Visiting Aunt Doris

A couple of days ago, the kids and I went along with my parents to visit my Aunt Doris in the Seattle area. After greeting Aunt Doris, the kids quickly set about exploring the house (as kids do at this age!). Minutes later they asked incredulously, "Doesn't Aunt Doris have any toys???" :) So, I took them into the backyard for a bit while my mom finished the lunch preparations. There they played with good old fashioned toys like leaves and rocks. :)

After lunch, the kids spotted a keyboard and with Aunt Doris' permission we got it set up for them to play. That kept their attention forever, especially the percussion settings. Who needs regular toys? :)

My aunt had recently suffered a slight stroke, but as you can see she has recovered well and was up for a long walk around the neighborhood with us.

My Dad and his sister.

A secondary purpose for our trip was to hit up the Museum of Flight one more time as our membership there expires next week. Well, we got a late start and we were having such a great afternoon with my aunt that we ended up staying with her much longer than expected, so we left her house about two hours after we thought we would have. We didn't even know if we could make it to the museum before it closed because of traffic, but we thought we'd go for it anyway since the kids had been really set on going - especially Jake as he had been asking almost daily, "Go airplane museum today?"

Well, we arrived fifteen minutes before closing time....and Jake was zonked out. I had to make a quick decision, so we left him sleeping in the car with my mom while the rest of us headed in for our whirlwind visit to the museum. I told Abby and Ben that they could decide what they wanted to see since we only had a few minutes. You know what they wanted to do first? They made a beeline for the elevator! Haha! Of course, it is a pretty cool glass elevator that looks out over the main gallery, but still, I had to laugh at how silly kids are...and it brought memories back of my own childhood obsession with elevators and escalators. :)

Jake woke up as soon as we pulled out of the parking lot, oblivious to the fact that we'd gone to the museum without him. I felt so bad! :( Later when we got home, he asked, "Airplane museum today?" and has kept asking every day since. We might try to sneak in one more trip early next week, just for him...