One of the yurts at the campground. We slept in a tent, though!

The weather had other plans.

There was a bad storm in the Pacific Northwest on the Saturday we were going to drive down and there were high wind advisories… not ideal weather for camping in a tent. We canceled our plans and I went down with Grandma on Sunday instead. Nick wasn’t able to take an extra day off work, so he had a relaxing weekend alone at home.

We drove down in Grandma’s Tesla, an electric car that gets ~250 miles per charge. It’s over 300 miles to Newport and we wanted to be cautious, so we stopped a couple times each way to charge up. The drive took a little longer in the electric car because of needing to charge it, but it’s awesome to not have to pay for fuel. Plus, the Tesla charging stations are located near restaurants and shopping areas, so you have something to do while you wait.

My handheld photo of the moon

Despite the bad weather on Saturday, the weather was pretty nice (albeit cool) while we were in Newport (Sunday through Tuesday morning). I wanted to take advantage of the reduced light pollution and get some nice photos of the night sky… but there was a full moon. Oh well, I hadn’t taken any photos of the moon yet, so I decided to try that instead. I brought my tripod with me, but after I setting everything up in the dark, I realized that I didn’t have the part that holds my camera onto the tripod. Uff da! >< So I took a few handheld photos of the moon. They came out blurry, of course, but I was surprised they came out as well as they did.

Our campsite was only a 5 minute walk to the Pacific Ocean. On Monday, we walked along the beach in the morning and around Newport’s historic bayfront in the evening. There were some floating docks where the sea lions like to hang out and we stayed to watch them for a while. It was funny to watch them bark at each other and try to push each other off the docks. There was also a jetty in the bay that was covered in sea lions. Crazy!

Snuggling sea lions

I had a good trip and would do it again. Hopefully, Nick will be able to come next time! If you’d like to see more photos, I have a few more in my Newport Flickr album.

Xerxes the African lion

For my birthday, Nick and I went to Woodland Park Zoo. I was hoping to get some photos of the tigers in their new exhibit, but I had no such luck. It was a hot day and the tigers were sleeping out of sight in the shade. I got some good photos of the other animals, though, like the lions, gorillas, and sea eagles.

See the rest of the photos in my Woodland Park Zoo album on Flickr.

The newest photos start with the Humboldt penguin at the top and end with the turkey vulture.

The next day, Nick and I hiked Lake 22. I’ll write a blog post about the hike soon.

Mom’s birthday is only a few days after mine and to celebrate her birthday, we went to Emerald Downs, the local thoroughbred racetrack. The horse I picked for the first race lost his rider at the starting gate and ran around the race track by himself. That was amusing.

Seahurst Park

Sunday was both Mother’s Day and Nick’s birthday. We celebrated Mother’s Day on Saturday by going to Seahurst Park in Burien with Mom and Amanda. It had been a few years since our last visit to Seahurst Park and they’ve done some nice renovations since then, adding new picnic areas, a playground, and a fish ladder.

Nick wanted a relaxing day at home for his birthday, so that’s what we did on Sunday. In the evening, Amanda, Sean, and Dad came over to watch the latest Game of Thrones episode and play games.

Not a terribly exciting post, but that’s what we’ve been up to.

Woodland Park Zoo

Elephants are Caleb’s favorite animal, so he wanted to be sure to see the zoo’s elephants before they go to Oklahoma. The lion cubs are out daily now, but they weren’t doing much when we saw them… so no good lion pictures this time!

The highlight of our trip to the zoo was probably the peacock, which roams freely at the zoo. It was showing off its feathers and doing 360 degree turns so everyone could see him. Such a ham!

Click the link below to see the photos I took at the zoo!

Flickr photo set: Woodland Park Zoo

Go Kart Racing

After the zoo, we went go kart racing. Caleb and Uncle Eric raced first, Nick and I raced second, and Caleb, Nick, and Eric raced a third race to determine the winner… Nick!

I took some photos, but they came out crummy because it was pretty dark inside.

