My Friend

Clare is one of the most genuine kids you will find. She is friendly but it takes a while for her to warm up to people and to show her true self,which Mitch and I are priveleged to see this side of her all the time. It just melts our heart to see her sensitivity. I truly believe children are the best judge of character. On our recent excursions, we ventured into Build a Bear with the intention for Clare to build herself a bear. We were looking around at the various bears and out of the blue Clare says, "Make my friend Beth one too." We asked her why and she proceeds to tell us to "Make her feel better." As I mentioned in prior post, Beth is currently battling breast cancer and has been in extensive treatment since January. She still manages to teach 4th grade full-time, take care of her family, and even watches our girls on occasion. Clare loves spending time with her and is always excited when we tell her Beth is coming over.

Beth with "Lil One" and Clare with "Champ", the names Clare gave them.

Spring Break 2010

The first couple days of springbreak weren't that great, Leah and I were both sick. We both went to the Doctors and were put on antibiotics, which helped both of us. On Wednesday, we headed over to Seattle to the Woodland Park Zoo, then drove up to Everett to stay in a hotel for a couple of nights, so we thought. Thursday was very busy day as we spent all day visiting Mitch's family and our friends Dallas and Sareh.

Mitch, Leah, Clare, Aunt/Great-Aunt Denise

We visited Uncle Ed and Aunt Denise in the morning. We enjoyed a great breakfast with them and Clare loved playing with all the toys Great-Aunt Denise had for her.
The girls with their Great-Aunt Denise who is always spoiling them. The girls are so lucky to have all these wonderful people in their lives.

Clare cracks me up and was such a ham on this trip. Here she is asking me, "What are we doing next?", visiting more relatives of course.

We visited Mitch's Great Uncle Larry and Great Aunt Marge, which would make them Great, Great Unlce and Aunt to CLare and Leah. We just love Larry and Marge. They spoiled us with an awesome lunch. We even had the opportunity to see Mitch's second cousins Tim and Lori, who are Larry and Marge's children.

Of course one of the adventures was keeping Clare entertained in the hotel room and keeping her fed. Here she is enjoying a snack and watching Dora on Mom's computer.

Leah spent most of her time just relaxing and sleeping since she still wasn't feeling well.

The hotel we had offered a great breakfast and Mitch along with Clare were able to charm the ladies in the restaurant to allow us to bring food back to our room. It was delicious and Clare thought it was pretty cool to eat in bed.

The outcome when Clare has her own cup of hot chocolate.

Okay, so on Friday we were headed home after being in a hotel for three days and exhausted. Well, we noticed that a traffic report for the pass was flashing so we turned on the radio to listen, THE PASS WAS CLOSED. Who would have thought the pass would close in April? We pulled off to a Starbucks, hence the chocolate all over Clare's face in picture above, to try to get a hotel for another night. Clare was so excited but Mitch and I not so.

Clare's expression after we told her we were staying another night. We made the most out of the situation and went to Bellevue Square Mall. Clare played in the kid's area and we went to Build A Bear, which Clare liked making a bear for herself and Beth. It was a very fun and unforgetable spring break, but we were glad to be home.