Snow!

So. Funny story. 

My friend sent me a picture of the snow at her college's campus (she lives in another city), and I was saying (read: complaining) about how it is supposed to snow here and yet the weather has only got the cold-as-balls part down. Guess what she replied? Look outside. Oh.

Yep. It's snowing outside.

I've been studying in my room, ensconced with my five weeks of class notes and a stack of flashcards. And apparently oblivious to the fluffy white stuff  falling from the sky. And sticking. Apparently I've been studying too hard.

But nevertheless, I abandoned my studies for a few hours to make dinner and take some pictures (not necessarily in that order. And yes, hours, plural. What can I say, I'm a slow eater...). Here are a few.

I really like the composition of this picture, but I'm not too fond of the yellow-tinge from the street lights. (Yellow snow is never good. Mantra for every snow camping trip.)

I over-exposed this one a bit, but I kind of like how it turned out. The blurry light adds an ethereal glow that adds to the magical feeling of snow everywhere. And as you can see, there was almost no one out here. And  you know it's a college campus because that student is jay-walking. :)

This is the Elm tree my dorm is named after. It is shadowed from the lights, so there wasn't much I could do about lighting. But the ashen-white look of some of the branches reminds me of the tree on Minas Tirith (Lord of the Rings fans anyone? No? Okay.).

It's too bad I couldn't get the whole tree in the frame (I tried. I really did) but I do like the background. It keeps it from being too dreary (as you can see in the top, the grey sky).

Have a safe night! Let's all hope the city doesn't go crazy tomorrow morning. We're notorious for losing our minds with just a hint of snow. It's hilariously embarrassing.

Summer: Leavenworth

Hello! It is near freezing here, and supposed to snow on Saturday. But heck, what better time to look back at summer? I love winter, all bundled up by the fire with tea, but sometimes summer sounds really good. Like right now when my dorm room refuses to budge above 66.5 degrees F. Boo.

I found these lovely pictures from when I went to Leavenworth last summer. When I was little (and gas was cheaper), my family would hop into the car for an impromptu drive, and often find ourselves 3 hours away, in Leavenworth. It is a quaint little Bavarian village, known for its friendly atmosphere, trails in the summer, and skiing in the winter. 

I had never been to Leavenworth during the summer (for some unknown reason, since summertime is by far the warmest and the prettiest...)... and this was a wonderful opportunity. Usually my family's trips to Leavenworth are more along the lines of "passing through Leavenworth" or "dinner in Leavenworth," so this was the first time we were here to actually spend some time exploring it. I looked up trails to possibly hike, and found events that were in town during our stay.

In the end, we went on three hikes, two with the whole family, and one with just my brother and I. We also went to an outdoor play, which was absolutely beautiful, though I don't have any pictures from it, unfortunately.

The first hike was around Blackbird Lake. It was a nice family hike, but still afforded some lovely views. 

    

This was one of my favorite views (and picture) from the hike. This is the Wenatchee River, and as as you can see, the weather was beautiful. I like the dip of the mountains and the clouds leading you off into the distance in the center of the picture.

I really liked the pure-white-ness (now a valid word and description) of this flower, though unfortunately my camera seemed to lose the details in the center.

We passed these kids having some fun in the water. The boy was very enthusiastic about acting out a scene in his imagination, while his sister was a little more cautious about the water.

Our second hike was just The Brother and me. I'll be posting a separate post about that one, in an effort to keep this from being a gigantic post, and because that hike in itself was one of my favorite memories from summer.

The last hike was a short nature trail:

It was a combination of trees, a river, a plain, and mountains. Here, you can see three of the four. I thought the little cloud in the dip of the mountain made for an interesting composition. Now that I look at it, it reminds me of the Eye of Sauron. Any Lord of the Rings fans?

Hope everyone is staying warm!

Terry Hall is doing it right: 12th Man

Our Seahawks are in the Superbowl!! I'm honestly not a huge football fan, but I always tune in to the Superbowl. To celebrate, the dorm across the street from mine shows their 12th Man spirit at night. They're tearing the building down and rebuilding it soon, but for now it's closed so someone went in, opened a few curtains, and turned on the lights. I found a little ledge to take these pictures between the trees. 

I had to fiddle a bit with the manual to get the window boxes clear, but the lights are still a bit over-exposed. Oh well.

