Nora's Emerald City Tour

This past weekend, Brian was supposed to go to the Seahawks game (the Wild Card playoff game against the Redskins that we WON), so I had plans to go up to Gig Harbor to see my sister and then take our daughter Nora to Seattle during game time to meet a few friends and hang out in the city.

Well, the plans for Brian fell through, but I decided to go anyway. My Mom asked if she could go with me, and I was thrilled...anyone who's driven an hour in the car with an infant strapped into a rear-facing rocketseat in the back of the car knows how hard it is to keep said infant happy without some form of entertainment sitting in the back seat beside her/him.

In fact, I'd actually packed earplugs in the diaper bag just in case she went ear-splitting on me before I could get the car pulled over in a safe spot.

So off to The Harbor we went -- and had a wonderful visit with my sister and her family. John (who's holding her in the picture above) and the others had a great time holding her, and she got lots of cooing and fun time with all of them.

Then it was off to Lenny's house in Seattle. Lenny is an old friend of mine from waaay back in the '90s somewhere. I met him when he started working at The Seattle Times as one of the web designers for what was then a fledgling Seattletimes.com.

We had a mutual friend Nikki who had a knack for bringing in all sorts of lost souls, newbies in town, and anyone else in need of a friend, and even though Nikki has moved out of our lives, the rest of us have stayed good friends.

I don't think I've seen Lenny since about 2002 or so - I know it was the same year my brother got married, as my husband and I went up to Seattle and spent a few days at Lenny's house after the wedding to enjoy the city a bit.
After all the coffee we could drink, we headed down the hill towards my FAVORITE restaurant of ALL TIME -- THAI HEAVEN.

Thai Heaven is at 352 Roy Street in Seattle -- at the base of Queen Anne Hill in the shadow of the Space Needle.

Go there, eat Paradise Chicken. It's just the best, and unique to this particular Thai restaurant.

There, we met my friend Kim from college. Kim and I went to the University of Washington together, and while I don't think we ever lived together, we had a few roommates in common, and we shared a LOT of good times.

Kim's a doula now, and has two beautiful girls. It was so neat to see her, and she said she was thrilled to get her 15 minutes of fame on this blog with her picture.

Wave hello to Kim, everyone!

After lunch, Miss Nora had had all the fun she was going to pull out of several hours of sitting in a carseat, only to be removed and body-passed around, so we headed back to my sister's.

The next morning, we had breakfast at a local restaurant, and we headed towards home.

I have to say, it was amazing how Nora slept all the way to Portland, and only woke up to eat when we pulled into a Target in Jantzen Beach for a feeding before heading on home.

As my Mom said, "She's absolutely perfect."