Hiding from the meddlers in a foreign country

So for those of you who wondered, here's my sister Chrissy's dating/elopement story. After Voldemort (aka the first husband) left Chris had a bit of a dry spell. She'd set herself up on an online dating site and had been emailing Evan but hadn't met him. Her best friend told her if she didn't get back on the wagon, she'd fix her up with some xray tech at work. With a fire lit under her but she decided to meet Evan. She had some sort of back up plan with her friend and her twin, Carrie. She was supposed to be home by a certain time and call them so they knew Evan wasn't a serial killer. When she didn't call they were both in a tizzy in the morning thinking something had definately gone wrong. She says she'd been out late and just fell asleep. They started dating "just for fun" but didn't fill anyone in. We thought she was still stewing over Voldemort. In our family we joke about the "inner circle" like those crazies on Meet the Parents. Me and the parents are generally not deemed cool enough to be in the inner circle so no one knew about Evan. One night Dave randomly crashed her place when he was in Seattle and Evan was there. Finally in the circle! Shock and awe baby, that's the key. Dave and I were quite pleased with ourselves to be the holder of information for once. Anyways after a while she moved into his house so we all figured they'd get married eventually. Well my parents were in Seattle over the Fourth of July for one of their crazy bike trips and Evan asked my dad for Chrissy's hand. My dad being the best secret keeper ever, told Evan "well you'd better do it soon because I won't be able to keep it to myself." So Evan moved up his plan and proposed that day, just to be safe. That night my mom started the attack, when, where, how, what color!! I guess his mom is even worse. Chris had already done the big wedding thing once, and lets face it what guy really cares about that. She didn't want to spend a year dealing with two moms, and stressing out about things like flowers and cake. At first they joked about eloping and everyone got mad so they planned a "wedding" for the end of September. She was always a little vague about the details but we all chalked it up to a low key affair. They'd had this trip to Costa Rica planned for several months. They convinced another couple to go with them as witnesses, and secretly planned their wedding in a rain forest. Early the morning they left, Evan called my dad's phone and left him a message that they were eloping in Costa Rica, and buy the way their phones won't work there. Then they promptly turned off their phones. My dad being a considerably smart man, told my mom right as he dropped her off for a 30 mile bike ride, to my house. After a seething ride, and I'm sure a good workout, she arrived still mad. We spent a good hour speculating if it was real or not. Being the sneaky girl she is, Chrissy sent her "invitations" to arrive exactly on August 31. Inside was a cute invitation and a picture postcard announcing "we've eloped!", with the 31st as there wedding date. Talk about planning. (I called my dad to give him a head's up to check the mail before mom.) When they got to Costa Rica, Chrissy's luggage with her dress, shoes, and everything else was mia, which set her right off. Women in our family are anxiety ridden. We do not take kindly to things not going smoothly. The locals sent her to some town with supposedly good shopping. She found a store with 3 dresses and chose the lesser of the evils. She got married in a brown short dress, and whatever else she could find. Oh and I guess swimsuits there come with a regular bottom and a G string option, just in case you ever need such an ensemble. Apparantly in Costa Rica anyone can marry you if a lawyer signs it. And everyone runs really late (maybe I should move there). So when the guy who was supposed to marry them didn't show up, their photographer said "Oh I'll do it don't worry.", I'll have my lawyer drop by your hotel later. He married them and his assistant, Fabi, took pictures. Then when the photographer took back over, the log they were perched on broke and they fell in this creek. Not some piddly almost dry creek either, this was a rain forest remember. They opted to finish their pictures in the creek, since they were already wet, but they got some pretty cool shots. So we all went to Seattle for a fun party and to meet his family instead of a wedding. In the end it all worked out. They say its all legal and I really like Evan so its all good.

Seattle

We went to Seattle a couple of weekends ago for my sister's "wedding." It was supposed to be a wedding but they decided to elope in Costa Rica instead. Apparantly the families are too meddling, hard to imagine meddling parents I know. They had a really nice reception at a bath house on Lake Washington. We had Indian food and sandwiches for the wusses (aka my family). I'd never tried Indian food, it was so good. Pretty sure I'll have to save that for a girls' night out though.
connor busting a move at the reception. Connor and Hailey were breaking all the rules. They were dancing and moving their feet! Paulitz's do not move their feet when they dance. We have masterd the art of dancing like complete nerds while not moving our feet one inch. Its extremely cool.

Another successful internet hookup! Chris and her new hubby Evan telling their dating and elopement story. I'm pretty sure they were getting tired of retelling everyone about their elopement and felt a group storytelling would be less annoying. Evans a really nice guy, and dorky enough to fit in well in our family. His families really nice and have some equally dorky elements. I think the bigger nerd you are the better you get along with the Paulitz's.

The view of Lake Washington from the reception site.

Since we didn't take a vacation this year, we decided to come early to the wedding and have some fun with the kids.

We took the kids to Alki beach on the west side of Seattle. We hadn't been there before and had heard it was a nice beach. It would be a good beach for playing in the water, but this time of year the kids were more interested in seashells. I think next time we'll go back to Gig Harbor. The kids always hit the mother lode of shells there and they like making the Gooey Ducks spit.

We took the kids to the Point Defiance Zoo by Tacoma. We hadn't been to any of the zoos in Seattle, this one won out because there was an aquarium. Connor enjoying Kenzie's nacho cheese straight out of the container. We bought the kids a bunch of over priced junk for lunch and Con went straight for the cup of cheese. Such a strange child.

The girls were fascinated with the polar bears. They were pretty fun to watch. They kept swimming right up against the glass and the kids like to "touch" them. Greggers really enjoyed it when they rubbed their butts on the glass. Of course he would.

Greg's walrus face. He thought the walrus's were great. He kept turning to me saying "they look like this... with whiskers!" And they were super fat which was of course amusing.

Kenzie with her budgie buddy. They had this bird atrium full of little parakeets or budgies. You could buy a colored popsicle stick with bird seed glued on. The birds would come land on your stick and eat. It was really cute, the kids loved it. They thought it was so neat to hold a bird.

The first night in Seattle we went to Ikea. Kenzie had been sick earlier, so we didn't drop her at the play area. She hated it. It was kind of funny because I always look forward to going to Ikea when we're over there and here's my daughter, everytime we turned a corner and she realized it just kept going she'd groan "I hate Ikea!" And no she wasn't feeling sick she just thought it was "almost the boringest place I've ever been. All there is is house stuff." Welcome to childhood kid. I spent all my Satudays at the hardware store looking at cabinets my parents wouldn't buy until I moved out, you can survive 2 hours at Ikea.