Oakwood Bellevue

... time on this vacation! Our Emerald Sea Dive Club friends made it such a good time all the way around. It was really a treat to travel with such a great group of people. We really look forward to our next chance to get away with this incredible group. Minahasa Resort was top notch and really has a great thing going. It's absolutely beautiful, for starters. Their staff and service is impeccable, although it does ...

... s not on any of the city maps - says it all! One good thing though - there are no seats so there ain't nobody trying to balance a non fat sugar-free grande vanilla latte while typing on a laptop at the same time. The next day we took the bus North to Edmonds where we landed on the doorstep of the parents of Travis, a friend of ours. Well, before we actually got to the doorstep ...

... their families. We set the fireworks up along the top edge of the fence with line rockets stretched between the fences. The most amazing thing is that Larry did not know there was going to be music playing and could not hear it during the show. I don't know ...

... donde parecía que la única comunicación entre la gente era a través de su ordenador portátil, montones de obesos y de gente latina con caretos miserables en las tiendas o facturando las maletas. El vuelo de enlace se retrasó, así que pasamos lo que nos pareció una eternidad en este deprimente lugar. Ya es Seattle, Jenny nos recogió y pasamos unos días en su coqueto apartamento con increíbles ...

... Steelhead Diner, Drinks at Rays, Keith's housewarming, mom and dad's 40th anniversary party, creating menu and cooking for 10 people, riding Hawk, getting lost hiking, seeing a moose while on an atv, riding the duck while in a Seattle Skyline Bedazzler gone crazy shirt, Mike and Jill moving to Hong Kong, Rosa and Drew getting married, Sheryl and Alex getting married, conversations with Sarna about filmaking, insomnia, swimming at Denny Blaine, cabbage salad ...

... Volcano at The Mirage. It was a lot of fun. One highlight had to be the all you can eat buffet in the Bellagio at lunch time, for the excellent price of $20 - I would recommend it - the choice and quality of the food was amazing. We also went out one night and ending up seeing a performance by the Las Vegas contingent of the Pussycat Dolls, preceded by our walk along The Strip with a yard of Margarita! Anyway, time flies - will carry on later. J

We got an early start this morning. I didn't realize, but Kelly told the boys last night that if they got up early, they could play the new Game Cube game they got.(Star Wars) We were shocked when we heard Collin waking Keegan up at 6am this morning. They got up, got dressed and came in our room to play.(they have it set up in there) Keegan is normally the Early riser, but 6am is ...

... on some gift purchases I made, but I guess it's no big deal. I made the flight. After waiting about 1 1/2 hours after arriving in Amsterdam, I headed to my gate to check it out and make sure I had the departure time right. There was an extra security check to go through just to get to the waiting room for boarding the plane, so they began this process 1 1/2 hours before the flight was supposed to leave which means it was ...

... in English. "Don't worry about language," I've been told. "Everyone in the world speaks English." I say, bunk and baloney to that notion. True, most people who have to deal with traveling Americans speak enough English to conduct trade. But how blasphemously RUDE of us, of ME, to wander here and there, traipsing around someone else's homeland, expecting them to change for me! (The Egocentric Traveler.) And then there's the matter of basics -- a ...

... Severson (known to all in the family as "Cherry") was at Karen and Alan's house to greet us. One of the wonderful things about having a large extended family is that we have family everywhere! Actually, Cherry was the last of Steve's 47 first cousins that we had never met. What a blessing!