We’re immersed in madcap packing for our holiday trip to visit Andrew’s family in Maryland. Kids are asleep. Adults are exhausted, going over checklists.
Sarah: “Did you check on Maggie’s clothes in her suitcase?”
Andrew: “Well, she seemed pretty organized about it…”
Sarah checks the suitcase and finds the following items, very neatly packed:
Maggie, after scratching a scab this morning:
Maggie: Luckily I have another pair of skin!
Daddy: What?
M: I had another pair of skin under my scab, so it’s not bleeding.
D: Oh.
M: I have three pairs of skin.
D: Three? Pairs of skin?
M: Yes. If I scratch off one pair, then there’s another pair. If I scratch off that one, then there’s a third pair. But under the third pair is my blood.
Griffin’s story continues. He composed this on the notepad app on an old iPhone. The first two chapters are here.
Chapter three
When the Maggie’s attack
When all the Maggie’s came they had a fight with the bogeys the Maggie’s won! Sarah untied the rope that was holding Maggie to a tree 🌲. I’m hungry 😋 mama. i want to eat an ice cream cone 🍦.
Chapter four
Finding the house 🏡
Now that Maggie was here Sarah didn’t have to worry about Maggie ,being captured but she had to worry about getting her house 🏡. they looked everywhere. they decided that they would go to their property .they looked at the ground and saw a lump when they looked closer. they could see that it was their own house It somehow shrank.
Chapter five
The house is back to normal !
They decided to go to the hardware store to buy some new tools.but when they got there they saw the store was closed so they decided to go back to their house 🏡. But when they got there there house was big again! They decided to celebrate 🎉. They got a little cake and they ate it all.
And they lived happily ever after.
Book 2 coming soon!🙂😉😊.
Maggie, musing about why she loves the cabin:
I love the cabin.
When we want someone to come out,
we don’t have to go find them…We can just yell!
Conversation this afternoon:
Me: Did Mama talk to you about the rules?
Maggie: Yes!
Me: What were the rules?
Maggie: Um… I forgot. <shrugs> I forget things very quickly.
It was just a short jaunt up the coast to McMinnville, Oregon, where we stayed with Sarah’s friends, Jordan and Megan, on their incredible farm. Their kids were generous and welcoming to ours, inviting Griffin and Maggie to have a slumber party with them in their epic loft (with passages into multiple rooms upstairs… top-of-the-line cool). That was fun, but it turns out that five kids in a loft can generate a lot of heat. On the following night they all elected to sleep under the stars on a second floor deck. Other highlights of the visit included lots of time in their amazing garden, candle-making, churning butter, cookie baking, and cherry picking.
After Seattle (for days 8-12 if anyone is counting), we headed along the coast to Florence, Oregon to rendezvous with Andrew’s brothers and their families. They drove up from the Bay Area, meeting us as far south as we could get on this trip. Click below to see larger versions of the pictures in a slide show. It was a great visit!
Our first destination goal was Seattle, to visit Sarah’s uncle Bob and aunt Carol. After four plus days on the road, we were all looking forward to staying in one place for a few days and catching up with family.
Our first day, Wednesday, we got to hang out with Carol while Bob was finishing his work day. We enjoyed a walk to a local park where there was a fantastic playground and a hopping weekly farmers market. After going back to the house, the adults chatted and prepared dinner, and the kids were happy to have a table to spread out their Legos.
Clearing the table for Legos actually lead to a serendipitous highlight of our trip. Carol had a pile of mail she was moving for the kids, which caught Griffin’s eye. He saw a flier and said, “Is that Yayoi Kusama?” Carol, stunned, looked at Griffin completely speechless, wondering how he knew this artist.
A little background: The week before we left on our trip, Griffin and Maggie attended a week-long art camp with a local artist, Kari Maxwell. We met Kari a few years ago when we bought a painting from her at a house party. I later found out in addition to being a very talented painter, she also has classes and workshops for children called the Create Everyday Classroom. I signed the kids up for a camp they could attend together (the first time they fit into an age category at the same time!), and it happened to be the week before we left. The kids came home overjoyed each day with their experiences with Kari. She’s a teacher who is focused on process, and Griffin and Maggie each came away with so much knowledge and desire to create! On the first day of camp, they learned about Yayoi Kusama and her Infinity Rooms. This study obviously made an impression on Griffin.
