April's visit, sans food

Hello everyone,

I was going to write up a post about the rest of April's visit right away

(the non-food aspects),

but somehow my chillaxing time at home became rather filled with activities  haha

so here is the belated post about Aber's visit!

see? we didn't just eat the whole time she was here...   sort of...?  =)

let us start with the most anti-caloric-consumption activity we did during her visit;

hiking!!

We hiked the Tiger Mountain, and we absolutely loved it!

so gorgeous!

it really seemed like we were in a sort of a fairy tale land most of the time we were there.

see what I mean?

quite other-worldly. 

Then when we got higher, we found this!

Snow!!!

Having spent the first part of the winter in 80 degree weather in Houston,

it was such a wondrous sight to behold.

I never thought I would have missed snow so much, but boy, 

I sure did miss the beauty of it as well as the crispness in the air when there's snow around =)

ahhhh

the air up there?  I can't even describe in words what that is like.

so clean,,, so fresh... full of trees and snow.   =)

Oh, and this view....

 oh mother nature. how you take my breath away...

Once we got to the top, we were greeted by these cute and extremely friendly birds!

they weren't afraid of us at all, and they just started flocking around us!

kind of felt like we were in a Disney movie or something...

little did we know that was only because they wanted food...

they are called the 'camp robbers' and we soon found out why they are called that.

man, they really are not afraid of humans at all! 

they would hop right on up to your hand and eat what you gave them!

I think I was more scared of them than they were of me  haha

After awhile though, they got a bit too aggressive--

they were flying at our faces to get a bite of our sandwich!

pretty soon after we finished our meal,

we began to realize just how cold it was up there...

I was only wearing a windbreaker (didn't think we would see snow...),

and that was just not enough to keep me warm for a long period of time in the freezing temperature we encountered at the top.

We probably should have noticed how cold it was up there sooner,

but we were hot from the hike up, and then got rather preoccupied with the birds,

so we didn't notice anything until our sweat started to freeze...

but don't worry, other than our non-functional and frozen fingers,

no lasting harm was done to our bodies once we cranked up the heat in the car and sat there for about half an hour thawing our bodies once we got down.

oh, we also took a looong hot bath when we got back as well,, until we were past the pruny stage  lol

the next day, we visited the Seattle Art Museum!   

SAM!

this happened right after the Pike Place Market food marathon day 1 because this museum is located right next to the market!

couldn't be more convenient  ;)

It is a pretty small museum, but we really liked it a lot!

or perhaps that's why we liked it a lot?

the flow of the exhibit was very clear, and everything made a lot of sense.

they had good variety of art works, yet I never felt like I was lost in a sea of ideas.

we both stared at this painting for awhile, reading the plaque that came with it.

neither of us knew that each other took a photo of the other looking at this painting;

we only found that out later that night when we were comparing photos from the two cameras  haha

If you are in visiting Seattle, SAM is definitely a fun little museum to visit  =)

last but not least, we stumbled upon this toy at a toy shop,

and we (well, I) went nuts!!

I used to play with these ALL the time!

(except mine were pastel colored, not such bright primary colors  lol)

It's like LEGO, but the different sized shapes stack with one another differently,

and you can make so many varieties of structures out of them!

AAHHHH  I loved these things!

did anyone else play with these?  

I'm not even sure what they are called, but they brought back such a powerful gust of childhood memories!

=D

someday, when I am in the position to gift toys to children, these will be my first pick!

aww, these automatically bring a pretty ridiculous grin to my face   haha

such happy memories!

Anyway, on this happy note, 

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

--Janny