Home Sweet Home

It was an unusually clear day on Sunday when we flew out of Portland, OR on our way back to Colorado. There were four peaks visible which we think (but are not certain) are: Hood, St. Helens, Rainier, and Adams.

Well, I'm not so sure about the sweet part of the title, as we were all pretty sad to leave the Pacific Northwest, but it is nice to be back in our own space after two weeks of travelling. We spent Christmas day and the week before with my whole family at my older sister's house near Portland. The day after Christmas we headed up to Washington where we rented a house in West Seattle for the week and got to visit with Pat's family in Tacoma and our friends in Seattle. There were of course a few bumps (we may or may not have brought some sort of 24 hour stomach bug with us to Portland), but overall it was a really great trip.

It's been kind of crazy since we got back with trying to get the house organized again (Christmas stuff is still up and it's driving me crazy!), a bunch of appointments on Monday, and then me having minor dental surgery yesterday. I now have a shiny new front tooth to replace the one I ran into a parking meter with when I was eight years old. I never thought I'd say this, but, please--no. more. ice cream.

Anyway, so for now here are a few very random iPhone photos. Will hopefully be getting to the others this week!

Niamh & her new cousin Ila

Disgruntled Ila B.

Christmas tree at the Pittock Mansion

Another Christmas scene at the Pittock Mansion

To Seattle!!!

Muriel at the Museum of Flight

While in Seattle Muriel attached herself to our friend Jay



Waiting to get into the Harry Potter Exhibit at the Pacific Science Center

Morning in San Francisco

The morning before Thanksgiving we spent a little bit of time in San Francisco. Not too long, because we were worried about afternoon traffic getting out of town, and we were also all a little grumpy from not going to bed until (at least) midnight the night before. We made a quick-ish stop at the Ferry Building where we got donuts (egg free!), chocolate, bread, and cheese. After that we went to the Golden Gate Bridge for a quick walk before heading to Santa Rosa.

the bay bridge

Ro outside the Ferry Building

Niamh's first donut ever! Complete with four-year-old attitude.

I wanted a picture of all three kids together in front of The Bridge, but that wasn't in the cards.

Back Home!

Golden Gate Bridge

Goat Rock Beach, CA

Half Moon Bay, CA

We returned Sunday afternoon from our Thanksgiving weekend visiting Pat's family in California. There were a few bumps, such as the kids not going getting to bed until midnight (CO time) on Tuesday night due to airplane issues and me getting another round of strep throat. I'm also pretty sure Niamh was feverish for a few days. In spite of all that it was a pretty good trip. Most of the photos I took are all still on my camera; these are from my iPhone. We are slowly, slowly getting back to normal here, so hopefully I can get some more pictures up this week.

Weekend in Portland, OR

A few weeks ago my mom, two sisters, and I gathered in Portland to celebrate the impending arrival of the newest Winchell Sister baby. My sister Amanda and brother-in-law Mike are expecting their first baby in November and we are all SO excited! We had a great weekend sans-enfants. There was a lot of laughter, good conversation, relaxation, and of course fantastic food.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend. I'm afraid there aren't a whole lot because I wasn't really in the picture taking mood. Sometimes it's nice to just focus on being in the moment rather than recording the moment.

Heehee! I saw this on some photo blog (can't remember which one now), and Amanda humored me and let me try it out on her.

pampering at The Barefoot Sage

donuts being made at Moody's Donuts

basketful of hot donuts--the best I've ever had!

shelves of artisan salts at The Meadow

Weekend In Seattle

At the beginning of this month I was able to spend a wonderful, but all too short, weekend in Seattle. Had breakfast with my parents, got to hang out in Ballard with friends, finally met a sweet baby that had been born while we were in Switzerland, and-the point of the whole trip-attended a baby shower for my dear friend Eve. I'm afraid that I came back to Colorado fairly homesick. But I'm so glad that we are at least close enough to the west coast now to be able fly over for events like this!

my mom at Señor Moose
(wishing I had thought to get a picture of both my parents!)

sweet baby Corbin

house in Ballard

at the Ballard Farmer's Market

Eve

More pictures can be found on Flickr.

We've made it!

This trip from Morges to Loveland was one of the most painless flights we've had with the children. I'm not sure I can say exactly why, but for some reason it all went pretty smoothly.

Rowan mostly watched movies the entire way from Geneva to D.C.

Niamh colored, played with stickers, or some new toys she got for the plane. And Muriel did a little of what Niamh did, and also...

took a nap for about an hour. We hit the only snag in the journey when we got to D.C. and found out our flight had been canceled, and Rowan then completely melted down. We were able to get on a new flight a couple of hours later, but Rowan's meltdown lasted until about forty minutes before the flight, when he finally crashed on the floor of the airport. He basically slept until we got into Denver.


Niamh and Muriel played for a bit, but then they also fell asleep. And they too slept until Denver. We got to our hotel around 10pm, found out it was too late to even have fast food for dinner, so we just ate whatever snacks we had leftover from the flight. We took the kids down to the pool for a little bit before it closed, and they got to bed at about 12:30.

The next day we got into our new house bright and early, and the rental furniture arrived a few hours later.


This photo of Muriel asleep during dinner pretty much sums up how tired everyone was by the end of that first day in Colorado.