Back to Seattle: Griffin recognized Kusama on a flier for the Seattle Art Museum, which was hosting a huge exhibit starting that Friday. We could not believe the synchronicity! Carol informed us that the advanced tickets had been sold out for months, but we figured we could swing by the museum so the kids could at least see a poster. We made plans to head there on Friday.
On Thursday, Bob took the day off to take us on a ferry to Bainbridge Island. The kids had never been on a ferry, and they were surprised to learn that being on an island felt like being on the mainland! We had clear views of both downtown Seattle and the ever elusive Mount Rainier. It was a beautiful day. We ended it by eating dinner out on Bob and Carol’s newly refurbished backyard patio. We all slept like rocks.
Friday, we were excited to learn that Carol was not needed at work, so all seven of us headed into downtown to hit the famous Pike Place Market. We took public transit, and riding an accordion bus was nearly as exciting to Griffin and Maggie as the destination itself. At Pike Place, the kids were in awe of the hoards of people, the flying fish, and the seemingly endless choices for what to have for lunch.
After a sunny meal overlooking the sound, we headed to the art museum. Shockingly, there were rush tickets available to see Infinity Mirrors, so we snatched them up! We were all so excited. We never would have even thought to go to this amazing exhibit had it not been for the kids, and there was something incredibly special for everyone that Griffin and Maggie were the leaders of this particular adventure. The infinity rooms themselves were other-worldly, and we all felt so lucky to have gotten a chance to experience them. Griffin and Maggie were the only children there, too, and we had several docents express their delight that we had three generations attending the exhibit together.
After a really wonderful visit, we bid farewell to Bob and Carol on Saturday morning. We barely scratched the surface of Seattle, so we’ll be back!
Our fourth day on the road seemed destined to be an utter train wreck. First, we all got a terrible night of sleep (due to the unwrecked trains at the last campsite). Second, after crossing Idaho and coming into Spokane, Washington, our air conditioner died at a gas station. Temperatures in eastern Washington were pushing past 90 degrees. This was not fun.
After finding a shop that could tackle the car on short notice, we discovered that we weren’t far from a public pool. So we grabbed the swim bag, slathered on the sunscreen, and spent most of the afternoon playing at the pool. This was totally fun!
It was also just what we all needed after three days of driving. Oliver got to enjoy his first time at a real pool; he was mesmerized by the water, slapping his hands on it and looking surprised (and satisfied) every time it splashed up in his face. Eventually, perhaps overwhelmed by the stimulation, he took a long nap on a towel, causing no end of comments from astonished parents about what a good baby he was. (I had to agree… it was blissful sitting under the umbrella, reading a book, while the older kids romped and the car was repaired a few blocks away.) Alas, we did not take any pictures because we were in survival mode, but we can recommend the Witter Aquatic Center if you’re ever in Spokane on a hot afternoon. This reminds me, too, of what a great resource public pools can be on road trips. We have fond memories of spending an afternoon at the pool in North Platte on our 2010 drive to Minnesota, as mentioned in this post.
Turns out that our air conditioner was damaged by some sort of small rodent that climbed in, chewed up some wires, and died. They fixed the wires and got the system working again, but could not find the body of the culprit. How did we know the merry villain had not escaped the unscathed? Why, the sweet smell of decomposition now scented our AC. Why choose new car smell when you can get dead mouse? (Fortunately, hot, dry weather encourages rapid mummification.)
I don’t think we left Spokane until five-ish, but we made it to a campground in the Snoqualmie area of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, just east of Seattle, with enough light to pitch our tents. In the morning we got to experience the full beauty of the Kachess Campground, easily the best campground of the trip. There are tons of forested sites along the shores of gorgeous Kachess Lake with trails meandering along the bank. See the pictures below.
