Welcoming Nadia to the family!

In late August, Mirek and I had the pleasure of traveling to Seattle to spend the weekend at my cousin Ben's wedding and welcome Nadia to the family. Given that we also have some solid peeps living up there, we were able to enjoy more than just wedding festivities with the fam.

Day 1: Meeting our new best friend, Aurelia!

The weekend was full of babies. Our first stop was to visit Dan and Emily and finally meet the newest addition to their home, Aurelia. As you can imagine, she instantly charmed us. And I will never admit that she likes Mirek more than me... ever.

Seen here: Auriela being held by Sophie, while chewing on another Sophie.

We spent the evening enjoying some dankity dank take out (soup dumplings for the win), sipping on some delicious beer Dan graciously let us enjoy from his private stock, and gushing over Aurelia (yes, she is that cute).

Don't worry, puppy Consuela got plenty of love too.

Day 2: We're On A Boat, Mother F___er!

The next day we had an amazing Mexican feast on the Puget Sound, and we left Dan and Emily to meet up with the whole fam-damily. We checked into the Airbnb, sipped on some delicious Seattle brews, and - after waiting hours for Mirek to fix his hair - we finally headed over to day one of wedding festivities, a boat tour of Seattle.

Clearly the hours paid off.

The best part about the day was finally getting to meet Nadia. I'm shocked that it took so long for this to happen. Less shocking was that I was clearly the center of attention for the entire evening. Here is photographic evidence of this fact.

Fine... maybe a smaller, cuter family member was the center of attention.

The boat ride was amazing, the bride and groom were stunning, and a good time was had by all.

While the boat ride had come to an end, the evening was far from over. We headed back to our trusty Airbnb and walked 2 grueling minutes to the neighborhood bar, Chuck's Hop Shop & Kegs.

After some amazing beers (including a Gluten-Free gose and IPA for Sam), we headed home to play one of the best games in history (shout out to the lovely Jana for introducing us to it). There is no name for it (that I know of), but you can think of it as "telephone" but with alternating drawings and sentences.

This pattern repeats itself until you have your original paper back in your hands, at which point you read the sentences out loud while showing the corresponding drawings.

WARNING: bring an extra pair of underwear.

Here are some of the best from our evening:

Follow the story by starting at the upper left and going counter-clockwise

As you can see, things escalated quickly. 10/10, would do again.

Day 3: Wedding Day

We woke up feeling rested and not-at-all-hungover-as-if-a-small-child-had burrowed-itself-into-the-space-between-my-eyebrows and headed out to the famous Pike Place Market. If we could give any advice to someone going there, it would be to go on a weekday. Otherwise, prepare to dodge crowds like it's a sport.

We managed to dodge the crowds for about an hour before deciding a glass of wine and some cheese back at the house would do just fine. It also worked out because (again) Mirek takes forever to get ready, and he needed to go back and start his beauty regime.

Back at the house, Mirek was taking an egregious amount of time deciding which shirt best matched his eyes, so we decided to pass the time by having a photo shoot with Leeloo.

I mean, come on, does it get any cuter?

Once Mirek finally finished dolling himself up for the evening, we headed out for the wedding at Pacific Tower. It was a beautiful event, and we thank Ben and Nadia for allowing us to be a part of their special evening!

Mirek hid for this picture after deciding his chosen shirt washed out his eyes.

Day 4: Buddies, Boats, and Babies

Our last day in Seattle was spent visiting 3 and a half other amazing humans. Enter Mike, Laura, little James, and his soon-to-be sister (still taking up residency in Laura's belly).

Not seen here: a secret basement room you slide down a fireman's pole to get into that had Mirek in a giddy child-like frenzy.

Laura cooked us an amazing dinner, James showed us all his new toys, and Mike took us on their boat for a tour of the Puget Sound.

I suppose you could say Mike showed us one of his new toys, too.

All of this happened while James wasn't feeling well and had a fever. To say he was a trouper would be an understatement.

With bellies full of delicious food and more bubbly water than I care to admit drinking, we made the schlep back down to Portland. We slept like babies that night.