Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
As we have for the past several years, Melody and I went to the annual Seattle Times 2015 Pictures of the Year presentation, which continues to be a fun event.
I just got back from Southern California where a lot of my family gathered to celebrate my Aunt Haru’s 100th birthday. It’s amazing enough for someone to reach the century mark, but even at that age, she’s still doing amazing well physically and is extremely sharp and witty.
When taking pictures, it's all too easy to focus just on the central subject and not see what's going on in the rest of the frame. I've gotten to the point where I can see a lot of things when I'm processing photos, but what that means is I see the things that I didn't notice when I was actually taking the photo.
When I take photos, a lot of thought goes into technical and artistic details, but I put at least as much work into selecting which shots to publish. Only after that's done do I edit the images themselves. That triage process will usually result in the same set of photos no matter when I do it, but my particular style at the time has a large impact over whether a particular shot gets thumbs up or thumbs down.
Melody and I took our annual trip to Southern California, but this year was a little shorter than usual. Instead of staying through New Year's Day, we came home after a few nights, since I'll be going back down in a couple weeks. We still managed to do quite a bit during our stay.
We spent New Year's Day in Seattle this year, rather than in Southern California. We mixed old traditions with new ones, but the best part was our family gathered and spent time together.
Amazon made a foray into the brick and mortar world by opening their first physical bookstore in Seattle. It's in the upscale University Village, less than a half hour away from their South Lake Union headquarters. While there seems to be quite a lot of interest around the store, there doesn't seem to be the large crowd of people you might expect.
Having been a success last year, Sweet Week Seattle returned this year. More places participated, and instead of two weekends, this time it was a whole week. We ended up with things from ten different places (we visited all but one; my cousin thoughtfully brought one when we saw her for dinner), and fortunately some of them were ones you could take home and wait to eat, otherwise that would have been a lot of sweets.
The weekend is over, and I started the new week with a new daughter-in-law and lots of fond memories I'll look back on for a long time.
The last day of our midwest trip was very leisurely. We spent the morning with the Tashimas, and we got to see the Mealys one more time before heading out. Also, I've mentioned food on this trip quite a bit, so I thought I'd include some of the pictures I took of our meals. And like usual, I have some final thoughts.
Another travel day. We started by visiting the Air Force Museum. After that, we escorted the guava cake to Kathy and Irland in Toledo.
The beginning of July was our last day in Indianapolis. The plan was to leave in the morning and go to the Dayton Art Institute, get in some walking, and perhaps stop by a café for a while. In the late afternoon, we were going to see Arleen and John.
It was time to say goodbye to the Mealys, then meet the Brothers at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Then a driving tour of Indianapolis, followed by dinner and dessert.
For the last day of June, the plan was to do the grounds tour at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, find a place to do some walking, then spend the late afternoon/evening with the Mealys.
The Winkle Family Reunion came to a close, and we said our goodbyes. Then it was off to Indianapolis to walk around downtown a bit, after which we went to Kara's to spend the night.
The second full day at the reunion was set aside for canoeing or a covered bridge tour, some hiking, and dinner at the guest house. But even the beginning didn't go as expected.
The rough plan for Friday was to spend the day at Turkey Run State Park and do some hiking and talking. The forecast called for not only rain, but a lot of rain.
The main reason for us taking this trip was to go to the Winkle Family Reunion, and this was the first day. Our plan was to pick up a car, go to Indiana Dunes National Shoreline, then head down to Parke County.
Our last full day in Chicago. The plan for the day was to start at the Art Institute of Chicago, have some lunch, then take it easy for the afternoon. In the evening, Melody would go to a concert in Millennium Park while I would go to the Dodgers/Cubs game.
Since the weather was supposed to be great, the plan for Tuesday was to go up the Willis Tower and do the Loop walking tour that we didn't do the day before. In the afternoon, we thought we would go to the Art Institute of Chicago for the afternoon, and then see how we felt about dinner.
