Okay, I'm better now. The cold that was plaguing me and lulling me to sleep has (mostly) passed. So should I write about this past weekend, or the shower project? Heck, let's go for the weekend.

As I mentioned, Sunday was Poodlepums' confirmation. My folks, my brother and his wife, and my sister all flew out for the event. It was the first time either sibling has been out this way since we moved out here, so we had a grand old time playing tour guide. We did the old Seattle staples: the Underground Tour, Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, a harbor cruise and Mt. Rainier. We were going to spend a day at Pt. Defiance in Tacoma, but rain forced us to visit the Museum of Glass instead. The only day we didn't go out and about was Sunday, when we did church and had a luncheon for all the attending relatives at our house. (And so we learned that the upstairs of our house does not seat 25 comfortably and (thankfully) the garage roof can support the weight of at least ten people.)

Exhaustion aside, it was a near perfect family vacation before we head to China. (It would have been perfect had my brother-in-law, neice and nephew had also been able to come out.) When we visit Illinois, we usually stay with my folks and visit with my other family members once or twice. Well, there's usually at least one big family gathering where everybody shows up. Anyway, this weekend was a chance to spend a lot of time with just the immediate family, enjoying a lot of life's blessings before us Seattle Hamburgers head out to the land of strangers and culture shock. Of course, now we all need to go on serious diets, but that's okay....