Tacoma Glass

With the kids at school, I took the opportunity to show my mom, dad and sister a little bit of the cultural side of Tacoma.  We first stopped at the art museum and then drove over to the Tacoma Museum of Glass.  We didn't actually go in the glass museum, just had lunch at their yummy restaurant and then walked over the Glass Bridge.  This outdoor, free museum is a priceless collection of Chihully's blown glass pieces.  They are really pretty fantastic - kind of Dr. Seuss like in their obscurity.

 

On the far side of the bridge is the Union Station, the former train depot for Tacoma.  It's a beautiful building which now houses the US District Court and some pretty impressive scuptures by Chihully.  Like this piece hanging from the dome.

 

 

And these beauties hanging in front of the arched window.

The colors in this flower were beautiful.

Mom, Dad and Nicole on the Glass Bridge.  I think these look like giant pieces of sea glass.  My dad thought they looked like big ice cubes.

Walk at Kopachuck

We decided to take a short walk at Kopachuck State Park in the afternoon and experienced a neat phenomena - an extreme low tide.  I guess the moon is orbitting pretty close to the Earth right now which means that the tides are affected.  This past weekend has been and "extreme" low tide which means parts of the beach are revealed that are usually under water.

We saw lots of stranded sea critters like dungeness crab (thems good eatin'!), sunstars and beds of sand dollars.

 

These are sand dollars

 

Uwajimaya

Several people have told me that there is an oriental market in Seattle but for some reason we have never checked it out. 

Since Memorial Day was cool and rainy, we decided to head up to Seattle to do some sightseeing and to potentially meet up with friends in town on their move back from Okinawa.  That, unfortunately, fell through and we weren't able to meet up with the Cerens, but we did manage to have fun at the Seattle Science Museum. 

But the real fun was when we found the market - Uwajimaya.  It was like a flash back to shopping at Jusco in Okinawa!  All our favorite foods that I thought I would never get to taste again are available at this wonderful place!  We found mochi and inari wrappers and udon and fresh miso and even fresh Okinawan sweet potatoes and goya!  Their drink aisle was like shopping at the drink machines with aloe jelly drinks and cans of bean soup. This is just part of the stash we bought...

We will definitely be shopping here again!!!

Piano recital

The boys had their piano recital last night - a first for London and Cannon's third time.  Cannon has been playing for just over four years now and London has had about a year's worth of lessons.  They both did so well!  Now we have Emmy asking to play too...

London's piece, "Danger Zone" from "Top Gun".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijS4bG0yXgU&feature=youtu.be


Cannon's piece, "Joybells" by Chappelle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhX036qLcno&feature=youtu.be


Great job, boys!!!

Kayaking Gig Harbor

Charles' last day here was an awesome 80 degree day and we decided to rent a kayak.  I had read about doing this, but never tried it so I was excited for the adventure.

After a short instructional lecture, the guys at the fishing shop where we rented the tandem kayak pointed us in the direction of the public dock and told us to call if we were going to be any longer than 3 hours.  We (well Charles, really) wheeled the thing down the sidewalk to the dock and we launched the thing without too much trouble (and more importantly without getting wet).

I've only seen Gig Harbor from land so it was neat to see it from the water.  I didn't realize that the end of the harbor was a sand bar with a small light house and then beyond that were the open waters of the Sound. 

The waters were calm, the sun was shining and life was good.  We were visited by a few seals poking their heads out of the water to check us out.  I guess we weren't threatening since they eventually disappeared.

We eventually headed in what I thought was the direction of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge thinking it would be cool to see.  About two thirds of the way there, we took a break to have lunch and bask in the sunshine. 

Best lunch spot around!

