Seattle-Part 1

This post has taken me way longer than it should to get up because I've gotten fed up with all the pictures several times. I think now I've gotten it straight!

 

Back to our trip!  The day after we got home from St. Lucia, we took off for Seattle.  This was Ruthie's first time having her own seat on the airplane and she looked like such a big girl.  Both girls were excited to go to Grandma's house!

 

After the flights were getting a little long, we started playing around with the ipad taking silly pictures to keep Ruthie entertained. 

Our long flight, we had a row of three seats. Lainie and I took the window, Ruthie was in the middle and Joel was on the aisle.  This seems to work best for us because both girls can move around but are completely blocked by Joel's legs.  Plus this gives me the most privacy when feeding Lainie.

On our first flight we had great flight attendants who were super sweet to the girls.  One flight attendant came up to Ruthie while Joel was in the bathroom and asked her if she wanted some candy (after asking me first, thankfully). Ruthie pretty much leapt into her arms.  Yikes, talk about an eye opener that its now time be talking about strangers... I didn't think anyone would believe me that she went with a stranger (since she has never gone near a stranger without screaming) so I took a picture.

After a long day of flying we got to Grandma's House! Ruthie was so excited to run up to Grandma in the airport, I wish I had a picture of that.  One of my favorite parts of the trip was that the girls carseats were next to each other (and I was usually in the back row so I could take pics) and they kept holding hands.  Break. My. Heart.  Seriously, into a thousand pieces.  They did it over and over.

I really almost can't take it.  

Once we got to Grandma's house, the girls quickly found their boxes full of toys and Ruthie showed off her loot!

My MIL Judy, has a friend from Japan who she has been penpals with since she was a teenager, Yasuhiro, who was able to make it to the wedding.  He is one of the nicest people I've met and Ruthie instantly loved him.

My big girl and I.

Aunt Jessica decided to make her own wedding cakes and was baking when we arrived.  She had a great helper.  The cakes were absolutely delicious.  She made a Roasted Apple spice cake from Smitten Kitchen.  She also made red velvet cakes, but I'm not sure what recipe she used for those.  I would definitely make the apple spice cakes again, they were so good! I bet they would make a great muffin.

 

The next day was spent playing with Grandma and Grandpa, grocery store runs, costco runs and getting as ready as we could for the wedding weekend.  The wedding was held at Wellspring near Mount Rainier National Park.  There weren't stores nearby so everything pretty much needed to be ready for the weekend when we left on Friday. 

As always the swing is a big hit!

She loves it!  I love this one!

Thursday evening, Jessica's MIL, Aleda came and joined us for dinner. The girls loved her and she is just so sweet. I'm glad we were able to spend some time with her!



 

Of course, Ruthie (and Lainie) love love love Miss Molly.

 Ruthie loved playing with Grandma non-stop and especially hiding with all of Auntie Jessica's stuffed animals!

Jessica and I spent the night (from about 7pm-1am-ish) making frosting and splitting and leveling the cakes.  We decided to go ahead and frost the cakes that night so once we got to wellspring we could do the final decorations.  Those containers are holding the first and last wedding cakes I will be part of :-)!  We had a good time doing it, but wow cake decorators earn their money and probably don't charge enough.

 

The next morning it was time to pack up and head to the wedding site!  Wedding Weekend coming up in Part 2!

West Coast time!

Like I mentioned before we had a day at PapaGigi's house before we flew out to Seattle for Aunt Jessica and Uncle Tim's wedding week!  We had been talking about going to Grandma's house for weeks, so when we woke Ruthie up really early all we had to say was that today we were going to Grandma's house and she was Pumped!

Everywhere we went Ruthie told anyone and everyone she was going to Grandma's house (she was a big hit with the flight attendants).  She is really coming out of her shell lately and we couldn't believe how much she was talking to everyone.  The past 2 years of her life, she has pretty much cried if anyone she didn't know looked at her so this is a huge change.

This part of the trip is going to take several posts, so in order to post on Wednesday, here is the video we took when we got on the plane!  So cute!

Easter Week

We were fortunate enough to head to Seattle to spend Easter week with our West Coast family and we had a fantastic time! Side note, Ruthie's face totally cracks me up in this picture. Its perfect and hilarious! I have lots to update, from the flights (we went specifically at this time because it was the last time we didn't have to buy Ruthie a ticket, which means we each had a lap baby. I'll have one post on just the flights), Easter egg hunts, church, friends, family and lots of fun.....after I unpack :-). Until then, here are a few pictures from our week of fun!