Visit from the cousins, May 26-31, 2009

My sister and family were in town the week after Memorial Day and got to hang out at our house and in Seattle. We were all at work/daycare all week, but it was still great to see them and have Maeve hang out with her 3 cousins. One night Mike and I even got to go out - we went out to Golden Gardens, a beach/park in Ballard to watch the sunset for our anniversary. It was chilly and beautiful and the park was packed. I think Noell and Gary got to go for a walk one night, too. Nice to have family around to be built-in babysitters and share the child-rearing time.

On Saturday, May 30 we all drove out to Rattlesnake Ledge, a hike about 45 minutes outside Seattle that is in a park that also has a lake - therefore very kid-friendly. On the way up, we played a bit of hide and seek, which involved the three mobile cousins running a ways up the trail and "hiding."Here's one of their hiding places beside the trail. We hiked part way up the trail to the ledge and it became clear that the older cousins (Elliott and Winnie) were most interested in going down to play in the lake and the younger cousin (Maeve) was the slowest and would eventually need carrying while the youngest cousin (Hugh) needed to nurse. So we went down in batches, with Hugh nursing a while trail-side and then played in the water. Maeve's still not so sure about getting her clothes wet and didn't much like walking around in wet underwear, but they all had a blast. Elliott could walk all the way across the lake.







We then had a picnic and went to a nearby water resource center that was having an open house and waterfall tours, which were already booked. At this point, Maeve was crashing so we went home. On the way out, the other car noticed that the trail had been shut and we wondered why. The next day, it was in the paper: someone had fallen and died in a freak accident.

Maeve learned tons from her cousins, we'll be figuring it all out for a while, but an obvious one was that last week she decided to quit wearing training pants and night and instead wear underwear. That she wore training pants had been discussed a couple times at night time with the cousins, but wasn't a big deal, but apparently Maeve really noticed. We've had a couple of accidents, and Maeve how has a cold and is back in training pants, but the end is near. Just in time for her 3rd birthday.

Maeve also loved touching and "playing" with Hugh, who is pretty game. She got to hold him a couple times - good practice for being a big sister in 6 weeks.