Adventures in the NW and Father's Day.

My dad has 6 brothers and sisters, all of whom live in the Puget Sound area with the exception of one of his sisters, my Auntie Lea. She lives in San Jose with her family--my Uncle Roger and my 2 cousins Mark and Leanne. They came up to Tacoma to visit last week for Father's Day weekend and to celebrate Auntie Lea's 50th birthday. It's always exciting to hang out with my out-of-town cousins. Mark comes to Washington at least once a year, and out of his family, he's the one we see most often. He has come to visit almost every summer since he was young, and for the last couple of years the cousins have made it our "thing" to do something adventurous when he's here. The other year it was going to Family Fun Center (as a teen it's adventurous, I guess), last year we went kayaking, and this year we topped it all, but it wasn't just one thing. It felt like a week of adventures and that's what made it so great.


The Thursday before Father's Day, G, Tan, and Mark came up to Seattle to visit me after work,
and David stopped by too. We all decided we were hungry, so I thought we could eat at The 5 Spot on top of Queen Anne Hill. It was a gorgeous evening, so we stopped at Kerry Park, also at the top of the hill, to see the view. I'm not exactly sure if Tan or G had ever seen the view from the park, but I knew Mark hadn't seen it, so I thought it would be nice for all of us to see the city skyline and take pictures. After a quick photo shoot, we proceeded to dinner. Food at The 5 Spot was really delicious and the servings were quite generous, so we were content. We all ordered something totally different, but Tan and Mark ended up finishing everything. They were our garbage disposals. After dinner, we took a night ride to Fremont to see the Fremont Troll underneath the Aurora Bridge. I remember seeing the troll during the day and feeling a little creeped out, so for sure I was a little scared at 9 o'clock at night. It was a fun night. Any time spent with the family on a weekday is always a pleasure. It makes my work week feel less monotonous. Any time spent with the family on any given day is always a pleasure!

Two days later on Saturday, we rented scooters for the whole day and scooted our way throughout every inch of Seattle. It was so awesome! A couple of weeks ago Ardon and I were driving down Mercer Street and we drove by a scooter rental called Scoot About. Ardon thought it would be fun to rent scooters, so when we got back to my place he did some research on rates, which weren't bad at all. One thing that caught his eye was that if we could get 5 or more people together, we would get a group rate with a 10% discount. I mentioned that Mark was coming into town for Father's Day weekend, and that my other cousins would love to do it, so we planned for then. I rallied the troops--Tan, Mark, and David--and we were good to go. A couple of days before the scooter adventure I was a little apprehensive because I wasn't sure how I'd fit on a scooter since I'm so short. I didn't even know if I'd be able to get my own scooter or if I'd have ride behind somebody. And even if I did get my own scooter, what if I rev up when I'm supposed to brake and crash?! To ease my anxiety, Ardon called in ahead of time and told them that he's got somebody who is 4'9" and wants to ride, and they said that I could ride the Honda Metropolitan since it's lowest to the ground. It did make me feel a little better knowing that they had something for me. Saturday morning comes along and Mark, Tan, David, and Ardon arrive at my place around 9:30 so we could be at the scooter place by 10am and scoot around from 10-6, since that's the time frame that you can get a group discount with. We get to Scoot About and we get all the paperwork done, and then they bring us out to the vast parking lot to introduce us to our scooters. Mark, Tan, David and Ardon have bright yellow bad-ass looking scooters and I have a cream colored little scooter with pink accents. It was love at first sight for me. They give us the whole run down of what all the buttons are for, how to fill up the gas tank, etc. Then, it's judgment time. I get on my scooter and I FIT! I could sit on it and still touch the ground. They have us do a trial run around the parking lot, and I must admit, my trial run made me even more nervous than I already was. I pretty much sucked. . . but I knew I could do it. I was determined to scoot! I did more trial runs than anyone else in the group just to get more comfortable, and after a little while, I was ready to hit the road, and that's what we did. Our first stop was Fremont, we passed the Troll and then stopped to eat. Then we went to Gasworks, through the U-District, through Laurelhurst, up to Capitol Hill, back to Queen Anne, then down south to the Seward Park area. After about half an hour on the road, I got so used to it and scooted around with ease. (I'm actually considering investing in one. It's such a gas saver, which is a bonus, especially with the insane gas prices these days.) It was an amazingly fun time. I told the boys they look like delinquents because they all had black hoodies, jeans, tennis shoes, and the same yellow scooter, and then there's little old me on my little pink scooter. When we were on our way to Seward Park, I remember overhearing a lady on the side of the street say, "Oh, and there's a lady too!" I can't even describe how much fun I had that day. Great company, great weather, and great scooters. Such a wonderful way to start my summer, and definitely a day I'll never forget.


The next day was Father's Day and Auntie Lea's birthday. We had a family celebration at Auntie Venus's house. Needless to say there was a kitchenfull of an endless supply of food and lots of laughter. It was the first time in a long while that the entire Picardal clan was all together, with the exception of Christian and Tan because they had to work. We all saw it as a great opportunity to take a Picardal family photo.


School finally ended on Tuesday the 17th. I was dead tired and Ardon was really sweet and brought me some take-out from McMenamin's and we watched the Celtics beat the Lakers for the NBA championship. The next day we went for a hike at Snoqualmie Falls. Earlier that morning, the weather was still pretty cloudy and we weren't sure if we should go because it looked like it could start to rain, but we decided that since both of us were on vacation, we should go. I'm glad be decided to do it because the weather cleared and it turned out to be another beautiful day.