Salt Mountain

Destination: Salt Mountain
Location: Tainan County
Transportation: One smokin rental scooter!
Reason: A Saltsational Saturday in Southern Taiwan!
We arrived at Salt Mountain and climbed the salt stairs. It's literally a moutain of salt. I did some filming here about five years ago, and the mountain was much whiter. I guess time the mountain has been assalted by many tourists and the environment around. Note the pig with an apple on it's head and the Salt Express train in the bottom right hand corner.
We found some surprises . . . Salty er . . . Santa Claus himself!
Cranes . . . they like salt?
Salty DIY! Bath salts can make beautiful designs. It was so much fun to watch the excitement as the kids and adults were making their salt mountain souveniers.

When business is slow . . . you nap! Can you find the salesman?
We also toured the salt museum. What a journey to our salt shakers! And what a reminder of what it means to be the "salt of the earth."
On our trip home we drove through Old Anping town and the historic harbour. That meant time to dip my toes in the salty water of the Taiwan Strait. It was a salted and seasoned Saturday!

*Pop Goes My Heart*

Popcorn is one of my favourite snacks. This week I had a quick last minute photo shoot and we needed popcorn. Talk about a *pop goes my heart* part of my day. I ran out to 7-Eleven and got two bags of the cheese variety. There are so many perks of sweet convenience at 7-Eleven. Today’s perk of choice was the pop your bag of popcorn service. They always manage to pop it to perfection. The attendant took my two bags out of the microwave, and this time he didn’t just hand them to me. I got my very own blue popcorn bag carriers. I carried my two bags of popcorn back to the office with a new *pop* in my step.

Anniversary Picture and Wedding Video Clip

Part of our Taiwan wedding photo studio package includes a yearly anniversary picture! This year we went the week of our one-year anniversary. We had a lot of fun during our session, and ended up picking more of a random shot. Here it is! I'm also wearing my anniversary gift from Daniel. I love my new necklace :) It was a sunny Sunday afternoon in the city, so I finally scooted to the studio to pick up our picture.

This evening Daniel and I had dinner while watching part of our honeymoon trip video. We had macaroni and cheese with ice wine, and each had a cat cuddled on our lap.

Daniel had put together this three minute wedding clip for one of our TV shows on “Western Weddings”. It was fun to look at again, so I also post it. It's been a fun skip down sweet sparkling memory lane!

Discipline

It was a cat day around the kerosine heater on a cold Saturday in Taipei. Our dear felines haven't been the best of friends lately. They've been displaying a catpetitive edge; especially around the heater. When the heater is on, they are right there in the warm zone. Daniel set up a fleece blanket to make it nice and cozy for them. Tickle, however would rather be cozy on his own. It was hilarious to watch how he would always push the old lady away. We now affectionately call "Peeper" the "old lady." We felt bad for the old lady who would merely end up with but a small corner of the blanket. It was time to display some discipline, and Daniel had a creative way of doing that. I came back to the roof after my morning hike to see it in action. Daniel's tripod had given each cat equal warming ground, and there was peace on the blanket. That's nice to see, but watching the cat territory expansion ground games was also rather amusing.

Birthday!

I have a new keyboard, and am now back to blogging again. Our Tickle (the cat) knocked over my Valentine's Day flower and vase while we were out. Unfortunately I had it placed beside my laptop Stella (yes, I named my laptop). So many of the keys on the keyboard were flooded and internally fried. Sadness for Stella . . . and me . . . and Tickle. Thankfully, I was just able to get a small keyboard to plug into my USB port. I like my little set up, and am back in action again! And I'm a year older too!

Birthdays continue to fill me with the childlike birthday joy! I wake up excited, and this year was just the same. I awoke and bounded out of bed to the mountaintop! My (almost) daily morning hike had a whole new kick to it. The trail was packed and I even found myself telling a few dogs it was my birthday :) I came home to my dear Daniel and how I loved being greeted by my husband on my second birthday as Mrs. Bastke. Daniel had me sit down and then he showed me this video. Check it out if you'd like :)


Daniel and Angus put it together. They surely did bless my birthday heart! It added an "All Shook Up" to my day! I loved Angus' quote of, "I've never spent so much time doing something like this for someone's wife!"

March 5th was a work day, and so we skipped to the office together. I'm not sure if we literally skipped, but I sure was skipping in my heart. It was also a recording day for me and the LTE team as we filmed June skits and our group teaching segments in the studio. At night we had an Improv Night! This was the second such night we have hosted on the roof. We have so many talented friends, and it was just fun to laugh and enjoy together!
Phil's vending machine, Howie describing "baseball" . . . er the "bathroom", the mad cow belly warmer . . . you never know what will happen next!And the Oscar goes to Charlotte!

But Angus wants it too.
Daniel and Gabe did a fantastic job hosting the night.

Angus did indeed get his own Oscar.

So did Birthday Boy Leo!

Even Micah had a fun time in the audience. Micah's birthday is March 6th!

Many guests had already left before we got our "group shot", but here it is! Beth and Leo celebrated their birthday on March 4th! March offers 4th, 5th, and 6th birthdays.

Our "serious" group shot

I received a birthday card that said, “May your day be filled with your favourite things!” and it indeed was!

These are a few of my favourite birthday things:
*hiking in the morning
*a smoothie breakfast
*vegetarian dumplings for lunch
*teaching!
*talking to my parents on the phone
*lovely e-mails and heart hugs (even spleen squeezes and cardiac caresses :)) in facebook messages
*sunshine
*friends on the rooftop
*serving snacks
*acting
*new shoes!
*wearing a party dress just because
*surprises on my desk at work
*raindrops at night (I love the sound of the rain on our roof – so soothing)
*our cats
*opening cards
*strawberries
*hummingbird cake

*reading Psalm 34