Weekend Rewind

FUN DAYS: This weekend was full of family and fun. Saturday, Nonnie and Bops came up from Bend for Mother's Day weekend.

Saturday afternoon the gang went to Kubota Garden, just a few minutes to MPA's north. 

CJ can tell you more about that. ...

Kubota Garden is a 20-acre public park located in south Seattle. According to Seattle.gov, Kubota Garden fuses Japanese gardening styles with plants native to the Pacific Northwest. Kubota Garden was established in 1927 by Fujitaro Kubota (a Japanese immigrant), and has since become a popular park in the south Seattle region.

Last weekend, I visited Kubota Garden with my grandparents. It was a sunny day, so I brought sunglasses and a sun hat. Throughout the park, several of the plants had their vibrant and diverse colors on display. There appeared to be some photoshoot for a promenade going on, judging by the outfits and surroundings (expensive cameras, for example) of multiple attendees in one place. In addition, several parkgoers had brought their dogs (we didn't bring ours because our dogs would bark at anybody around them).

Towards the end of our visit, my grandmother and I went up a long trail to the peak of the park, at which there was a bench. After reaching the bench, my grandmother and I waited for my other family members to arrive to the bench, and then descend.

Sunday was a fun day, for sure. I stayed behind with Kennedy to help get dinner ready, but the rest of the gang headed to the Museum of Flight. It sounded like there were some great docents on site that day, with compelling stories to tell.

Sunday evening, we had a dinner party for 13. We made gallons of jambalaya, plus  plenty of corn muffins and carrot cake from scratch, and had a nice salad brought by some of our guests. After dinner, we had a jam session on the deck, with Rick, Kennedy, CJ and Annabelle providing musical entertainment. It was so much fun!

HOME-Y: One of our busy Mother's Day activities was picking up a wooden table I found on Facebook Marketplace for free! For months now, I've been watching for the perfect table - I wanted a solid wood pedestal table to bring some warmth to the lobby of the facility where we volunteer. And I wanted it for free, which was the real kicker. ;)

Previously, the space had an ugly, state-issue black laminate topped table and cheap, molded black plastic chairs. 

Lo and behold, the table popped up in my feed and I pursued it kind of relentlessly, with the arranged pick up time changing 4-5 times over two days. The doggedness paid off finally, on Sunday and today, we delivered the table. 

Upon arrival, we were so happy to see the ugly plastic chairs were gone, replaced by a cute pair of recently-donated chairs.  

The entire lobby has such a different feeling now - it's downright welcoming, and one of the workers there reported that the women residents are actually hanging out in the lobby now, for the first time. 

Korea to Cuba

PICTURE PERFECT: We headed downtown this morning for a special event at Benaroya Hall. Following, CJ tells you a bit about the one-hour presentation.

On the morning of May 15 at Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle, there was a National Geographic Live event titled "A Rare Look: North Korea to Cuba." The event was about the photography work of David Guttenfelder, a photographer for National Geographic Magazine.

Guttenfelder stated that he was born in 1969 in rural Iowa. For most of his twenties, he worked as a photographer across the continent of Africa. During his time in the continent, he witnessed several different conflicts, such as civil wars. From 2001 to 2013, Guttenfelder extensively covered the War on Terror in Afghanistan.

According to the event page on Seattle Symphony's website (linked above), in 2011, Guttenfelder helped the Associated Press open a bureau in the totalitarian state of North Korea. During his presentation, Guttenfelder showed us several pictures he has taken inside of North Korea. Apparently, he is one of the only Americans allowed regular access to the country, often referred to as the "Hermit Kingdom" in a derogatory fashion.

On Instagram (a popular social network website), Guttenfelder's account has over one million followers. In addition, Guttenfelder acts as the curator of Everyday DPRK, an account featuring several pictures submitted by photojournalists from inside North Korea (legally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, abbreviated DPRK).
Guttenfelder's photography portrays a variety of different settings, situations, people, and places across the world.

During his presentation, Guttenfelder showcased a diverse array of his pictures taken over the years, from his 1980s ventures across the continent of Africa to much more recent pictures taken of Cubans using cell-phones, in Cuba's first park with Wi-Fi. In Cuba, most citizens don't even have internet connections in their homes.

Guttenfelder has also ventured to Cuba for photography. Notably, he was present in Cuba shortly after former dictator Fidel Castro died in 2016.

It was a compelling presentation. As we walked back to our car afterward, I said to the kids, "I think (Guttenfelder) has the most awesome job in the world." 

The photographer is an eight-time World Press Photo Award winner and a seven-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Additionally, in 2016, a photograph of his made in North Korea was named among TIME Magazine's "100 Most Influential Photographs Ever Taken."  (You can see them all here: http://100photos.time.com/. A direct link to Guttenfelder's photo is here: http://100photos.time.com/photos/david-guttenfelder-north-korea#photograph

ULTIMATELY: Saturday morning, Annabelle had an Ultimate Frisbee game out at Magnuson Park. It was against a team they beat 11-10 in a nail biter a couple of weeks ago.

This time it wasn't at close. The Cascading Saucers (the team Annabelle's on) won handily, 11-4. Here are the teams in a post-game 'spirit circle,' where they share compliments and comments. (I am pretty sure Annabelle is hidden in this photo.)

There's just one more game to go in the season, which means it's nearly time for the end of season party, which means it's time for some coaches' gifts. I had the idea of turning a Frisbee into a clock for their coaches, to thank them for all the time they devoted to the team this year.

We started with these blank discs.

We ordered a clock movement kit from Amazon, choosing the white hands, as we thought they'd "pop" in front of the green. Christian drilled a hole through the disc's center and installed the movements.

Then, Annabelle used her Cricut machine to make the numbers. We chose a font that matched the words on the disc, and a blue foil material that matched the disc perfectly!

 We were super happy with the finished product!

We had a number of other fun goings-on this past weekend, but will save those for tomorrow's post.