Hawkins Vacay

The Hawkins family is here!!

My good friend, Tebria, is in town with her husband (Cedric) and son (Jeremiah), and they're staying with us for a few days! Tebria was able to visit us shortly after Zoey was born, but this is the first time Cedric and Jeremiah are meeting her. We have all been anxious for the kiddos to meet, and so far it's been going really well. ...Umm, pretty well... OK, it's just going "well". Let's leave it at that.  

"Umm, I'm trying to play with this barn. Can someone kindly remove this girl?" (7/11)

(Zoey is 15 months old and Jeremiah is 3 years old--sharing doesn't always come easy :)

Enjoying a few stories before starting our day (7/12)

Monkey trade??

Zoey wanted a minute to check out Jeremiah's monkey that he brought, but he wasn't very receptive to her Mr. Monkey (that's him on the floor!). See what I mean, about the sharing? :)

While Michael and Cedric enjoyed an afternoon at the go-karts raceway, Tebria and I took the kids for a walk, and then to a nearby park.

Before she slides down, she says "Byye-byyye!"

Look at that handsome boy! Such a sweetie.

Oh, and speaking of sweet...check out the chocolate covered strawberries the Hawkins had delivered to our house, as a "Thanks" for having them as our guests!

Obviously, no thanks were necessary, but I was more than happy to accept! Yum!

We all woke up pretty excited today because we had planned a trip to Downtown Seattle. We knew we wanted to see The Fremont Troll, The Space Needle, Pike Place Market, and a few other things along the way. Well, we only made it to one stop, before our whole afternoon came to a halt. More on that in a minute...

The kiddos, before breakfast

My little cheese ball!

So, once everyone was well-fed and dressed, we hopped in the car and headed downtown! Yay! Our first stop: The Fremont Troll!

This big guy, who actually does live under a bridge, is clutching a real Volkswagen Beetle car! 

Another fun fact: the street that runs uphill towards the troll, was renamed "Troll Avenue" in his honor! Pretty neat.

We look so small next to his giant hands!

After our visit with Mr. Troll (and about 30 true, slightly annoying, tourists), we piled back into the car and headed toward the Market. As we rolled down First Avenue, searching for a place to park, I heard Jeremiah's tiny voice say "I don't feel good". I then heard his parents ask him what was wrong, to which he again replied "I don't feel good". Before they could offer up any words of encouragement and assure him we were almost to our final destination, his little body gave up the fight and he vomited all over the back seat!! AHHHH! 

Oh, and I just realized that I forgot to mention that Mike was not traveling with us today (he had a work golf tournament). Everyone knows that I'm the "poop handler" and Mike is the "vomit handler"! O.M.G.! I immediately pulled the car over and frantically rolled down the windows as the stomach-churning smell wafted toward the front seat. As I tried to avoid looking at any actual vomit, I checked on Zoey to see if any had gotten on her. Fortunately, she was clean, but looked a bit shaken! 

As soon as the car had come to a stop, Cedric jumped out, grabbed Jeremiah, and whisked him off to a nearby retail store. Once I saw that Zoey was alright, I noticed we were conveniently parked in front of a hotel. I explained to the concierge that I was in need of many, many paper towels and a cup of water. He was super helpful and I was able to return to the car with supplies, within seconds. 

Ugh, I'm going to skip the yucky details of the clean-up process (which Tebria took the lead on, while I sat on the sideline like a wimp), and jump ahead to the Elephant Car Wash. Fortunately, (Thank you, Lord!) there was a car wash a few miles away from us, and they were able to shampoo the portion of the backseat and floor that was soiled. In less than 30 minutes, we were back on the road (headed home!), and the smell of vomit was replaced with the sickeningly sweet, yet refreshing, scent of vanilla. Oy...what an afternoon!

When we got home, Jeremiah went down for a much needed nap while the rest of us ate lunch and tried to calm ourselves. Not only did I feel bad for J, but his parents had been through a lot as well. :( 

Leave it to Zoey to return the smiles to our faces.

She grabbed a book, brought it to Cedric, and happily sat on his lap while he read :)

(Wondering why his smile looks a bit smug?? Because it was! Poor Tebria has been trying to hold Zoey for the past few days, and Zoey won't let her! So, Cedric was definitely rubbing it in. Tisk, tisk!)