Cameron's Adventures

This weekend, we went camping. Emma is now three months old and we thought it would be a perfect experience for her. The weather should hopefully not be too hot or too cold. Of course as any mother would be, I was worried that I would either not dress her up warm enough during the night, or dress her too warm. In the end, she was perfectly bundled up!

The camping trip was great. We went with two other families that both had infants. Sarah is one month older than Emma and Henry is one day. Here’s a picture of the three of them enjoying some afternoon awake time.

The camping trip started on Friday afternoon. Emma, Teika and I picked up Rory from work and drove for four plus hours to Keller Ferry Marina where we camped. The place was gorgeous as these pictures show. And our camp area was in a perfect location, right at the end with a spectacular view.

As we arrived around 8:00pm, Friday night was mainly spent setting up camp, putting Emma to sleep and chilling around the camp fire. Saturday morning came early as the day became bright by 4:00am and with an infant, that’s around the time for a feeding. Still, we got a few more hours of sleep and finally woke up for good around 8:00am.

The weather for Saturday was spectacular. It was very warm but we had water and plenty of shade to make it a perfect day.

As the day went by, we ate, swam and just had a lot of fun.

Baby Sarah

Baby Henry

Baby Emma

But as any awesome things go, we had to have a story. And ours started around 1:00am on Sunday morning… Both Rory and I woke up at exactly the same time, looking around our tent and seeing it move in all directions. Teika too was awake. The only one still sleeping was Emma. And that’s exactly how we wanted to keep it. Outside, the wind was blowing, blowing like it’s never blown before. Still I felt that it was really kind of romantic. Inside the tent was comfortable and really felt safe. However, we were in a somewhat lower area of the camping ground. Our friends were higher up and had a tougher time with the wind. Within minutes, Jeff came by and said they were packing up and leaving. We followed suite as the tent was not staked to the ground. By 2:30am, we were packed and on our way home.

In less than an hour we had packed our gear. Pretty good considering it was dark. But the drive home wasn’t peachy. The rain started pouring and it felt like buckets and buckets of water falling quickly from the sky. On top of that, we were tired. But Rory was an amazing trooper and drove pretty much all the way home. I got to take a quick nap and was able to drive the last hour home.

All in all, the weekend was great. And Emma did wonderful on the drive home. She just slept and slept. We will definitely go camping again.

Over the weekend, we went to our friend Kevin’s wedding in Spokane. I was really looking forward to the wedding not only because I think they are great, but also because it meant a mini vacation with Emma. We’ve already gone to Spokane before with Emma so I knew this would be an all right trip with an infant. And sure enough, we had a fun time.

We arrived on Friday night and Rory decided to upgrade our hotel stay. So instead of having one room with a bathroom, we had a bedroom with a big water tub with jets, two full bathrooms, a living room and two TVs. Incredible!!! And as this picture shows, we had a hug bed too!

The next day in the morning, we met up with Keith, Betsy and their family for breakfast. I don’t have any pictures from the event but we had a great time. Then, it was time to get ready for the wedding. Emma wore a black and white dress, red leggings and a white sun hat. Later in the day, I found out that red is a lucky color for Chinese and often worn at weddings. Kevin’s wife Mui is Chinese.

And here we are all three at the wedding.

And our friends from Seattle that also came to Spokane. In fact, they’ve been friends with the groom for longer than Rory and I.

Unfortunately neither Rory nor I took any front pictures of the bride and groom. But this is what we did take.

After the wedding, we had great food and fun with friends.

By the end of the wedding, Emma looked ready to go home and sleep.

Too see all the pictures from the wedding that we took visit: Kevin and Nunticha Wedding.

Last weekend, Rory, Teika and I went to Cle Elum one last time before the baby arrives. It was a nice, quiet trip. On Saturday, we drove to Ellensburg to see a cowboy rodeo. Though we didn’t stay to see the bull riding, it was interesting to observe how they get the bulls ready for riding. Here are a few pictures and video from the event.

Then on Saturday evening, the sunset was very pretty over the mountains with snow:

A great weekend yet again in Cle Elum!

Last night, Rory partook in a bicycle ride event that involved hooking up your Christmas tree to the bicycle and riding to Golden Gardens for a bon fire event. Quite a few people took part in this yearly tradition and this year Rory was one of them. On Thursday night, he worked on engineering a solution to carry our 8 foot Christmas tree on the back of his bike. The solution involved him drilling a whole into the tree and attaching a third wheel.

He then rode with Alex and Andrew, stopping in some places.

Here’s a video of their crazy but fun ride.

Until finally they reached the bon fire event.

Rory took all of these shots and one of the most surreal and interesting pictures is the one below. The woman being silhouetted is almost looking at the camera while all the other people are oblivious of the shot being taken. At the same time the sky above is glowing and the fire is dancing behind her.

