Our trip to the NW

Eastern Washington farmland

For those of you who might not know ... we are in Seattle. We arrived here last Sunday and we had no problems dragging along my little yellow VW Beetle. And now she's in the GARAGE -- yes, an actual garage. And we have a ... wait for it ... garage door opener! Okay, not too exciting for most of my readers, but after living without a "real garage" for the last 36 years (we parked the car in the machine shed -- dirt floor, no door, birds in the rafters, mice, rabbits, etc. -- we think this is pretty neat. Unlike my sister's garage, though, this garage isn't connected to the house so we do have to walk out in the rain a few feet to get into the house. Trust me, it's not a problem.

We are enjoying our little rental house and we don't even mind hearing the occasional fire/ambulance sirens nearby. It's the City. The house has lots of windows and is surrounded by trees (and other houses) -- some of the trees behind the house are (according to Chuck) over 120 feet tall -- they are evergreens mostly -- and just beautiful trees.

We had to do a few modifications for the arrival of the GRAND babies -- a gate across a stairway that leads down to the lower level where there is a mother-in-law apartment; a mesh plastic fence around the deck because the "slats" are too far apart and babies can fall through; blocked off the book case (Emmett went right for the books and started to pull them right off the shelf); and put a few other things in higher places. So we are now pretty much baby-proof.

We have the motor home stored about two miles north of here so it's convenient to go and get things we forgot to unload when we got to the house. And the place where we have it has a dump and a place to wash it -- all good. Our car dolly is stored right behind/mostly beneath the back of the motor home.

The trip out here was uneventful (except for a fierce hailstorm just south of Cheyenne that lasted about 7 miles and made us fear our windshield would be broken!)) and I can't remember ever seeing the hills of Wyoming so green in the springtime. It was beautiful.

Did you ever drive past a field and wonder what was planted there? I do it all the time when we are traveling. So while we were going through eastern Washington, I noticed a sign that said for the next 14 miles, there would be signs telling what crops were planted in the fields. It was fun watching for the signs -- peas, wheat, alfalfa, potatoes, peppermint, barley, sweet corn etc. What a great idea!

The Grands have been over a couple of times to see us and today they came and G&H brought lunch. After we ate, we went down the hill to a park that is right at the water's edge -- it's just a few miles from our house. There was a swing set there and one swing for the little kids. I think Maggie enjoyed it a bit more than Emmett, but they both had fun. It won't be much longer that they can both fit into one swing! They will be 11 months old on Monday, and Emmett is a big boy. Maggie is definitely on the high side of normal for her age too. But Emmett looks like a 2-year old to me; Maggie looks like a 1-year old.

Guess that's most of the news from here; I am sure I will think of more later, so stay tuned.

Here's the video I took while we were in the hail storm. Just turn up your volume as high as you can and listen for a few seconds -- that's how loud it sounded in the motor home. (The video is way too long but I haven't figured out how to shorten it! I'll work on that one.)