23 July 2023

Helen left Sunday morning for New Student Orientation at the University of Utah where she registered for classes and met some of the 6000 students who will also be freshmen this fall. This is a photo she took with some of the people she met. 

Malakai arrived home from his mission in Los Angeles on Friday, the first of Abe’s friends to return. Lots of homecomings will follow Malakai in the coming weeks. 

Meanwhile, Becky, Gibson and Helen were driving back to Seattle for one of Taylor Swift’s many, many concerts. 

We met up with Sofi, Nate and Nate’s sister, Lily on Friday night. Sofi and Nate just moved to Wenatchee this week and came back to Seattle for the concert. This photo was taken at Volunteer Park which has a great view of the city. 

On Saturday we explored Seattle on foot which is much friendlier than driving. This is a view on Pine Street looking towards the Pike Place market. 

This is a photo of the famous fish market where they toss the fish around when it’s sold and also just for fun. The fish stand had a welcome sign for Taylor Swift fans, AKA  Swifties.

An alley next to the market is covered with pieces of gum. We saw several people add pieces of gum to the walls while we were there. 

The alley is fairy disgusting and cool at the same time. 

This sculpture near the Space Needle reminded us of Dr. Seuss’ truffula trees. 

This is another sculpture which the artist named a Vivarium. The sculpture is a nursery log that has been taken out of the forest and placed in this greenhouse structure. The vivarium has green glass which is why the photo looks super green. Nursery logs are trees that have fallen down in the forest and become a nutrient source for more plants to grow on. It seems remarkable that someone could take these plants from the forest and keep them alive by replicating the temperature and humidity of the forest. At the same time, the trees that have rooted on the nursery log can’t live out their normal life cycle. There isn’t enough room to grow full size hemlock and maple trees inside the structure. 

This is a photo at the Scupture Garden of our group, minus Becky. From the left are Helen, Sofi, Nate, Gibson and Lily. 

After a lot of walking and sight seeing, we went back to the hotel to get ready for the concert. Our hotel had a cardboard cutout of Taylor Swift in the lobby so Becky took a photo of the concert goers before they left. Swifties dress up as one of Taylor Swift’s Eras for the concerts. She has a lot of different styles, so a wide variety of clothing counts as dressing up. 

Helen spent the most time on her outfit, inspired by the album, Midnights. 

The concert was held at Lumen Field and was sold out. Here’s an idea of what 72,000 people looks like

Here are Gibson, Lily, Helen, Sofi and Nate. Becky stayed back at the hotel. 

Here’s a photo of the concert. The kids had a great time singing along to 3 hours of music. The trains kept operating an extra hour to accommodate the concert, but our group chose to walk back to the hotel after a fun night.