cha-cha-changes

Some times plans are meant to be changed. This past weekend I had planned on making a trip to Bend to visit Mark and spend time with him and his friends there. After changing our plans once due to a forgotten dentist appointment, Thursday night found us together in Salem. His mom called and suggested that we go up to Seattle, hang out with his dad and meet some of his extended family. So we changed our plans again and we ended up spending the weekend in Seattle. It was a great weekend. Friday night I met his three uncles for some pool and a kind of family game night. They were all very fun and I managed to impress them with my minimal pool skills.

We then spent Saturday in the city. We went to the Olympic Sculpture Park,

up the Space Needle,

had some amazing sushi

and of course visited the Pike Place Market.

The weather was an amazing 65 degrees and sunny, we couldn't have asked for better. Saturday night we went to dinner with his sister and her husband. After diner we needed to make a quick stop at a Fred Meyer for some cough drops and snacks for the drive home and ended up walking around the store for about an hour. Mark's sister and her husband kept finding things that they needed and kinda dragged us along. We were both completely exhausted by the time we left the store and so ready to call it a day. After a few games of Bananagrams (super fun as long as I'm not playing with Mark) we finally went to bed.

We stayed with Mark's sister Saturday night and drove back to Salem Sunday morning. It was an absolutely amazing weekend. I once again learned the lesson that some plans are meant to change and that's ok.

when will it stop?

I feel like all I have been doing the last year is packing and then subsequently unpacking. If I had to give the year 2009 a name it would be the Year of the Suitcases. There was my first major packing prior to moving to France. There were a whole bunch of small weekend trips that shouldn't have been difficult but trust me, they were. There was also the huge packing of the entire house when we moved from one village to another. It is actually harder packing up someone's house that isn't yours. The easiest was when I was coming home. Choosing what I was packing was easy, fitting everything in my suitcases was the hard part

I am leaving for New York in two weeks and I once again have to start thinking about packing. There is quite a bit of uncertainty with this move and so I have a feeling this round of packing is going to be quite difficult. I suppose the one major upshot to this is that I am moving into my brother's already furnished apartment.

I know there are a lot of you out there travel often, any advice?