Nick

Caleb and Eric

Nick and I went to the new Cirque du Soleil show, Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities, on Tuesday with Mom, Dad, and Amanda (thanks for the tickets, Amanda!). I had been to other Cirque shows before (Saltimbanco in 2000 and Alegría in 2003), but this was Nick’s first time experiencing Cirque du Soleil.

Trying on silly hats with Amanda and Mom

They didn’t allow photography during the performance, so I apologize for the potato-quality pre-performance pictures.

Kurios had great acts, costumes, and music. The contortionists performed on a giant mechanical hand that had moving fingers.

There was a balancing act that was set up like a dinner party where the chandelier went up high into the air, so one of the performers started stacking chairs to reach the chandelier. All of a sudden, it showed an upside-down version of the same dinner party happening on the ceiling, where they were stacking chairs to reach the same chandelier. We thought that was pretty neat.

The trampoline act was probably our favorite. They set up a giant net that covered the entire stage and the performers jumped almost to the top of the tent. It had an underwater theme and we got a kick out of the performers beneath the net who had big fishtails coming from their backs. Nick really wanted to jump on the trampoline.

The acrobatic act at the very end was amazing, too. The performers stood on each other’s shoulders up to four people high, jumping and somersaulting through the air.

One of Kurios’s performers was teeny tiny, only 3.2 feet tall and 39 pounds. She’s one of the smallest people in the world. Her character lived inside the belly of a man with a big, round, metal body.

Here’s a trailer for Kurios:

For Seattleites who are interested in seeing Kurios for yourself, they will be performing in Marymoor Park through March 22.

Christmas

It’s hard to believe it’s been a month since Christmas when we still have our Christmas decorations up. Nick told me not to take them down until February lol. They make our home so happy and festive.

Uncle Peter took us out on his boat for the Christmas Ships Festival, where a choir on the Argosy Christmas Ship sings Christmas carols in Lake Washington. Thankfully, the weather cooperated this year!

We spent Christmas with family at my grandparents’ cabin. Uncle Peter got remote-controlled helicopters for himself and Uncle Eric and it was fun watching them play. Another highlight was that my cousin, Keegan, got a drum set. Aunt Brooke (his mom) was thrilled about it.

Seahawks

Seattle has been going nuts about the Seahawks going to the Super Bowl again. Did you guys see their last game against the Packers? It was intense and I still can’t believe the Seahawks won. Lots of cheering and fireworks outside after that game. Neither of us are really football fans, but even we had to admit we enjoyed watching it.

Around the House

It’s not terribly exciting, but Nick and I framed and hung some of the photos we’ve taken in our stairway. In the picture below, the collage frame on the left has some of the zoo pictures we’ve taken. The photos on the wall on the right are our favorite photos from our Wallace Falls hike.

Inspired by Saturday’s episode of Gardening with Ciscoe (a gardening advice show with a goofy local gardener), Nick and I went to Molbak’s to get ourselves our first indoor plant. We were planning on getting a Chinese Evergreen, but we went with a Dracaena instead when we saw the price tag ($50 for a little plant? Sheesh!). So say hello to Wallace the Dracaena (pictured above)!

To celebrate the holidays, Woodland Park Zoo has been having winter celebration days this month in which they give the animals holiday-themed treats.

The first animals on the winter celebration schedule today were the Asian small-clawed otters, but we found out that it had been cancelled for some reason. Bummer!

Grizzly eating snacks off a Christmas tree

Next were the ocelots. The zoo keepers brought out a Christmas tree and a wrapped present with three dead mice on top. The first ocelot was super shy and hid, so the zoo keepers brought out the second ocelot, who promptly climbed a tree and took a nap. Silly uncooperative ocelots.

I was super excited to see the tree kangaroo get its holiday treats, but the zoo keepers never showed up. :/

Thankfully, the grizzlies pulled through! We watched the zoo keepers set up two Christmas trees (one for each bear) and decorate them with treats. When the bears came out, they went right to work eating the decorations off the tree. One of the poor bears got a Fruit by the Foot stuck around his ear, which was super amusing for those of us watching him.

