Home again, home again…

So, I’m back! Did you notice I was gone visiting my mom in Washington all week — and how we still sneakily kept things running all this holiday week long? Spokane Albertsons, by the way, is a bizarre parallel universe to Chicagoland Jewel — almost the same, but not quite right, lol. Here is a brief random snippet photo tour of the trip.

We had the nicest pilot on the Minneapolis to Washington leg on the way out — he invited all the kids into the cockpit and gave them little wings, info cards on the plane, and let them sit in the co-pilot’s seat and take photos. I didn’t think they did that any more, so that was very, very cool.

Fred Meyer is their Kroger-owned chain, which…

… carried CARBmaster low-cab yogurt cups. Has anyone seen these in Chicagoland? Mr. MashupAtkinsDad was quite pleased.

We also stopped by Trading Co., which I don’t think is a chain of anything? In addition to the Big Metal Chicken on the roof, they had this:

Calorie free NOT peanut butter on sale. Now, I’ve been curious about these calorie free products for a while, so decided to finally go for it. Note that we left the rest of the jar at my mom’s for a reason, though, lol…

It looks kind of like peanut butter, doesn’t it? This, alas, is about where the resemblance ends. The consistency is somewhat… drippier. And the consensus on the taste was more along the lines of: Burnt popcorn with a hint of Crackerjack. Sorry, Mom!

Yes, there were fireworks at Riverfront Park, which even led to a brief moment of brotherly love.

And then we spent a bit of time at my Dad’s store, where my Mom is in the process of selling down inventory.

If you are in the Spokane area and in need of any sort of instrument, stop on by for a deal! 🙂

This hat, my brother brought back from his tour in Afghanistan — Mr. 6 kind of rocks it, though, don’t you think? If only the “meditation” had any kind of lasting calming effect…

And then he was attacked by a bear!

We flew back shortly after the San Francisco plane crash yesterday… and they had CNN running the video nonstop on the monitors in the airport while we were waiting to board. This filled no one with confidence, but all went well, smoothly, and even on time.

So, that was my holiday week — now back and trying to get back into the swing of things, so pardon the dust while I catch up a little here. What did you guys do on YOUR summer vacation? 😉