Spring Travel, pt 1: Taryn's Bridal Showers in Seattle

This spring turned out to be a big travel month for us. In mid-April we drove to Seattle to attend two bridal showers for Taryn, Corinne's cousin. The first shower started mid-day on Saturday, and since Corinne was co-hosting the event we wanted to make sure that we arrived in plenty of time. Ordinarily we would have driven up Friday night, particularly with the increased uncertainty that Anders introduces, but several factors conspired against us in that regard:

1. From Seattle we would be flying directly to NJ to visit my family, so everything we needed for that trip had to be packed and taken with us when we left for Seattle.
   
2. We've both been working longer hours recently, trying to make a deadline in June. This week was no exception, so there was quite a bit less time at home in which to pack. (This will probably end up as a recurring theme in posts over the next couple months, though hopefully only that long).

As a result, we finished packing late Friday night, awoke early Saturday morning and hit the road by about 8:00am. We arrived just in time.

The hosts and bride to be!

Not content to settle for the "ordinary" shower games, Corinne managed to come up with some pretty creative game ideas for the linen themed shower.

Dinner Party. Each attendee was given a set of cutouts representing all of the pieces of a formal place setting: several plates, several glasses, and more than a half dozen pieces of flatware. Each person had to place the items on a place mat in the correct location, with the winner having the most correct. It is a lot harder than it sounds... (This game also contributed to our late departure as we were still cutting out flatware on Friday night.)

Napkin Folding Contest. Each participant was given a cloth napkin and had to fold. The winner was whoever the bride-to-be judged to have the nicest or most creative napkin.

Folding a Fitted Sheet. Each participant folds a fitted sheet, with the winner being the person who is judged to have the most precise and neat end result.

"Stains" Word Scramble. Similar to the game Boggle, she created a square grid of letters as the "board". Hidden within that board were a set of common linen stains whose names could be formed by following contiguous letters.

Anders also had a chance to spend some time with Petra, daughter of Dan and Heidi-Lyn, who is approximately his age. Of course he made a good impression.

They actually played next to each other on the blanket for quite some time before Petra decided it was time to end the date. On Sunday we went to another shower for Taryn where a few more games were played, delicious food was eaten, and Anders spent long periods sleeping in his carseat in the corner of the room.  He is such an easy traveler these days!

Other than the two showers, the rest of our short time in Seattle was devoted to celebrating Uncle Pete's birthday and hanging out with Anders.

But before too long it was time to continue our journey... on to New Jersey!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket