We had to Highland Ice Arena for some ice skating. For the first time, Bree tries skating without one of those walker-like stands that help one stay upright. She falls a bunch, but after an hour or so, starts to get the hang of it.
Jan’s friend Bruce teaches Liya a magic trick. Last year, Liya expressed a bit of an interest in magic. For Christmas, Jan gave her a book a card tricks, and asked his friend, Bruce, if he would mind teaching her one of the tricks he knows. He graciously agreed, so on a Saturday morning, we went to his house. Jan waited in a different room while Bruce did a card trick for Liya, then showed it how it was done, then had Liya do the trick for him. Then the two of them called Jan back in, so Liya could do it for Jan. It’s a pretty cool trick! As was only proper, Liya didn’t explain to Jan how she did it.
Angela’s brother, Johnny, comes up from L.A. to visit for the weekend, bringing his two sons, Anthony and Brian. The five cousins are very excited to see each other, and happily run around for hours. In the evening, we take them to a restaurant that offers s’mores for dessert. Anthony looks on as Brian tries to blow out a marshmallow that’s succumbed to flames.
The cousins’ visit provides an occasion for a new round of cardboard constructions for our hamster, Kouri.
The whole point of Johnny’s visit this weekend was so that we could take his boys — who live in southern California — to the mountains for a day in the snow. Unfortunately, with the warm winter weather, the Cascades have rain, not snow. So we improve a day of some tourist activities. We have lunch atop the Space Needle.
The weather clears enough to give us a pretty good view from the top of the Space Needle, but the wind is howling on the observation deck.
We tour the EMP Museum. The Sci-Fi portion of the museum is unfortunately closed while they prepare a new exhibition, but we all have fun playing through their interactive instrument tutorials.
Bree asks Jan if he’ll take her to the Woodland Park Zoo — it’s been ages since they’ve gone. The two of them have the afternoon free, so they make a circuit of the zoo. The one thing Bree really wants to see is the porcupine, but we discover that the porcupine, being nocturnal, is just a big spiky lump in a tree. A new exhibit of Asian otters is much more lively, as is the Australian bird house, where we take a moment to offer seeds to the budgies and cockatiels.