Wonderful trip to Washington

(Would you believe my luck:  I found a couple of precious minutes to publish this post two weeks ago and something happened and it didn't work.  So this is the second time.  You know you lose things when you try to write something twice.)

We took a really, really nice trip to Concrete, Washington to visit Aunt Tessa and Uncle Gary for a week.  Oma and Opa came too and we had a great time.  Cousins Karen and Terry and Charlotte and Natalie came for one day and the girls and boys went into a bedroom and all we heard was laughter for a while.

It was sweet to hear Ben say Aunt Tessa and Uncle Gary.  Oliver didn't quite get their names - he called Tessa Aunt Geery, I think.  But they both know Oma and Opa well.

Tessa had a house full of delicious food, and one morning Ben and Oliver sat and ate almost a whole cantaloupe (antelope) and about a dozen kiwis.  Oliver said over and over, "More pease" and "tin tu."

We watched a dog documentary one night and Oliver sat on Aunt Tessa's lap and pointed to every dog he saw on the screen, exclaimed each time and said "goddy!" or "ruff!"

Ben tasted some special gum from Oma's purse and then wanted a piece of Oma's bubblegum every couple of hours.

The weather was typical Pacific northwest (flooding, even), but we had a couple of days with nice enough weather to go the playground, do a really neat hike, and go to the beach for sunset.  On our hike through the gorgeous, mossy rainforest with gigantic trees, Ben acted silly and crazy.  He might have been annoying to us, but maybe he was pretending to be a superhero hiker and I bet he felt powerful.  Oliver was a little trooper and hiked a long way without asking to be carried.  At the beach, Ben, Oma and I were brave and took our shoes off to step in the freezing ocean, and Ben stayed barefoot much longer than we could.  There were military jets flying around and around, and the sunset was gorgeous.  Ben and Oliver threw rocks, and watched Cousin Barrett (dog) chase sticks in the water.

Ben loved flying, and was upset that we had only one flight each way.  On the flight home, the pilots door was open and the flight attendant offered to let Ben go talk to the pilots.  Our camera battery was dead, so we couldn't get a photo.  We thought Ben would be fascinated with all the buttons, but one of the pilots happened to ask how old he was, and that set Ben off on talking about his birthday party a couple of weeks before, and the conversation was dominated by monster trucks instead of flying a plane.  I thought nobody could talk to pilots after September 11, so it was neat that they let Ben step in.

About a week after the trip, Ben said to me, "I like Oma a lot.  I miss her.  I think she should come visit."  (Sorry, Opa!)  One day Oliver pointed at every bearded gentleman and said, "Opa!"  Oliver also periodically says "Miss...Oma."

Thank you Aunt Tessa, Uncle Gary, Oma and Opa!