Another great shot is below showing the skeleton of the tree as it is burning. It is almost a painful picture to look at.

On August 1st, 2009, Trevor and Crystal tied the knot. The wedding was beautiful and it took place in Everett at the Yacht Club overlooking the water and boats. Here are a few pictures from the rehearsal.

Two blond girls but not related playing with their dads:

The wedding party rehearsing:

Rory and the mothers:

Rehearsal Dinner:

Happy bride, groom and future father in law to be:

On August 1st, 2009, Trevor and Crystal tied the knot. The wedding was beautiful and it took place in Everett at the Yacht Club overlooking the water and boats. Here are a few pictures from the wedding.

Dick Conrad is the guy below with the camera. Though he was not their official photographer, Ron handed him his camera and he became one. Along one of the official photographers he looked and was a professional.

Here’s the second official photographer for the event. Though of course, there were a lot of people as myself with cameras.

As the night went on, people were celebrating and having a great time. Ron got a little weasel ball as a present and that was quite an entertainment.

Crystal dancing with her father:

And Trevor dancing with his mother:

Congratulations Trevor and Crystal! May your life together bring happiness, laughter and great time! And may the tree you planted together live a prosperous and rich life.

Yesterday was the 4th of July. As usual because we live so close to Gasworks park, we opted to stay home and invited a few friends over for BBQ and a relaxed time outside. The weather was spectacular. On Friday, Rory bought a smoker so that he would smoke ribs for the 4th of July. But before we did the ribs, he tested out the smoker with chicken.

Then on Friday, we put out the chairs on the deck, started the ribs in the Smoker and relaxed in the sun.

Friends arrived around 6ish and food was ready shortly after. We all enjoyed way to much to eat. There was only one child among us. His name is Jack and he’s almost 3 years old. It was amazing how much we were distracted by him and he was definitely the center of attention. At previous get together where there are no kids but there are dogs, they too take the center of attention. I remember clearly times when Jesse, Laurie, Rory and I would hang out and we would literally talk for our dogs. It’s really interesting to see how humans behave around kinds or dogs. But I diverge from the 4th of July event… As I was saying, a few friends came over and we had a fun time with a lot of food. Here are a few of the pictures.

To see all of the pictures from the celebration go to my SmugMug photo site.

Rory believes that a little Prosecco is the best drink to have with BBQ.

But as I mentioned, the star of the evening was Jack.

As the night came upon us, it was time to walk and see the fireworks. The streets were filled with people, sitting in chairs, sitting on the concrete, sitting anywhere they could and having a great time. It is one of my favorite days of the year as our neighborhood really comes to life.

Rory took a few pictures and this one is amazing. Little Jack is curiously looking ahead at the fireworks while his dad holds him proudly in his arms.

And the gang found a spot from which we enjoyed the great fireworks.

As I was sitting looking at the fireworks, in front of me I saw a cute couple that came with their bikes. This felt like a perfect photo opportunity

I love living in the city as in just a 10 minute bike ride we went to Greenwood’s Car Show event yesterday. The show happens once a year but this year it was extra special as our former neighbor Todd showed his “Mini Mac” car. It was the coolest car at the show and he knew it!

Kari, Michelle and Jacob were there supporting Todd. I think they were very happy for him, though Maeberry, the little puppy got all the attention once they showed up. A puppy and a baby are the surest way to absorb attention.

Kevin, Jesse and Laurie enjoyed the car show as well.

We moved on from Todd’s fabulous car to the rest of the unique and interesting cars on the street. They say that the car show stretched for one mile on Greenwood Ave. Here are some of my top highlights. For everything else, you can check my SmugMug’s Greenwood Car Show photo gallery.

^ This is the fasted electric car in the world.

^ A lot of batteries for one car…

The one below is one of my favorite cars. It’s bold color and funky shapes was very fun to photograph.

Visited by hundreds of people, the show was a great success!

This year, like the past couple of years Rory and I went to see the Summer Solstice Parade in Freemont. But unlike previous years, I did not fight my way through the crowd to get that perfect shot. Instead, we went on top of the Aurora bridge and took a few shots:

The interesting thing about being on the bridge is that you get a very different perspective of the parade than when you are really close to it. And taking pictures of the people watching the parade is pretty interesting and sometimes, as in the picture below, you take a shot of that one person that has noticed you up on top of the bridge:

We did walk around in the crowd and everyone had a camera whether big or small documenting the event.

Along with the parade, on parallel streets were a lot of little tents selling everything from food to cloths to trinkets of every kind.

Music was playing everywhere and people were having a jolly good time celebrating the start of summer.

It is priceless to see the joy on kids as the are having a great, great time!

Joy was everywhere and the crowd was large.