Getting Out of Dodge

We love living in the Tri-Cities. It's dry, sunny, safe. It can just get boring in the winter.

We've been spoiled by the family-fun offerings of Columbus & Kansas City. Luckily, we live close enough to civilization that we can escape.

We had a great weekend visiting my family. It began Saturday with a trip to this fine establishment:

to get these fine dressers for the boys:

that I have been dreaming about for a good long while.

On Sunday we celebrated Great-Grandpa Brown's 76th...

...as Great-Grandma gave Parker a mini-class on playing the organ that has been in our family for generations.

There was plenty of rough-housing with Grandpa...he took a good, long nap after playing horsey for two wild boys...

And pancake-making with Grandma (where's the pic of this?)

Then on Monday we headed back home, but not before stopping at Snoqualmie Pass for a little tubing fun...

I was psyched to go until I saw the hill. Yikes. But when Parker was gung-ho, I knew I had to be. And, of course, it turned out to be the most fun we've had in forever. I don't know how I managed to escape taking a shot of the 12-lane Highway Hill of Tubing Bliss. Maybe it was because I was I was too busy scrambling out of the way of other crazy tubers sailing toward me at 40 mph (a thrill, indeed). But, this is a shot of us on the peaceful rope tow.

T-bone was done with the thrill after an hour and opted to defrost in the lodge with hot cocoa and a brownie.

It was a gorgeous sunny day and a yearly tradition is born! Anyone wanna join us next year?