Mommy and Emmalyn visit Grandpa and Grandma Olsen

Last weekend was a big weekend for me! I put on my big girl panties and drove to and through Seattle all by myself for the first time! And with a toddler!! With a DVD playing and snacks on hand, we departed on our 5+ hour journey. As we approached the pass, I started seeing signs that there would be road closures due to blasting on Wednesday at 8pm. I thought, "that must really suck!" Then I thought, "wait...today IS Wednesday!" Check the clock. Crap, it's a little after 8. Sure enough, shortly after that we met up with a long line of cars. You know it's bad when people are taking this opportunity to walk their dogs. By this time, the excitement of a movie had long worn off and Emmalyn had been fighting sleep for about 2 hours. Being stopped for 30 minutes feels like 3 hours when there is a cranky baby in the car throwing tantrums and toys. Finally I saw people getting back into their cars and moving along, YAY!! With about an hour left on our trip, Emmalyn finally gave into sleep. Ahhhhhhh, peace and quiet :). We arrived at my in laws home, only to have Emmalyn cry hysterically for a good 10 minutes. She did calm down, and slept like a rock. She must have known we had a fun day ahead of us!

And a fun day it was! We visited Forest Park. Friends who live in the Everett area, I recommend this park! There is a small animal farm, a huge playground, and an awesome splash pad. Emmalyn loved chasing the goats around and quacking at the ducks. 

Emmalyn's favorite part: the splash pad! Such a water baby!

 Unfortunately, it's all fun and games until someone takes a swing to the forehead. That someone was my sweet Emmalyn. I couldn't catch her before she reached the swing, with a girl swinging rather high on it. She took that swing right between the eyes, flew off her feet, and instantly had two black eyes. Luckily, she recovered faster than I did from the incident! She calmed down and took a nap. The only thing that calmed me down was watching Mike's 6th grade graduation on VHS! Who knew in 1997 that this would be my future husband??

The next day, we visited a family fun center. Emmalyn was far from impressed by the tubes, tunnels, slides, and play mats. I tried numerous times to coax her in, but she wouldn't have it! This was about as far as I could get her!

Despite a swing accident and fun center that Emmalyn wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole, we had a great weekend away!

 Emmalyn enjoyed blowing bubbles with Grandma.

And stealing french fries from Grandpa.

And digging for treasure under the furniture with Uncle Matt.

And keeping an eye on the neighbors with Tuff.

Thank you, Larry and Dorie, for a wonderful weekend! We hope to do it again soon!