Wow What A Weekend!!!

The Fox Family has been busy, busy, busy. We were lucky to have some company the last few days. Shawn's parents came up on Thursday afternoon and left bright and early on Tuesday. We love showing people around and want to make sure they get the most bang for their buck, so we kept on the run most of their visit! They arrived at our house, traversing through the Seattle traffic all by themselves, at about 3:30 on Thursday. Pretty much the minute they walked in the door the tour began. We headed down to the beach since it wasn't raining for about 10 minutes. I am not kidding it has been raining (drizzling) pretty much everyday for the last who knows how long!! So when I say it wasn't raining for 10 min. and we headed outside, I am not exaggerating!!! We started out Friday morning with a healthy jaunt up 88 steps to take Gabe to school, then headed off to Snohomish, antique capital of Washington. We had a great time. I think Papa and Grady read almost every book in one of the shops we were in!!
Judy hit the jackpot as far as Raggedy Ann collectables go at one of the shops, so the day was written off as a success! We headed back in time to pick up Gabe and then headed down to Arnie's for dinner. The next morning we went for a ferry ride over to Whidbey Island. We traversed the whole island and stopped off at Deception Pass park and bridge, where the boys, yes Shawn included, tried to give Grandma Judy a heart attack!! There are some pretty scary looking edges and they were dangling dangerously close! We also had the rare opportunity to see and photograph a bald eagle. After a full day on Whidbey, you would of thought we would have called it a day, but no, that would be for a bunch of whimps!! We got freshened up and headed to Alderwood Mall for some shopping and dinner. We found some bargains and headed to McGrath's for dinner. The food was good, but sometimes our waiter went MIA, so the dinner took a little longer than usual! You know you've been waiting a while when you look over to your six-year old and he is fast asleep, sitting up. I guess we had a full day! Sunday was no day of rest. We went to church and then headed to Pikes Place Market in Seattle. No first-timers trip to Seattle is complete without this stop, so we had to get this squeezed in!! After buying lots of fresh, yummy fruits, veggies, and other goodies, we headed home for a short and much needed nap. After one hour of rest, time to head off to watch the Purple Dragons play basketball. Gabe really strutted his stuff for his Papa and Grandma. Gabe scored his first basket of the season!!! I'm not sure who was more excited, us or him!! After the game, we went and rented our skis and headed home for dinner. Monday morning started out bright and early. Shawn said the Armada was pulling out at 6:00 a.m., so you better be in and ready!! We were heading for the slopes and that is serious business!! Let me give you a little information that will be helpful later, the Cascades (mountain range where all of the ski resorts are) have gotten a ton of snow the last few weeks. They had around 90" of snow the last 7 days, and close to 400" so far this season. Okay with that information you know that the snow runs out of places to be put, so up here they just keep piling it up. I am not kidding when I say some of the roads up there feel like you are driving through a tunnel because the snow is so piled up on the side of the road. So this amount of snow is just avalanches waiting to happen, which is exactly what has been happening. Most of the resorts have been closed not only because of avalances on the slopes, but the slides of snow that go across the roadways. What a MESS!! Well we found out that Snoqualmie Pass was open on Monday for skiing, so off we went. We arrived about an hour and a half before the slopes opened, so we searched for a place to eat some breakfast!! The only place around was the Family Pancake House, which was very good, if you could get passed the idea that you were sitting under a roof that had about 8 feet of snow on it. Not exactly Susie Safety!! After snapping some crazy snow pics, we spent the rest of the day skiing. Grady and Grandma watched from the lodge. They had a great view to see us all tumbling, whizzing, and hot doggin' down the slopes!! We had a great time! Dad and Shawn even tempted some of the black slopes - what go-getters. Gabe and I just skiied our greens, we were happy as larks there!! We headed back toward home around 3:30. On the way home, we spotted some flashing lights and started noticing in the eastbound lanes of I-90 (we were in the westbound lanes) a bunch of cars and semis parked on the sides of the road. We tuned in to the traffic radio and found out there had been a natural slide (avalanche) at mile marker 51. We had been skiing at mile marker 53 all day! God blessed us with a safe day and kept us from harm. We were very lucky. Well we made it back to Edmonds and decided to meet up with a friend from back home. We had dinner at Buca Di Beppo's with Nate Lambert. We had a nice visit and dinner. After dinner we headed for home and thankfully our beds!!! I doubt any of us had a hard time sleeping last night or will for the next few!! We were very busy, but enjoyed having Charles and Judy. Any and all are welcome to come visit at anytime, just let us know so we can start planning a whirlwind tour!!