Weekend Road Trip

Don and I have a great three day weekend ahead of us. We're headed down to Portland today for a brief family reunion. Reunion is a bit formal of a term for the gathering. Basically we have extended relatives visiting from Sweden and anyone who can make it is meeting in Portland for lunch today so that Oregon and Washington family members can both make it. I'm actually not even sure how I'm related to the Swedish relatives but I'm looking forward to finding out. When I was a kid I used to pen-pall with some of our distant cousins. Sure will be neat if they are there and I get to meet them for the first time in person.

The timing couldn't have been better for a trip to Portland as it serendipitously happened to coincide with the arrival of Jeremy and Katy, our good friends from L.A. who we miss terribly. They have hopes on moving to Portland over the next year and are coming to check it out first hand. So we've booked rooms in the same hotel and will be hanging with them tonight and tomorrow morning, doing a few get to know Portland type things. We can't wait to catch up. We're being adventurous and staying in a 2 star hotel to save money. You certainly can't call us snobs!

Tomorrow night then it's out to Fort Worden in Port Townsend for a great annual event, Ben Dobyn's Murder Mystery Party. It's become a legendary annual event, for which this will be the first time Don and I have gotten to participate now that we are back in the northwest. We've seen the fantastic photos in the past, and we can't wait to finally experience it first hand. We are playing a wealthy Egyptian art collecting married couple. I get to wear a head covering which in this case is a pretty green scarf borrowed from Jessica. Thanks Jess!

The dogs are going on their own adventure this weekend too. We're driving them down to Portland and then handing them off to my sister who lives in Seattle but is headed to Eugene after the reunion. So they get to spend the weekend in Eugene with the whole family and then she'll bring them back up where we can pick them up on Sunday in Seattle and head back up to Bellingham. They're asleep in the back of the car right now as we are heading south on the I5 corridor. They don't know what's about to hit them. Kristy said she would watch them as long as Seumas doesn't cry the whole way. I sure hope he holds up his end of the bargain!

Lots 'n lots o' fun ahead! It's shaping up to be quite the exciting weekend.