SEATTLE

I don’t think my family has ever tried to fit more into a vacation than we did in the three days we were in Seattle (which is saying a lot for being the avid travelers that we are!) Seattle is beautiful place! The first two days that we were there were absolutely gorgeous weather-wise – sunshine, high of about 80, slight breeze … I almost felt guilty that we weren’t experiencing stereotypical Seattle weather and was kind of relieved when our last day was overcast and drizzly. I found out on the lake cruise that we took that it actually rains more on average in Houston every year than it does in Seattle (which is hard to believe consider how dry this summer has been!)

Friday

Friday was my dad’s day. As the delegate from Texas in the AVMA, my mom actually was the designated person to nominate my dad for president-elect. She did a great job on the power-point presentation that she’s been working on for the past couple of months. After helping her out with it on a few different occasions recently, I was quite glad to see it play out so well. I did feel rather important sitting in a room full of people in business suits who were gathered to discuss political issues for something along the lines of 8 straight hours and was rather glad to step out when my mom’s presentation was over.

After the nomination speech, we had lots of time to kill before things would be official. The crew (consisting of my sister, brothers, sisters-in-law, and several family friends) all headed to the Market. I remembered being there before when I was younger and it was great to be back! Just the sight of all the beautiful fresh fruit and flowers was amazing. If I had life my way I would probably always have fresh-cut flowers on my table, but if I lived in Seattle that would actually feasible because they’re so pretty and cheap! My dad wanted to have some flowers for his reception later in the day so we purchased some huge and beautiful arrangements (that were only $10 each)!

Post-flower purchasing, Uncle Del and I went back to the hotel to work on making sure everything was set for the reception. My dad was slightly anxious about the fact that his meeting was to last right until the time the reception was set to begin, so Del & I agreed to help check on things and ensure that things were under control. We wanted to set up the flowers but didn’t even know what room we were supposed to be in, so we started to make some phone calls. We learned which room the reception was to be held in and decided to go by to look at it. 2 ½ hours prior to my dad’s reception the room was still full of a couple hundred people. No big deal, but we thought it might be nice to figure out when they would be out so we could set up. The reception was scheduled from 4:30 to 6:00. The secretary in the business office didn’t seem to understand why we were concerned when she told us that the event already held in the room was going to last until 5:00. After going back and forth a few times all she offered was an apology and a contact number for the “event planner”. I quickly got on the phone with the event planner who proceeded to be of no help. His response was something along the lines of “Ma’am, the information you have is correct. The reception will be in Willow Room A from 4:30-6:00.” As I relayed my concern, he simply replied that he was sorry but that it wasn’t his fault so I was going to have to speak with someone at the hotel about this matter. By this point, it was getting closer and closer to the time we were supposed to be back in the meeting to hear my dad’s speech, not to mention, closer and closer to the start time of the reception. After another phone call, someone finally informed us that the room for my dad’s reception had been moved. I was quite relieved when I went to the room and saw that they were setting cocktail-style tables up and that they allowed us to set out our flowers.

The next dilemma quickly arose as my mom stepped out of the meeting to inform us that there were still 3 issues left to discuss on the political agenda before the meeting would reach its conclusion. Apparently they weren’t light issues. The 4:30 reception start time arrived, guests began to trickle in, and my dad wasn’t even officially president-elect yet. After a couple hours of anxiously sitting with my family outside of the meeting room, we were finally allowed to enter back in and watch my dad’s brother and my mom escort him to the stage to officially accept his nomination. My dad gave a very eloquent speech and is now officially President-Elect of the American Veterinary Medical Association! Way to go daddy-o!!! After going through the painstaking process of watching a couple of travel videos about Atlanta (where the convention will be held next year), we were finally released to go actually start the reception with the man we were honoring. Though slightly concerned that we wouldn’t be able to eat the countless trays of desserts in the 20 remaining minutes of the scheduled reception time, we were relieved to learn the hotel agreed to allow us to stay in the room for some additional time without extra charge. It was a huge success. I literally greeted hundreds of individuals as they walked in and was so proud to talk with them about my dad’s newest accomplishment!

Next on the agenda was the Mariners-Rangers game. I think it was the only game of the series that Texas actually won. Too bad I was rooting for the home team. It was a great time anyway even though we missed the first couple of innings!