After lunch we guessed that we probably couldn't make the turn to see the bridge so we started paddling back.  I quickly noticed that we were not moving.  Uhhh, slight panic.  So we started paddling harder.  Still not moving.  Uhhh, slightly more panic.  Then we started paddling with all our strength and we still were not moving in the direction of Gig Harbor.  Definite panic now!  I had the idea that if we went closer to shore then there might be less current and thankfully, that was true.  So we slowly but surely inched our way back to the harbor.  Note to self: next time I go out in a kayak, pay attention to the currents!

Overall it was a magnificent day and an awesome way to see another side of Gig Harbor!

Uncle Charles Comes to visit

We have been so fortunate to have so many people come visit us since we've been back in the US and this past week Steve's brother, Charles, made the trek.  He picked an absolutely gorgeous week to come - we've had an unusual spell of warm, sunny weather - so the flowers were blooming and the scenery was dazzling.

He flew in Saturday night so Sunday we took him to one of our favorite places for a hike, Pen Rose Park. 

We had an amazing hike and after we got home the kids convinced us to put the sprinkler on (yes, it was that warm!)

Emmy took her stuffed animals in the sprinkler.

Uncle Charles getting traced with chalk.

The beautiful day was topped off by dinner on the deck.

Monday I took Charles on a tour of Tacoma and surrounding areas.  We stopped at Happy Donuts (yum!) in Puyallup, then went to downtown Tacoma to see the Chihuly Glass Bridge.

Then we stopped in north Tacoma for a walk along the water.

Charles borrowed Steve's car on Tuesday and drove himself around to explore.  On Wednesday I took him up to Bremerton to see the Turner Joy.  It's a retired Vietnam-era battleship in the harbor there.  They have it set up so that you can visit almost the entire ship.  The funniest/most interesting part was that there were some people showing a video they had made about some of the "paranormal" activity on the ship.  I guess there are even special ghost tours you can take a couple of times a year...  Well, we didn't hear or see any suspicious activity while we were there!

After touring the ship we found this cool little cafe to have lunch.  Outside of the restaurant there was a VW bus that we discovered had a table in it - next time Charles comes I promised him lunch in the bus!

Thursday Stevie was off so he played tour guide.  The boys headed up to Seattle for a while and then to a car museum in Tacoma.  Off course I have no pictures from that day...

Finally on Friday, we had a special adventure, but I think I'll make that a separate post!

Spring Shots

It's been a beautiful spring around here and when the sun comes out (which it does occaissionaly), boy it's brilliant!  I've tried to capture some of the beauty over the last few weeks.

 

Spring sky

Cherry blossoms

Tulips

Dog wood

Lobelia

Autumn flame azalea

Crabapple

 

May Day

Happy May Day!  This is one holiday I don't think we grew up celebrating, but recently we've been on the receiving end of some May Day tradition and I thought it might be fun to give back this year. 

So if you're not familiar, according to the always truthful (wink, wink) Wikipedia, the festivities came out of some pagan traditions and customs, something about a Norse god named Flora...  In England you'll find festivals and celebrations, even a few dances around the Maypole.  But here I've known the holiday as a time to bring a little cheer and beauty into friends' and neighbors' lives and you do that by delivering a "basket" of flowers to their doorstep, ringing the bell and running to hide as fast as you can.  Kind of like playing Ding Dong Ditch, but with a happy ending.

Emmy and London were excited about this so we made paper cone baskets and filled each with a pansy plant.

Our stash of baskets.

 The first family we visited were the Nordquists.  They had overheard our conversation at the bus stop so I don't think they were too surprised to find the flowers (their dog Zoe was excited though!)

Walking down the street on this glorious first day of May.

Some houses were a little more challenging - they had to go back 4 times to the Power's house next door before someone answered.

Run, run, run!!!

It was all worth it for me when Becky, our neighbor across the street, found hers and exclaimed, "It must be May Day!"  Then she kept calling out thanks so we had to come out of hiding and show ourselves.  She said she used to do the same when she was a girl and hadn't thought of the tradition in years.  Sometimes I like to think the neighbors are glad our little rambunctious family moved in across the street because despite the loud noises the kids make we at least deliver sweet surprises.