to have some time without the car, and look forward to meeting new friends here in Boston.

To the East!

We made the big leap and left Seattle!

On Thursday, July 30th, all of our belongings got packed up by a pair of professional packers. The family had one last dinner at our favorite neighborhood restaurant, Tutta Bella.

Angie left on Friday, July 31st, and flew to Boston with our cats, Mickey and Gin. Thankfully the trip was uneventful for Angie and the cats. They went directly to our new house in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Newton, MA, which we found and rented on our trip out here in June.

Also on Friday the 31st, Rick, Rosa, and Robin watched the movers load the truck with all of our household goods and furniture. They camped out in the empty house that night, then hit the road on Saturday, August 1st.

Since that time, the three R's have visited: Karen's family in Idaho (thanks for letting them stay the night!), Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and Mount Rushmore. Wow! They are still making their way across the midwest even as I type.

Angie camped on the floor of the new house for a few days. Furniture arrived on Thursday the 6th (hooray! A bed again!) and the unpacking process is underway...

We are all looking forward to a reunion sometime next week. Hooray!

Cheers,
Angie

We went to Alaska!

Because the family is moving across the country, we decided that this would be the last good chance to see Alaska for a while. So, we took a seven day cruise to Alaska. We saw lots of sea creatures, panned for gold, and got to ride on a dog sled! Here we are standing in front of a cool sculpture in the Ketchikan marina.

Oh, and did we mention the Hubbard Glacier? Our ship got within 200 yards. We saw new icebergs calving off! Here's a picture of the ship with the glacier in the background.

We visited Boston!

We actually went! Our whole family went to the Boston area for a week to look for a place to live and start to learn our way around.

This is a picture of Rosa and Robin playing in the Frog Pond in the Boston Commons. What a wonderful place! A beautiful green park right in the middle of the city...lots of kids splashing in the wading pool...easy access from the subway, and right in the middle of the busy busy city.

We found a house, and visited our new school, and even made some new friends! Hi to Lily, Emily, and Grace, who were so friendly in the playground when we had our picnic there! Our new school has a LONG mural (including this view of a volcano--Robin's favorite!) and some raised beds that are part of a gardening program....that sounds a lot like Orca and I think we are going to be very happy there!

Meet Giselle

Lots of Rosa's friends came to the birthday party too. Rosa's birthday is in August, but we decided to have a last bash in Seattle before we head out east.

A big "hello" to Sam, Willa, Ellie, Lena, and Lucy! It was fun to hang out with you! Thanks so much too for the sweet presents. Please do email us and keep in touch!

Also a BIG thanks to Willa and her grandma Linda, proprietress of the fabulous Sweet Peas in Columbia City (http://www.yelp.com/biz/sweet-peas-seattle). They brought an incredibly beautiful present: an American Girl doll, who Rosa named Giselle. Rosa adores her new doll!

Birthday Bash

Wow! We had a wonderful party yesterday to celebrate birthdays!

Robin's birthday is in June. We invited all the Sunnyside kids and LOTS of them came! Some of them are in the picture above. It was fun and crazy and Robin got lots of wonderful presents. Thanks, everyone! We will miss you all.

Here and There

Hi there! This is us holding a map of the United States that Robin made at Sunnyside. Rosa is pointing to Washington state in the upper left-hand corner of the map. That's where we live now, in Seattle. Robin is pointing to Massachusetts, in the upper right-hand corner of the map. That's where we're moving to this summer.

That's ALL the way on the other side of the continent! We are looking forward to a BIG adventure and a BIG change.