Vancouver

We had a very nice trip to Vancouver with my parents. My mom's family had their first ever official reunion; I met lots of cousins who I'd never met, and got a chance to talk with people who I've always known but never very closely. The event organizers tried to seat us by generation, splitting up families to get us to mingle. I think it worked pretty well. There was also a fantastic DVD put together by my cousin Graeme, with some of the only pictures I've ever seen of my mom's parents. I loved seeing how my grandparents' generation looked when they were young; a lot of family resemblances that I'd never noticed suddenly started popping out.

I don't really have pictures of all the people. Somebody needs to send me some.

We drove, so in addition to all the extended family, Patrick (who was a very good sport as he was plunged into the Wong family for the first time, 76 at once) and I spent a lot of time with my parents. The redwoods were amazing, so ancient and awesome but also creating shady, almost intimate spaces. Seattle was a lot of fun, too. We went to the Pike Place Market and had delicious fresh cherries, and at a leftie bookstore, I found a good breakfast recipe. I'll have to share that some other time. We also visited the University of Washington. It was pretty. I would be pretty satisfied if Patrick got a job there.

Most of my pictures are on my camera, and I neglected to bring the cord to transfer them to my computer. But here's one that I took on Patrick's camera. Plants are pretty amazing. How do they survive this kind of drastic manipulation? This image is the best thing I've got on America's Best Value Inn in Eugene, OR. I guess the value was pretty good, too, if you don't mind having a bed that spills into the bathroom and peanuts on the floor. Okay, so it was only one peanut. It was still pretty discount.

Now we are in Mexico. My next post will be about that.