Trains, Babies, and Family in Seattle

We recently made a quick trip to Seattle, both to visit family and return some borrowed items. Since Corinne is still working a three-day week (Monday-Wednesday), she was able to drive up to Seattle with Rocket on Thursday. The family got a few extra days of Anders time.

Anders and Chloe, Mark and Carol's Westie, were pretty curious about each other. Thankfully Anders's grip wasn't quite developed enough to get a strong hold on any of that hair.

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I stayed home to work the remaining few days and would take Amtrak from Vancouver to Seattle on Friday night to join them. I was hoping that I would get to sleep in on Friday morning - with no baby to wake me - but of course I ended up having a restless night without the rest of my family with me.

I left work a little early on Friday in order to catch the 6:30pm train. Along the way I stopped at IKEA in Portland to pick up some pieces to an office desk that I had been trying to get for several months. As anyone knows, it is difficult to get in and out of IKEA in a timely manner. On this particular occasion, however, I was prepared: I knew the specific aisle and rack on which my items would reside in the warehouse section; I went in the Exit and hopped the gate across a checkout aisle; and then proceeded directly to the self-service checkout. I was in and out literally in 10 minutes! After all, I had a train to catch.

What I didn't account for, though, was rush hour traffic. (Our rural area doesn't have traffic!) When Corinne called me on the cellphone about 5 minutes before the scheduled departure, I hadn't yet arrived at the train station. I managed to pull into the station parking lot just as the train was rolling in - but I still had to pick up my ticket! I grabbed my bags from the trunk, managed to lock the car, literally ran at top speed to the station, grabbed my ticket, and jumped on the train seconds before it started moving. I don't think I could have cut it any closer - and I don't intend to try. ;) Thankfully I had several hours on the train to unwind after all of that excitement.

One of the motivations for the trip was to return some borrowed baby gear. Our friends Malinda and Jean loaned us some much needed gear when we were unexpectedly in Seattle with a newborn back in September. Since Malinda was due in March with their second, we had a definite deadline for returning their bassinet and car seat. We ordered dinner from the same Chinese restaurant that we had the night before Anders was born, hoping to "induce" the same result in Malinda that it did in Corinne (no luck). Before we left, we put Anders down for one last nap in the bassinet.

The other motivation was to visit with family, including Corinne's Aunt Patsy who was on a month-long visit from Ohio. We met up with her daughter (and Corinne's cousin) Andrea for brunch on Sunday. Anders is in his "fancy" outfit, since it probably won't fit him for that much longer!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket