Greetings from Seattle!

It is hard to believe that we have been here almost a week already! What a week it has been.

Joseph started our journey sick as a puppy that landed him with a trip to the ER after we arrived for fear he was becoming dehydrated. Three days later Emily became ill. We are holding our breath that no one else gets sick~and if they do, may it be after we get back to West Virginia!
Thursday we the day spent at Children's Hospital while Joseph had his MRI and eye exam while he was sedated. Dr. Baran stated that Joseph's eye are fine! A little nearsighted but there is no lazy eye nor need for glasses!!!!!!!! She did confirm that if he is experiencing any vision issues (aka, double vision) it is chiari related. This is a good thing because it is correctable. YEAHHH!

Friday we drove North with Janet. Man she is an amazing wealth of knowledge about the area. She took us up to see the snow geese. Good gravy there were THOUSANDS of them! It is was so much fun to watch a few take off and when they landed a ton flew away and then back again. We saw an American Bald Eagle in flight. This was a humbling experience to witness this breathtaking bird in flight.

Next we drove over to the daffodil fields. Yellow as far as the eye could see! Their different hues of yellow were so amazing. After the daffodils they will be mowed under and the tulips will bloom next and finally Irises.

We had lunch by the Puget Sound. The tide was out and Sarah took some beautiful pictures. The air started out crisp and the sky was magnificent! We saw heron's, cranes and a few others I am not familiar with but were fun to watch.

After lunch we were off to Deception Pass. WOW, what a beautiful place. The beach we went to visit is located off Crescent Lake. The cool thing about this location is that there is a small straight that separates the salt water from the fresh. So in the summer you can swim in one and then a short hop, skip and jump and your at the beach! The rock formations here are breath taking. (I wish I could upload my pictures!) If your lucky, whales can be spotted from this beach, but not today. :0(

From here we headed to Whigbey Island. We stopped by the Boeing plant to see the new plane that has been designed out of plastic. Not too sure how I feel about flying in a plastic plane! It looks so different than a regular plane. One neat thing, at night the airplanes are driven over the interstate to the other Boeing field...can you imagine driving down the interstate and seeing an airplane driving across the overpass?! There are special designed railings that are removable because otherwise the plane would take them out each time they drive over the road. Everyone was so excited to take the ferry across the Sound. It was a short 20 minute ride, but what the heck~it was a ferry ride!

Sunset found us at my all time favorite place in Seattle..Kerry Park. This is where most commercial shot are taken of the city. It is a breath taking place. Especially at sunset. Man was the wind cold! We did not stay there very long. Dinner was at one of our favorite haunts...the Lock Spot Cafe. Yummy clam chowder and fish on a cold blustery night, mmmmmmm!

Saturday we spent the day at my girlfriend's Janet and Barbara's parents home. There we met up with OLD and I mean OLD (they are all older than me...heehee) high school friends and a delicious lunch. It was so fun to get together with Russ and his partner Ron, Woody, and Dennis. Plus it was wonderful to see Mr. and Mrs. Swisher. Our kids refer to them as our West Coast Grandparents! :0)

Tonight I am going to surprise the children and set our their Easter Baskets from home. Emily was really upset that her basket would not be set out for the bunny. Bless her she cried earlier because she was not home for Easter. Hopefully she will change her mind after she sees her basket and has fun at the Swisher Family Gathering and Easter Egg Hunt.