Littie setting off for her short jog around the lake in the rain. She was determined to run at the first opportunity despite the rain.
Bokeh is so ridiculously easy to get in Washington. Down here I have to work to get it in pictures and I pretty much always have to use manual focus. Up there I could use auto focus and get bokeh in pretty much any picture I wanted. <3
My grandmother is an ardent player of Mexican Train so we played the entire game through one night, all 13 rounds. Littie left around round 5 but the rest of us pressed with my mom winning with a score around 160, me in second with 270 or so, and my grandma with a whopping score around 900. :)
The next day, the 3rd, was my grandma's 90th birthday so we had a celebration for her. It apparently was supposed to be a surprise but my mom and my aunt didn't know that so it leaked out a little bit. They said there was going to be a party but not where so my grandma spent the remaining time trying to weasel it out of my mom. She made it worse by driving all over Seattle touring the different houses she had lived in before we slowly made our way down to the waterfront to Ivars Salmon House. Best seafood restaurant in the history of seafood restaurants. The inside is like a lodge and is ridiculously overpriced but their salmon and their mashed potatoes, oh the mashed potatoes, were so good. I could have eaten an entire plate of those mashed potatoes they were that delicious. Part of the restaurant, the outdoor part, is on a barge so people can go to the front of the restaurant outside, which is set up like a normal ivars, order their food and sit outside. Seattle's seafair was going on that day so their were boats passing by constantly with partiers on them. We even saw a barge/tugboat packed full of people with porta potties at the back. I didn't take my camera with me which was just as well since it was so dark in there.
This picture (the next day) depicts exactly what Seattle summers are like. Nice and green with pops of color everywhere from the flowers. The houses themselves are painted brighter colors like yellow and blue which just makes everything happier feeling by themselves.
On August 5th (my brother's birthday) I spent a lot of time at the lake just thinking and soaking up the color and smells of water and plants. When I first got my camera I was stuck photographing plants and I hated it but now I like it a lot more. It's fun to try and figure out what the best way to photograph the flower is and to move the camera to change the background. Best of all flowers and such don't move and don't mind getting their picture taken. ;)
Hydrangeas, one of my favorite flowers.
Dahlias, a new favorite of mine.
This picture is truly awful but I wanted a picture of the clothed ducks. They've been there for what seems like forever and are the oddity when you walk around the lake. There used to some crazy frogs too but different people live in that house now. :(
This is one of my favorite pictures which I'll be getting a print of. I love the flower petal bokeh in the background.
During this trip I discovered that I do in fact like journaling, as long as I write them like I would a blog post. I thought I failed at writing anything but a college paper until I discovered what I hate is typing out what I'm thinking. Give me one of my favorite pens or pencil and I'll write my heart out, which I enjoyed doing quite a lot. It was so refreshing to sit outside for hours and just sort through my thoughts and not have to worry about if someone posted on facebook or having to do anything. There will be quite a few blog posts from what I wrote which I'm excited to get to.
That evening my mom, sister, and I went to Log Boom park off of the Burke Gilman trail (a biker/runner trail that is crazy long) to meet one of my mom's oldest friends. Littie went skateboarding and I was forced to follow her, occasionally yelling at her to come back. :) This is her stoptakingpicturesofme face. It was a featured face on the trip.
The next day we wanted to visit our cousin and her children so we went to their house for a little bit where started a 1,000 piece puzzle. This puzzle wasn't just difficult because of the piece count but it was also a find-this puzzle which meant it was a jumble of things that was quite difficult to put together. We started to get into right as we left to go to a friend's condo where they have a (heated) pool. I took a few shots before I joined them in the pool. The little girl to the left below is my cousin's oldest, M, who is 7 years old. She attached herself to me and stuck to me throughout the duration of our trip. She and her sister, Y, were so sweet and I miss them so much.
My mom's second oldest sister's second daughter, Sarah, holding that same sister's oldest daughter, M. Sarah lives in eastern Washington and 5 years ago we took a trip across Washington to visit her and see British Columbia.
At the end of that day my Uncle Mike (the boat owner) called my mom asking if he could take us to Big 4 state park. Littie and I were clamoring to go there as I have some great memories of being there with Andrew and we weren't going to go to any mountains like we did 2 years ago. So he came and picked us up and we drove the rather nauseating 2+ hours to get there. Thankfully the scenery was incredibly gorgeous and lush. Bright green fields, tall evergreen trees, christmas tree farms, mountains, and cold mountain streams winding along the road with us. We stopped for lunch with about 20 minutes left at a picnic spot by the side of the road. About 6 feet below was the creek which Littie and I climbed down to to see how cold the water was. Now mountain streams aren't exactly known as being warm or bathwater temperature as Texas water is so it felt so good to feel truly cold water. The rocks were very slippery so we couldn't really get near it very well which was just as well since we had to get back into the car to finish our trip. You drive part of the way and then you walk/hike the rest of it, about 1.5 miles or so. That was a very hot and exhausting mile and a half as it was nearly all uphill with no breeze.
Finally we reached the edge of the woods and felt the cool breeze off of the glacier.
When I took this picture I was intending to get the water dripping off of the glacier. However apparently there was a rainbow right there which the naked eye couldn't see. So neat to discover what was there that I wouldn't have known without a camera!
As you come up the path to the glaciers you can walk straight to one of them or walk all the way up the very steep bluff (or knoll as my mom calls it) to reach other one.
Littie vlogging with my phone while we were on the glacier.
A stunning waterfall that I wish I could have captured better. Next time I'll have a zoom lens. :)
Littie and I found these 2 rocks that essentially formed a rather comfortable couch which we lounged on for quite a while. We had the breeze off of the glacier and were quite content. Momma took a picture of us but she doesn't know how to use my camera so the results were a bit, um, unflattering. So there's a picture of us in comfy clothes lounging on a glacier. :)
Unfortunately we had to leave. :(
At the beginning of these pictures of Big 4 there was a picture of a metal bridge. That metal bridge goes across this mountain water creek so we don't have slog through it. Littie and I wanted to go down and feel the water a bit and as there's a path from the bridge we walked right down. We walked on top of some of the stones for a while since we didn't want to get our tennis shoes wet but we still wanted to be near the water. Littie was doing a marvelous job of crossing the creek on stones above the waters surface. I was not, to put it bluntly. I attempted to do as she did and failed miserable. In the end I gave up and just stepped into the freezing cold creek. :) Littie followed suit and we walked all through the creek like that. We walked across one part and then the other, even climbing a small dam someone had set up. Some parts were quite deep but it was so much fun not caring about getting wet. Yes it was cold but it was refreshing to just stomp through it until we had our fill of clean, cold mountain water.
These next two pictures are completely random and are the last everyday pictures I took.
This is Lucy, my grandma's dashund who she pampers and takes care of. My grandma's name is Betty but I've always known her as Grandma Nellie after her previous dog. Nellie was a neurotic dog like you wouldn't believe and was put down a few years ago. My grandma does better knowing she has someone to care for so another dog was found for her. Lucy was a puppy mill dog and is a bit different than any other dog I've known. Since she was a mother so young she never knew how to play so she just cuddles with you all the time. She literally has no idea what to do if you wave a toy in front of her or throw a toy (I just wrote throw a dog, I think writing at nearly 2 in the morning is starting to take it's toll).
These are some Pike Place Market-esque flowers my mom bought at Country Village (think Bracken Village but a gazillion times better) for my grandma for her birthday.
And so I conclude my second of three posts about my trip to the grand state of Washington. The hard post is of course the last one as I took an inconceivable amount of pictures at the wedding/reception/gift opening. Until then!
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