sleepsleepsleeping in seattle~

HELLLLOOOOOOOOO WORLD~! X)

I know it's been awhile but GOSH it's been a really incredibly hectic past week. A TON of things happened some of which include these:

- i attended my cousin's soccer match within2 hours of arriving in Seattle! :P Boy was it cooooold but such fun finally being away from the insane humidity and heat of Singapore. And all those little kids had so much energy running around the field...they made me feel tired just looking at them hurhur.

- i fell ill!! :( my aunt and younger cousin had already been down with some sort of flu and i arrived right smack in the middle of their evil virus phase... so i spent a good 2-3 days with a gross drippy nose, fuzzy head and general desire to lie down and vegggg out (not really very different from usual in that last aspect...just a more pronounced version I suppose)... those days were really NOT the most fun but on the bright side, it just allowed me to sit around and do nothing without feeling TOO guilty since it is the holidays after all.

- both my uncle and aunt's cars DIED. Well my uncle's car died and my aunt's car got into a little scrape with another crazy ass driver's car when she went to pick my uncle up pretty late at night. Nobody was hurt thank goodness, but we were left carless for the past few days. ;p Luckily my aunt is incredible and has friends who LOVE her and were able to carpool the cousins/us around. Now we have a cool new flashy red rental car to use for the time being.

Ok and mannny other things happened but I'm getting way ahead of myself here! :P Let me just show you the first batch of like a thousand photos I've been taking. I know there are a ton of photos of my little cuzzins but I'm SO not a paedophile alright? I just love taking photos of subjects who LOVE the camera and keep relatively still. And those cuzzins of mine are NATURAL cam-hoooars. :))

First day in Seattle:







This is my dearest little cousin, Teagan. :D She's 6 and is by far the more subdued cousin. Let's see what else... she's very sweet and loves cold weather, cuddly objects, cuddling up to people and rubbing her cheeks on people's sweaters... oh and a really gross purple and blue spongy toy tarantula that she's been leaving behind on the odd place in my room such as my laptop.








Lunch at Chinook's! :)

This is Hai-ying, the older one of my 2 cousins. She's 9 and well, can be a EXTREMELY SWEET at times and at other times... a COMPLETE TERROR. :((((((( She's a tough cookie. Very intelligent and curious and is ALWAYS questioning the actions of her parents. I'd be very frazzled if I were her mum. In fact, she already frazzles me quite a bit. But she's definitely improved from when I last saw her a few years back... So hopefully she'll become an angel when she's my age. ;p






Totally scrummy scones! :D They were soft on the inside, crispy on the outside and most importantly -- WARM. I totally piled on the strawberry jam onto these babies and lapped them up like a dawg.





Salmon and potatoes for the main course which I shared with Haiying (because the portions here are so ginormous ;p but i'm already starting to eat sooo much more so i have no doubt that in no time, i'll be polishing off U.S. portions with ease. *shudder*)




Oatmeal! As part of the kids' breakfast/brunch set. Believe it or not, this was actually my first taste of oatmeal! :P It's not really a common thing to eat in SG imo, so this was kinda nice, having my first taste of it. Except it was pretty bland and gooey and filling. No wonder it's diet food.



My dearest aunt and Teagan. :D My aunt's really the coolest, most enthusiastic, warmest aunt ever. She's really the one who makes Seattle fun since my uncle's always busy with work so she's the one who takes me around and takes care of the kids.








The view at the harbour was really pretty. :)




Ooo and this is the incredible view from my aunt and uncle's bedroom window. I'd kill to have a house facing the sea! I wish I could've captured the colors of the sunset a lot better but this was the best shot I got with the rays of the sun half blinding me while looking through the viewfinder.




Fruit smoothie whipped up within 1 min by my aunt. The trick? Frozen fruit from a packet. I'd never heard of that before but it works and gives the flavors too!

Stay tuned for more photos and updates... I've been a lazy lazy blogger and person haha in general for the past week. There's so much energy required to keep up with the kids that my optimum time to sleep at night is 10p.m. so that I can have enough sleep when I'm woken up by the sounds of YELLING/SCREAMING/CRYING by the kiddos at absurd hours of the morning. 6.30 a.m. is just wayyy too early, young ladies. But do they care? HELL NOZ. sobbbbbbb.


xxxxoooo

always love

I guess the next best thing after not having a UO outlet where I live/not living in a place that UO offers shipping to would be having friends who do (and who are willing to bring them items back with them as they return home for the holidays) :))).

(cardigan and dress: Urban Outfitters)

I'm really loving the print of this dress and am just bowled over by how incredible the designers at Kimchi & Blue are for having designed a dress with button-adjustable straps! This baby was 9.99 pounds from the UK site. :)) LOVE LOVE LOVE. I'm actually rather worried about losing my suitcase on the way to Hong Kong. After all, those things do happen eh? I'd just be pretty darn crushed. But then I suppose I'd get over it slowly and painfully by thinking that there has to be a reason for the way things turn out. Am putting all sorts of lovely items in there to wear in HK over the Christmas holiday there. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I'll be in HK for the next week! Soooo excited. 9 more hours to go! :) I hope it won't be too cold there though it would be such a relief to get away from the heat in Singapore.

And I can FINALLY wear these boots that I got ages ago in anticipation of eventually going to someplace cold enough to wear them. Well I was supposed to wear them out in Sg but I never managed to muster up enough guts to do so...

(Notice something new? THE BED. I finally have a bed to sleep on at night. It's quite a nice feeling being able to sit on something with my legs dangling and not simply collapsing onto a mattress at night)

I totally miss Christmas in Seattle. It's the only time when Christmas really does feel like Christmas. My Aunt is just the nicest, most bubbly and Christmas-loving aunt ever and there's always a whole lot of xmassy things to be done such as baking xmas cookies (i feel really hungry now and it's 3 a.m. aghh.), decorating the porch and the tree in the living room, playing the same xmas cd which begins with my fav song "The Christmas Song" by the inimitable Nat King Cole over and over again...

It's kinda hard being the only one in my immediate family remotely interested in and excited about Christmas. My dad (the Buddhist), scoffs and goes, "Christmas? Who's celebrating it?". My older sis, the biggest scrooge on the planet, gives me a look just short of "Bah Humbug". To my mum, it makes no difference whether we celebrate it or not but she does enjoy some festive cheer. Heh well to cut a long story short, it always never seems xmassy enough over here... I'd love to go back there again. :)

It's always the littlest things that jog up my memories of Seattle... such as the smell of cinammon in stores. It seemed as if all the little stores/even supermarkets or places like Walmart always seemed to smell of cinammon.




(the two cutest cousins ever. :) I can't actually remember how old they are now. Probably 6 and 9? These photos were taken just about a year ago when I spent Christmas with them in Seattle. They are such tykes.)

(Seattle, December 2008)

Probably the best memory I have of my time over there. Late nights spent bathed in a shower of coloured lights, huddled underneath a quilt, lapping up each second, each breath of cold air, settling into dreams.

P.S. In case I don't get to eventually, MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS. :)