Our first weekend back in the U.S. was spent hanging out with my sister Karen, who lives in Mukilteo. For the first time since we had arrived the previous Sunday, the weather was miserable - cold, overcast and drizzly. A typical day in the Pacific Northwest, in other words. My dad drove the three of us to Kingston, where we boarded the ferry for the short trip across the Puget Sound to Edmonds:
Karen met us at the other end, and after a lunch of burgers and beer, took us into Everett, where she works for the YWCA. Amber will always remember the city for its Imagine Children's Museum - several floors of hands-on activities and play areas, where kids can pretend to work in a restaurant, fly a plane, drive a bus or perform on a stage, among other things. My daughter most enjoyed being a veterinarian, but she also displayed an affinity for what could be done in the construction zone:
I certainly don't recall ever having cool places like this one to play in when I was Amber's age (then again, I had orange groves nearby to run around in). We would discover several "kid-friendly" spots during the two weeks we were back in the States.
After a dinner of Thai takeout at my sister's apartment, we checked in to a hotel just up the road, where I topped off the evening with a bottle of the locally-brewed Hale's Ales Red Menace Big Amber Ale...:
...which brought a smile to the face of this old Political Science major (Professor Zinner and his Soviet Foreign Policy classes). Amber got a kick out of seeing her name on the bottle, and from that point on, any time we walked down the beer aisle at a supermarket, would ask me to "find" her on the shelves.
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