Closer...closer...closer...

It has been more than a year since I last saw and hung out with my cousins Ogie and Gail and their kids. They drove to Washington on the weekend that I was at the Grand Canyon for Lola Paping's birthday celebration along with other relatives from California. I didn't get to join them at the party but since they stayed on for another week and their supposed trip back to California last Friday got cancelled, I was able to hang out with them this weekend.

Our first get together started with a sumptous chinese dinner at New Star Restaurant at the corner of Jackson and 5th Avenue in downtown Seattle. Lena ordered a the family dinner set which was platter after platter of delicious food that kept coming as if there was no more tomorrow.

Andrew and Stephen at the restaurant.


On Sunday morning, after coming home from church, while waiting for Ogie and Gail to return from church, and while the kids played outside, I put on my new Canon 500D Close Up lense to work.

First stop, the kitchen for some shots of the flowers on Lena's dining table.


And then off to the garden I went. Here are some random macro shots of whatever I can find worth capturing:





Of course would my day be complete without some nice shots of sweet Jessica and Julian:


After enjoying a family lunch of leftover chinese food, Lena, Ogie, Gail, and I took the kids (Jessica, Julian, and Andrew) for a visit to the Seattle Aquarium where they saw, touched, and enjoyed a few hours with some exotic marine animals found within the Puget Sound area, including a white shark, seahorses, salmon, and some gigantic sea lions.

Then we went for some ice cream and popcorn and then off to see an IMAX film featuring Sea Oasis, which was enjoyable to a certain extent but got us a rather dizzy after several minutes of staring at the gigantic dome-shaped movie screen.

Since the sun was up and shining so brightly, we went for a nice walk along Bell Town where the kids can run and play around while Ogie took pictures with his new Canon Rebel SLR camera. I didn't bring my camera with me because my battery ran out from shooting so many macros during the day and I didn't bring any extra batteries with me.

After a while of contemplating where to go for dinner, we finally decided on Gianni's in Everette, a family-owned Italian restaurant, which also happens to be my #1 favorite restaurant in the entire Washington, and where we feasted on a variety of the best tasting pasta dishes, salads, and soups. They had big servings that we thought we couldn't finish but we did.

When we got back to Lena's house, we hung out in the kitchen for some relaxing and digestion-healthy green tea (Lena's new discovery, the My Green Tea brand, is by far the most delicious green tea I've ever tasted), which we really needed after all that rich and lavish meal we just had.

I drove back to Bellevue past 9:30 P.M. Considering this is the first in so many weekends that I wasn't spending far away in some magnificent or exotic place, I had a great time! Spending some quality time with family, which I never get to do much, has been a truly refreshing way to spend the weekend.

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This post was just going to be a showcase of my first shot at macro photography using my new Canon 500D close up lense but at the last minute, I thought I'd throw in the story of my weekend with my lovely family.