It would seem that bears win in Bear vs. Christmas tree, but lose in Bear vs. Fruit by the Foot.

I had an old photo of Amanda and me next to the zoo’s lion statue, so I thought it would be fun to recreate it while we were there. Here’s the old photo:

And the pictures we took today:

My family has found curling fascinating since, I think, the Winter Olympics in 2002. When I found out there was a curling club just down the road from us that offered open houses where they teach you the basics of curling, I got super excited and Nick’s mom’s visit was the perfect opportunity to try it out!

Amanda sweeping

When Margaret, Amanda, Nick, and I got to the curling club, they first cleaned our shoes of debris and attached rubber grippers to the bottoms of our shoes. Then we donned our hoodies, hats, and gloves (thanks, Raynaud’s!) and got out on the ice. We took turns practicing throwing the curling stones (occasionally falling over while doing so) and once we were passable doing that, we added sweeping, which makes the stone travel farther. Then, it was time for a game! There was a group of young guys there learning to curl, too, so we played against them and we won 3-1! Woohoo!

We had so much fun and would definitely recommend it to anyone interested. For those of you in Seattle, there are open houses through March or you could just go watch for free.

Seattle Pinball Museum

Looking down at pinball machines on the first floor

Another cool thing we did was visiting the Seattle Pinball Museum in the International District, because Nick’s mom loves pinball. They have a wide assortment of 50+ pinball machines spanning 7 decades. It’s not your typical museum, though, because all of the pinball machines are free to play with your $13 admission fee. We spent a few hours playing and had a great time.

My favorite machines were probably the 1995 Theater of Magic and the 2003 Lord of the Rings pinball machines. The Theater of Magic machine uses magnets and mirrors to perform “magic” tricks while you play. My favorite part of the LotR machine was when you get to fight the Balrog. The Balrog lights up and moves into the playfield and you have to hit him with the pinball.

A couple months ago, Mom found out she had a gigantic cyst on her liver. Although the cyst was benign, its massive size was causing problems for Mom, so she had surgery at the beginning of the month to remove it. The surgery went well (although the tumor had wreaked more havoc than anticipated, making the surgery take longer) and she went home the next day, tired and sore, but glad to have the surgery behind her.

Mom in her hospital room after surgery

A week after her surgery, Mom was getting worse and worse, so they readmitted her to the hospital. She went in for minor surgery a couple days later to take care of a blockage in her intestines that was causing the problems. After that, she was able to start eating again and they sent her home a couple days later.

Today, she’s still really weak, but she’s recovering and feeling better. We went in for her post-op doctor appointment this morning and they told her everything looks good, but she’ll probably have another two weeks of weakness and fatigue before she starts feeling back to normal.

Nick’s Mom

Nick, Mom, and me hiking Wallace Falls

Nick at the Seattle Pinball Museum

For the past few years, we’ve been alternating between Nick’s mom visiting us in Seattle and us visiting her in Michigan and this year, it was her turn to stay with us. She spent almost two weeks with us this month and we really enjoyed spending time with her.

Nick curling

Nick’s mom had done most of the touristy Seattle stuff before, so this trip was more low key. We walked around our neighborhood, went to the farmer’s market, had game nights, cooked a lot of good food, and painted the living room and kitchen (I protested having her paint while she was on her vacation, but she actually wanted to help us and teach us how to do it — which was a big help; thank you!), but we had some fun highlights, too. Everyone’s favorite activity was when we hiked Wallace Falls, which was an absolutely gorgeous hike (post coming soon!). We also really enjoyed going curling (again, post coming soon!) and playing pinball at the Seattle Pinball Museum. We were sad to see her go home on Tuesday and we’re looking forward to visiting her in Michigan next year!

Visiting Grandpa

On Saturday, we had a big family picnic and then we went out on my great uncle’s boat on the Columbia River. It was a lot of fun seeing everyone and we had a really great day. On Sunday, we spent more time visiting grandparents before we headed home.

With Grandma & Grandpa at the picnic

P.S. A big THANK YOU to Ken & Chris for being awesome hosts.