Saturday

First thing Saturday morning I went on a GREAT run. Seriously, it may have been one of the greatest runs of my life. It was perfect running weather, I got to run along the ocean, there were really pretty flowers everywhere, I passed TONS of Starbucks (not real sure why that is notable) … it was great! After the run, it was time to get ready for my dad’s surprise brunch! I confirmed with the restaurant manager that there were 17 of us on our way for our 10:30 reservation and we made the mile walk to the Café. They had amazing food and a great time was had by all! They also had amazing mimosas. I had never had one with any juice other than orange juice … I highly recommend the apple-raspberry! My dad was indeed surprised when Kyle & I walked him in and everyone was there to congratulate him. The morning wouldn't have been complete without documenting all of the Aggie rings present at the table.

After brunch was said and done, 8 of us piled into a couple of cars to take the 2 hour drive to Mt. Rainer National Park. Though we didn’t get to spend a ton of time there, our hike was quite enjoyable. We even got to see a deer from just a few feet away!

We made it back to Seattle in time to get ready for a monorail ride to our fancy dinner at the Space Needle. Though they wound up having to split our group into separate tables (despite having booked reservations over a week in advance), and though it was after 10:00 by the time we were seated, it was quite an enjoyable evening! The world’s first revolving restaurant truly is quite spectacular.

Sunday

I had talked Kyle into running the AVMA 5K race with me on Sunday morning, but I was honestly a bit skeptical that he was actually going to show up to my parents’ hotel room at 6:45 after the late night he had the night before (he was definitely still going strong after I had already retired). I was very appreciative that he came with me. I was not very appreciative that the weather decided it was going to be kind of yucky and that we were going to have to stand outside for 30 minutes before the race actually started. (Had I known this, I may have chosen to bring an extra layer while standing in the 50 degree drizzle, but that’s just a minor detail.) I was so glad when the race actually began! I’ll probably never be able to say this about any race ever again, but I in fact beat my brother! I was the 6th female finisher and broke the 22 minute time I was hoping to beat! (Please take into consideration that this was a very small race … I’m indeed not all that fast of a runner, so saying I finished 6th was by no means a huge accomplishment, but I was proud of my time and pleased with the race!)

By the time Kyle and I were shuttled back to the hotel, we had just enough time to shower and get dressed for the Lake Cruise that my mom had bought tickets for. It actually was the perfect day for it even amidst the chill and drizzle. It’s not very often that I’m comfortable wearing 3 shirts and a fleece sweater in mid-July. It was such a nice change from the Houston heat. I learned lots of fascinating information about Seattle and got to see lots of floating homes and other water-front properties including Bill Gates’ home and the house that Sleepless in Seattle was filmed at!

The afternoon consisted of a cable car ride back to the hotel, a trip through the veterinary exhibit hall, seeing off Steven, Amy, and Sam, and some relaxing family time back at the market. I talked Gwen into going to take a picture with me at the original Starbucks and enjoyed the pleasant stroll with my family. It was nice to finally get to spend some down time with my dad who was cooped up in meetings for the majority of the weekend.

My parents then headed off with my sister for their fancy Foundation Dinner while the rest of us borrowed my dad’s special key to the Executive Lounge where we hung out until it was time for the Natasha Bedingfield concert. It felt quite nice to walk in to up-front seats right as the main act was getting underway. It helps to have friends with VIP passes who are able to save seats for you! Veterinarians are clearly not the most avid concert-goers. It was rather strange that my little group of people was by far the most animated group there other than the one guy off to the side playing air-guitar. After the concert we killed a little more time hanging out with dear family and friends before Kyle, Meg, & I caught a cab back to the airport to wait for our 12:55 AM flight back to Houston. I think I walked back and forth between our gate and the central area where there were actually few places open at least 3 times during the wait. It was amazing to see how many people were still at the airport to catch red-eye flights. I managed to get a free large diet coke which was exciting other than the fact that I probably didn’t need caffeine that late at night. Oh well. I was quite glad to be sitting next to someone I knew rather than by myself at the back of the plane on the flight home.

If you actually made it this far, I’m really sorry that I didn’t give a briefer version of my weekend. In case you can’t tell, it was rather fun!

PS – it would have been posted sooner, but I was waiting to get a few pictures from my parents who just got back Tuesday night. Apparently my New Year’s Resolution of taking more pictures myself isn’t going so well.