Basketball is just getting into full swing for my sister, Margie Lou. She came to the realization that Basketball is going to basically dictate her life from now ’till March or so, and if she wanted to spend a weekend away from Salem, she was rapidly losing her chances to do so. So a few weekends ago, ML and her boyfriend Kevin, visited.
Saturday, Tobin had a meeting in the morning for school, so we did a little shopping at the newly-opened Nordstrom’s Rack (yippe
e!). Also hit up Ross. By the time we were done shopping we were famished, and Tobin was getting out of his meeting. We decided that we would go for a hike, but first eat lunch. We drove out to XXX Rootbeer in Issaquah and had burgers. Yum! We also enjoyed their rootbeer (of course) in frosted mugs. After all the eating, we needed to work our food off, so we decided to hike around at Tiger Mountain.
We’d never been hiking on the mtn. before, so we weren’t really sure where to go, but luckily people were parked along a road parallel to I-90 which tipped us off. :) We found the parking lot just fine and walked along several (flat) trails. We “hiked” for several hours - it was really nice. At one point we stopped because Margie Lou and Kevin were “whistling” using pieces of grass (if whistling is what you can call it, it sounded pretty horrible). Tobin and I joined in and not too long after we had a VERY CONCERNED bird calling back to us. lol We’d apparently threatened it on its territory.
We (everyone but Kevin) took a bunch of pictures. Margie Lou especially found the slugs interesting - and the super furry orange caterpillar. I got a pretty cool shot of the water splashed up from a rock that ML or Kevin tossed in front of a duck. Tobin got some pics, and also took a pretty funny video of us whistling with the grass. lol
After the hike, we decided to hit up North Bend. ML needed some blue and white basketball shoes, but unfortunately we found nothing. While we were at North Bend, 
Stephen called insisting that we come to their house for dinner (they came back for the weekend). He’d gone fishing and caught a salmon that he was cooking up. Of course I can never turn down salmon, so off we went.
We had a good time at Stephen and Heather’s. We used to spend a lot of time with them, b
ut that has kinda been hindered by the fact that they’re 180 miles away in Ephrata now. :) Heather showed me her school-issued laptop (a MacBook), and the boys played Halo. (Speaking of Halo, Tobin got Halo III and has been playing it every chance he gets.)
Sunday morning I made Belgium Waffles for breakfast
, complete with strawberry sauce and whipped cream (Tobin was at a men’s Bible study). Then we went to church. Church was awesome. A Media missionary, Michael Helin spoke. It was very cool. I’d love to head to Madrid sometime and teach at their school!
After church we drove to Seattle to take in the Olympic Sculpture Park. It was rainy, 
but we still had a good time. The cruise ships left while we were there which is always cool. Then Margie Lou and Kevin had to head back to their respective homes (ML in Salem, Kevin in Wenatchee). They were awfully sad to have to go their separate ways… But all in all it was a great weekend. I really miss my little sister and always like spending time with her (Kevin’s not bad either).
Check out the pics from Saturday and Sunday.
A few more of my fave pics from the weekend:
