We've had a bit of a whirlwind week. A few weeks ago, Beth and I were talking about the possibility of us going to Seattle for Thanksgiving, but I concluded at the end that it would be too expensive and we couldn't afford it. Beth was super disappointed at that, although she didn't complain about it, but I started looking for rates and fares again to see if maybe there was a way we could swing it. I finally found some good fares, though not with the best departure times, but it was the best we could do. So I told her we could do it after all, and she was sooo excited. Missy started her break before Alex, so Beth went and picked her up from school on Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday, we all headed for Chicago to catch a plane. The plane left at 4:30 pm, so allowing for rush hour traffic and heavy holiday travel we decided to allow plenty of time to get there (O'Hare) and get through security. We thought maybe leaving at 11:00 would be about right. Well, we shot right on through traffic to get to the airport, dropped off the van in long-term, and got completely through security in about 10 minutes. So we had a LOT of time to kill waiting for the flight. Anyway the flight was otherwise uneventful, and Scott & Alex picked us up at Sea-Tac and delivered us to our hotel (Redmond Inn). The next day, actual Thanksgiving, Scott met us after breakfast and we all drove a half hour outside of town to check out Snoqualmie Falls (site of the Great Northern Inn from Twin Peaks). It was much more touristy than I was expecting, and more crowded too, but oh well. Alex had a thing with some friends so we dropped him off after the falls, then Scott took the rest of us on a driving tour of Seattle and then we hung out in his apartment. Later on, when Alex was done, we went back his way to pick him up and go out to dinner. The plan was to go to Tipsy Cow for dinner, but when we got there it was locked and dark. Google had said they were open Thanksgiving, but they were most certainly NOT. We spent the next hour or two looking for a place that was actually open before finally finding one (Google lied about others too). We went to Shari's for Thanksgiving dinner! That's a place that specializes in breakfast and pie. They were out of their TG special platter but we had pretty good burgers. Friday Alex had another party with friends, so we did a tour of Digipen and went to Top Pot before dropping him off, then Beth and I and Missy took his car and went to Seattle proper. We were going to go up the Space Needle, but it was bust enough that tickets were sold out until like 7:30 pm that evening. We were there at around 3:00. So we punted on the Space Needle and took an Uber to Pike Place Market instead. Did some funs shopping and Beth got to taste the fresh salmon (OMG that is amazing!!!) so we bought a pound of it vacuum packed to take home. Then we went back to Redmond and checked out the Town Center (especially the game store) before picking up Alex and getting dinner at Zaucer's. After dinner Alex took us to our hotel at the airport and we parted there, since we had an early morning flight, so we didn't have to fight traffic that early. As a contrast to Chicago, the line in Seattle for security was a million miles long and moved at glacial speed. By the time we got through, I was really afraid we were going to miss the flight. We didn't, but they literally shut the door to the plane behind us as we got on. Uneventful flight to Chicago, picked up the van and drove home (stopped at Schoop's on the way home). Today, I drove the van for church, and Missy hung around home until this evening when we drove her back to school. She wasn't ready to go back yet. Still having roommate issues and hasn't heard back if she will be able to switch rooms.