Easter

I really have nothing against Seattle other than it’s over three tedious hours away and constantly raining. If you are at all sensible you will break the journey at some point – I would recommend you choose a lesser known exit and find the nearest diner; you may happen on a sublime slice of pie a la mode (which means “with ice cream” in the US, because ice cream is perennially in fashion). On arrival at your destination you will find a sort of Portland on steroids, only with traffic and less hip and twice the price.

On the positive side, Jeanne and family live there and I have therefore resigned myself (and Ethan) to the biannual excursion, though, as you can tell, I have only resigned myself to doing it and not to stop whining about it, much to everyone else’s irritation.

Ethan was a little young and a little tired for the aquarium, which was actually rather good; however he did enjoy running up and down the boardwalk repeatedly. Sea otters are enormous BTW. The black spot on Ethan's left cheek is a penguin, in case you were wondering.

As per usual, Jeanne whipped up a fabulous meal with apparently little effort and Evgeny (or “Uncle Dude” as Ethan calls him) let me have full reign on the liquor cabinet. Plus I was able to watch Top Gear “on demand”. So I really have nothing to complain about. Meanwhile Ethan enjoyed the Easter Hunt, or more specifically the “special treats” he found inside the day-glo plastic egg shells.

It may not be a four day (or even a three day) weekend, there may not be a hot cross bun in sight and the eggs may be laid by chickens rather than made by Cadburys, but by virtue of having married into a family of essentially upbeat and practical people, I had a far better time than a curmudgeon should reasonably expect.


This neatly captures the chaos that now epitomizes family gatherings.


Ethan and cousin Max almost playing together.






Ah – a special treat!