a trip to seattle

Last week we made a trip to Seattle for a Browning family gathering at Shelby’s brother Dave’s house. Normally these gatherings are done at Christmas, but Shelby’s brother Brian and his family were in the US from New Zealand. So for the first time since our wedding the entire Browning clan was in one place together. It was also, of course, the debut for the newest member of the family…Riley. Aside from the unpleasant 4 am wake-up the trip to Seattle was uneventful. Riley tends to be a good traveler. The difference in time zones and presence of energetic young cousins made for interesting sleep times for him all week though. Even so it was a good week overall and our boy fit into the family well and was loved by everyone. Here are a few pictures:

Riley and Poppa

Grammy’s shoulder makes a fine place to sleep

Riley and Uncle Dave

Riley and Aunt Kristyn

Riley and Cousin Erika

Riley and Cousin Jenna

Riley and Cousin Daron

Riley, Momma and Cousins Thomas and James

The men watching sports

Riley and Momma have fun at the playground

A great shot at the pumpkin patch

Ooooh! I love that toy!

Riley going incognito

Daddy also got to have some fun on Tuesday with one of his fellow BOMB mountain bike ministry leaders. I got to ride one of the biggest hot spots in mountain biking, the North Shore of Vancouver. For more on that click here. Here’s a picture:

Jonathan at the entrance to ‘Corkscrew’

It was a good visit and a fun week. As usual though, we are glad to be home. The trip home on the plane was a little more of an event than the trip out. Riley started crying at a time when we figured he couldn’t be hungry. We were wrong (we fortunately finally found out.) The problem after that was that he wasn’t hungry for descent, and of course wouldn’t take his bink either. We felt kind of helpless seeing our boy grabbing his ear and crying as the pressure changed. Finally he took a few short drinks from his bottle and his ears cleared and he was OK. We’ll have to work on that timing I guess…

It was great to get to spend so much time with our boy. Now it’s back to the working world.

Jonathan