We’re back from Seattle, after a long, rainy flight and a short, rainy drive from the airport. Seattle is in the middle of a drought, it turned out, and the view from our hotel room was amazing. I got up on Sunday morning to realize that Mount Ranier had become visible on the horizon, something I’d never seen before. It’s funny how that one glimpse of mountains all around changes your perception of the city permanently, even if you don’t see the mountains through the mist again for another six months.

We had a great time visiting my sister Bridget and my brother-in-law Tony. Kate observes that I automatically revert into little-brother mode when I’m around Bridget. I found some really, really nasty Christmas-cookie-and-edible-marker combinations, and was writing my initials on my tongue before too long. Also, sucking the markers like candy. Personally, I think that’s natural behavior given the discovery of edible magic markers, but it’s not important. What was important was that the yellow marker was flavored “banana”, and tasted awful. Probably not as bad as a Sharpie.

Bridget and Tony built their house in the middle of a rain forest on the Olympic peninsula side of Bainbridge Island. They’re both artists: Bridget’s mostly a ceramist, and Tony’s mostly a painter and illustrator, though their interests range much more widely. Their house is beautiful, and it’s filled with gorgeous things that they made. Their dog, Rosie, is the happiest dog in the world: Puget Sound is a half-mile away, and there’s a million things to smell in the woods. Plus, there are three goats and several chickens in the back yard. The chickens used to be egg-layers, but they stopped a couple of years ago, and now they’re mostly pets. I say “mostly” because B&T have a “better drowned than duffers” policy about the chickens. The chickens don’t get locked up every night, and sometimes Bridget and Tony will wake up to find a big pile of feathers where a chicken used to be!

Here are some pictures I took of their house!