Family

We had a nice visit with Oli's family this past weekend. We drove over on Saturday. First we stopped in Kennewick to see Dieter's new place and new truck and had lunch at the mall and bought ourselves a new comforter. Dieter's apartment is pretty nice, a couple of the half walls lean but his cabinets are much nicer than ours. His truck (Tundra) is pretty fancy but sadly will not fit in his nice, extra-long-but-insufficiently-wide garage, both side view mirrors hurt. He also lives in an apartment complex styled after a labyrinth.
Next we stopped at Maryhill museum. There were peacocks, lots of peacocks. Sassy, noisy birds. Oli had to get out of the car to chase one out of the way. Lady thought the peacocks were pretty cool but became wary when one pecked (the air, not him) a warning when he got too close.
Then we stopped at our friends parent's house in White Salmon. When we told them we were visiting family that weekend Erick and Shanell decided to visit too. We had a nice little visit and Layden had fun charming them. He enjoyed playing with the transmitter for a wireless headphone set, he kept plugging them into the carpet.Finally we made it to Oli's parents' house. The next day we all went over to Hood River for a birthday lunch at the inn. Oli, Joy, Judy, Jerry, Jane, and Bob all have May birthdays. Lunch was quite tasty and we enjoyed chatting with all his family. Judy and Jerry drove over in their Mini Cooper (1 year old) which is pretty cool, Jerry even let me sit in the driver's seat. It looks like a lot of fun to drive but no fun for anything more than 2 adults.
Then Monday Oli's two sisters came over along with his niece Mindy who is currently living in Indiana and his nephew Will. We all went up to Panakanic and roasted hot dogs over a fire. Joy brought up one of her drums and the one she just made for Layden and she and Bonnie had a jam session.

left to right: Oli, Joy, Me, Layden, Frank, Mindy, Will, Bonnie, Fred

We headed back on Tuesday and the drive went pretty well until the end. Then Layden was playing with his drum stick sticking it inside a water bottle. Whenever he would drop one of them he would say uh-oh over and over and over like a cuckoo clock until it was picked up. Pretty soon I was asking "are we there yet?"
It was opressively hot today but it is finally starting to cool off. Layden is entertaining himself watering the yard with the nozzle set to mist. For a boy who hates to have his hair washed he sure loves water in all other forms. Tomorrow it is supposed to get up to 90 and we will be going to Tristan and Evan's birthday party, they both have late May/early June birthdays. So Layden and I went and picked them up presents this evening then had dinner with Oli.
Yesterday Cody and her 9 month old daughter Christy came over. I will be taking care of Christy for a couple of hours in the evenings during the week. The visit went well, Christy is a lot like Layden was. She isn't crawling yet but she gets around by every other method. Layden never plays with his stuffed animals but when I gave her a few he kept taking them away, along with one of her toys and hugging them to his body. After about 10 minutes he got over it and didn't care if she played with them. So I think he will do ok. The first few times I hold her will probably be rough for him but he should get over it and it will be good practice for when he gets a brother or sister.