Weekend vacation

     This past weekend Tim and I took advantage of his three-day weekend from work to go visit his cousin Katie and her family in Vancouver, WA. (Not Canada). We have been looking forward to getting to see Katie and her husband Ben and their sons Mark, 4, and Sean, 5 months, ever since we found out we'd be moving to Washington. It was great knowing that even though we were moving away from immediate family, we would have some relatives in Washington. It's been about six years or so since Tim saw Katie and Ben last, meaning it was going to be the first time he got to meet her two adorable boys. I had never met any of the Bradley clan before. 

Here's Katie with Mark. 

     We also had a great time on our drive over to Vancouver. We drove west along the Columbia River through north Oregon and really enjoyed getting to see a different area of the Washington/Oregon border. The Tri-Cities where we live is quite desert-like, pretty dry and brown, with tumbleweeds and all that. But as we got closer to Vancouver, the terrain changed to green forests and more rainy weather. Here are some pictures we took on the drive over. 

Here's Tim in front of the Columbia River.

Here's my latest baby belly picture. It was taken at 29 weeks, 6 days. It was majorly windy so forgive the hair. 

The Columbia River Gorge has dozens of wind turbines.

     We spent Friday night through Sunday afternoon with Katie and family. We spent a lot of time chatting  and catching up on Friday. Tim and Mark became immediate friends while playing Star Wars and Legos. Here are some pictures of the two of them. 

Wrestling...

Making silly faces...

Building with Legos... 

Is this guy going to be a good daddy or what?

     

     Overall, we had a great weekend. It was pretty low-key. We ate a big pancake breakfast, took a walk through the neighborhood, played with Legos, snoozed a little, played a role-playing parody game called Munchkin, went to church, and had a good time hanging out with family. 

Baby Sean was such a cutie. Tim was particularly proud when he was able to get Sean to smile and giggle at him (apparently a rarity with strange men). 

While Tim had a little Mark-sized shadow for parts of the weekend, I had this guy following me around-Merlin, the clingiest, most needy cat on the planet. 

In addition to putting up with us all weekend, Katie also presented us a gift for the baby-this painting for the nursery, a cute knit cap, and a soft baby blanket. Isn't the painting sweet?