Home at last.

We're back from our Labor Day road trip and I started unloading my pictures onto my computer just now and realized that for all we crammed in we have very little photographic evidence.

On Friday we loaded up the mini (van not Cooper...obvious to those who know us) and headed to Ellensburg to celebrate our brother-in-law Cage's 30th birthday. We camped out in their yard which Charlie loved. Annie, on the other hand, still hates the tent. She kept our neighboring tents up until around 11 pm. Then the little sweetie started wailing at 4 am and not only woke everyone sleeping around us but she woke the roosters. Once the roosters were awake I'm pretty sure the neighborhood was awake. I'm sure they were all so sad to see us leave today...he he he.

Saturday morning we headed downtown to watch the parade. It was rainy and cold but the kids didn't seem to mind. Throw a little candy at a 3 and 1 year old and they can deal with anything. While there we found our friends the Dyks and convinced them to join us for pizza afterwards. Sorry Lori, next time I think Grants is out and Panda Garden is so in! Oh and a little PS to my former Tunstall Commens co-workers: there was a Kieko and Bob sighting at the parade. They were on the back of a float so I didn't get to go say hi but they looked exactly the same.

Saturday night was the big 3-0 bash for Uncle Cage - again - sorry about the lack of pictures. Below is Annie throwing a fit because Grandma wanted her to give up her cell phone to hold the pinata bat. If she only understood what a pinata was and how wonderful the insides would be before Grandma tried to steal the phone we would have been money.

Charlie "wailing" on the kid pinata.

Still mad even after she saw all the candy. Possibly not my daughter.

Next the kids went to bed and the adult pinata came out. Below is Grandpa giving it a good beating.

Matt happy to be messing with his Grandpa.

I was putting the kids to bed when the adult pinata finally broke so I can't verify it's contents firsthand, but I'm told everything was X-rated. Very clever idea by Aunt Katie, lots of laughs were had over that surprise.

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So Sunday morning the rest of the crew went to the fair and rodeo and Matt and I hit the road for Seattle. Matt's buddy Jon is still touring with Brett Dennen and since we were so close we thought we should see him play Bumbershoot (who am I kidding, I'm the biggest Brett fan, I would have found a way to go even if we were way over in Spokane still for the weekend).

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Matt had never been to Bumbershoot and I figured he would only go once in his life after he figured out that you spend more time in line than you do seeing shows so I figured I should make the most of it and go for the whole day.

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We got there at 2:00 and immediately got in line for a 3:00 comedy show. I wish I had taken a picture of Matt sitting on the wet ground with his eyes closed waiting to get in. He looked so pissed which somehow only made me smile more.

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After that we hit another 1-hour line so we could sneak in another 1-hour comedy show. The 1-1 math was killing him and usually I'm just as impatient but if both of us looked pissed people would wonder why we were there in the first place. So I smiled and tried to remind him how funny the comics were and how all this waiting would pay off.

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After our second show Jon called so we found him, found a dry place to eat, and hung out until his show started.

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Brett's show was so awesome. The stage was right below the Space Needle, the rain let up just as he started, and we had a great view of Jon (read: Brett) from our spot on the field. They played an amazing set and I totally wasn't ready for it to end when it did.

So that was about it. After the show we jumped in the car and drove back to Ellensburg for the night. Oh and I forgot to mention that on Saturday it rained so hard that everything in our tent got soaked. Soooooo we pawned our kids off on Grandma and Grandpa (who had a room inside) and we moved our camping mattress to the back of the van. Yet another reason why having a van is so awesome. We didn't really need to drive all the way back from Seattle to sleep. We could have just stopped the van anywhere and slept.

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We didn't. I just wanted to say that we could have.