Birch Bay and July 4th

     Hmmm… I haven’t written in my blog for a long time. Anyways– my family drove to Birch Bay (near the border) after my dad’s pastor’s conference in Tacoma to visit some old friends that we met last year there, only this year: we only visited for 4 days . It was a three hour drive from “home base” (my aunt’s house) in Seattle to Birch Bay.

     When we got there, my friend (BJ) showed me his new rabbits (two cute Jersey wooleys) and then we got into swordfighting with some swords he made. It turns out that he’s been really into Lego Star Wars since last year. I recommended Star Wars Battlefront II (the BEST STARWARS GAME EVA) to him, but he said he liked Lego Star Wars better O_o. Oh well… Anyways, I slept over at his house that night. Really fun. I remember at some point late that night we played Apples to Apples with some other friends that were staying over. It was really fun– we used really naughty inside jokes instead of the intended stuff! I was laughing maniacally.

     The next day was JULY 4th! BJ and I got to making some explosives and fireworks for that night (would you believe it, he had access to gunpowder, fuses, and various firecrackers!). BJ connected 8 sparklers (the little balls that sparkle and explode when you light them up) with fuse and duct tape, and I created… well nothing… YET. >=D Anyways, that July 4th was the best I’ve celebrated in my whole life. His family, my family, and some other friends drove down to the bay to watch the fireworks at around 10 pm. I expected a ‘lousy’ commercial fireworks show, but I was way wrong. All the beachside houses down there by the bay could afford their own PROFESSIONAL fireworks! I mean mortars, cakes, saturn missiles– the whole thing! It wasn’t illegal, either because that was country, not city, so yeah… And one house lasted for about 30-40 mins non stop fireworks! It was really cool. The bay was shaped like a crescent moon, and every house was firing off fireworks at the same time so the bay was literally a ring of fire! :O Once we got back to BJ’s house, which was around 11:30 pm, Dan (BJ’s friend) put up a real fireworks show just for us! He had bought around $1000+ worth of fireworks! BJ and I got to shoot roman candles. For the grand finale, Dan launched mortars (the things that go phweeettttt BOOM crackle crackle)! First were the single mortars (about 5 for each kind), then doubles, then triples, then quadruples, to end with one huge custom cinqtuple! Just for reference, doubles means two BOOM crackle crackles, singles means one BOOM crackle crackle, and so on. Dan has a fireworks license, so everything we did was completely legal. Except for when BJ’s sister, Rachel, was hit by part of a misfired mortar, and it burned through all her layers into her skin! Fireworks are dangerous. That was when the parents said that was enough although we did convince them to let us watch the grand finale. That was awesome.

     The next day, we had some fireworks left and so did some of the neighbors so we had a firecracker “war”– we shot off fireworks and saw who had the last laugh. I made a big daddy firecracker out of 6 firecrackers worth of gunpowder and flashpowder. BJ put it in a firecracker cake we were working on, and it didn’t work >=( probably because it got smoldered when the rest of the firecrackers and ’shotgun shell’ sparklers went off. Oh well. It was a pleasure making it.

     Later that day, BJ and I went kayaking in the house development’s pond, a kayak to each person. It was really fun. We played kayak tag, and raced across the pond. And when we were just about to go up, BJ lost his balance and his flimsy kayak flipped over. O_O He was okay though, because the pond was only 4 feet deep and he had flipped over once before. We were both soaking wet (BJ obviously) by the end.

Over the next day (or was it two), we had fun swordfighting, shooting the bb guns (I brought my Crosman 760 up from California), and fishing in two ponds in the area. On the last day, my dad grilled some Copper River Salmon we brought up from Seattle to eat with sushi! Yummm…

I had a blast in that trip to Birch Bay.

Seattle + REALLY good food!

My family is on vacation to Seattle, Washington right now. We’re staying at my aunt and uncle’s house, where they have GREAT food (mostly because they know where to get the best ingredients around here). Over the last couple of days, we’ve had fresh raw oysters served with lemon and fresh grated horseradish, Alaskan Copper River Salmon served grilled and in sushi, delicious and fresh hamachi (it’s a kind of fish), and also Vietnamese ‘oc’ (it’s kind of a sea snail, but it isn’t realy– there’s no suitable English word for it) in ‘gio’ (Vietnamese pork that has gone through a process and is suitable for molding) and just cooked and dipped in a Vietnamese sauce… yummm… We’ve also gone to a few delicious pizza restaurants–Tutta Bella’s, where they have real Italian pizza cooked in a super hot oven, and Paggliacchi’s, where they have great calzones. All this writing about food is making me myself hungry as well :L lol. If you’re reading this and don’t have a single idea what I’m talking about, well— I don’t know, I guess I just have an expensive taste , probably because I grew up eating gourmet and really good food, thanks to my mom! Well actually, we just came back to their house from a Vietnamese Christian Conference in Tacoma. We ate all that good food before we came to the conference, and we’re likely to eat more good food tonight . But at the conference, it was amazing how cafeteria food there tasted sooo bad after eating delicious food at my aunt and uncle’s house. It actually took a few days to get used to eating the cafeteria food! Hmm, interesting… Oh well, we’re back here in Seattle and back to the great food now, that’s all that matters.