Happy Superbowl!

Autumn 2013

We're going to step back a few months to the colors of autumn. If nature is going to give us such beautiful colors, we must take advantage of them, right? Even if it's a few months late...

These pictures were taken on a walk with The Boyfriend a crisp afternoon. And by crisp, I mean really really cold and overcast. That's my city's definition, at least. :)

There was this row of trees across the lake we were walking around, and I really liked the differing colors. They weren't uniform at all, which lent it to such an interesting painting. Since it was so far away, I tried to keep some foreground in the picture.

Apparently mycology is very popular here in the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, I know nothing about mushrooms except what I find in Fred Meyers, but this was an interesting mushroom we found in the grass. It looks like a mini table.  I liked the texture of the broken parts.

So here is that row of trees from the first picture. They are even more pretty close up.

 

More mushrooms! I like these ones even more than the first. You can almost imagine what the inverted mushroom cap feels like; the sift tickle of the gills against your fingertip...

And an obligatory "leaves of fall" picture.

Hope you enjoyed autumn!

Winter Nature

My family went to a nature garden in Vancouver, B.C. in December. It was wonderful (we love gardens like this, and they had plants from all over the world; everything blooms and grows at different times).

This is a Lebanon Pine Cedar tree. I loved the bark, and the way the needles grow. They grow exactly opposite each other, in small bunches.

This black squirrel was small, black, and fluffy. It was quite cute, and stood still for awhile while I got a picture of it amongst all the fallen leaves.

Destination: Home

Hello! Yes, I'm back. I spent the last 4 months in a wonderful state of mind, and this allowed the blog to slide. I would apologize, but the past few months were amazing and so I'm not sad. I was simply busy enjoying life. However, now it is the new year, and I have a wonderfully persistent boyfriend who has been encouraging me to post more pictures here. So let's start with these!

Also, I realized that I think it makes more sense for descriptions/introductions of the pictures to be written before presenting the picture. Does it? And I'm trying out the text flush to the left. Just fyi. Anyways, onwards:

One of my good friends was in town for perhaps the last time (she moves around a lot, and my hometown is a bit out of the way), so one of my friends and I took her sightseeing and touring around the city. Honestly, this was the first time I've ever been a tourist in my city, so it was quite exciting. We all had a lot of fun together, and with the city.

It was a bit overcast (in other words, a real Seattle day) but not too cold. We started down at the Waterfront, where the new "Great Wheel" was just put in a few years ago. I'm not sure why, as I'm not entirely sure it's stable or safe (it's tall, metal, and on a pier in an earthquake zone...does this not raise red flags for anyone else?). However, the Sound was quite calm, and offered a really nice reflection. One of our iconic ferries was coming back as well. If you've never been on a ferry, please ride one. You don't even need a car. It's so much fun. And if you take it at sunset, it is beautiful.

And of course we had to go to Space Needle. By this time, we were being spoiled by the sun which decided to grace us with its presence. It made for a beautiful blue sky, and very very cold temperatures (there's always a trade off, isn't there?). We actually went up the Space Needle, which was really fun. As "locals" it was fun to point out our neighborhoods (my friend even found her house).

I really like that in this picture below, you can see all the trees surrounding and framing the Needle. I find it representative of Seattle, which is ridiculously eco-friendly, and the balance of the city with nature (Washington is the Evergreen state).

I also like the composition of the clouds and blue sky. It is quite pretty, and draws your eye up the Needle.

We went a few other places as well, but I couldn't let my friend leave without showing her this gorgeous view of the city skyline. The lights at night are beautiful, and this is my favorite lookout point. The light was a bit green/yellow, due to the clouds coming back in and oppressing all the light. But nonetheless, it is still quite lovely. I love our skyline.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful start to 2014!

A picture from the beach

Hello, I'm back from vacation, and a bunch of photos are about to pop up on this blog! (Just a warning, haha). But here is a preview; my family opted for walks on the beach instead of making sand castles, but we passed this little family who made a different castle every day. They were really into it, digging with real shovels and building a few bridges (you can see one on the boy's right). This picture was taken right as my mom commented on a toy whale that was hanging out in the moat, and the boy looked up at us and cheerfully exclaimed, "That's mine!"

The improvement I would make to this picture would be to aim for a straighter line in the waves in across the back. You can see that the scene is a little tilted.