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Last weekend we made our first trip to the Woodland Park Zoo. It was a chilly, kind of drizzly day, but we figured the zoo would be fun anyway.
The zoo was a frequent weekday and weekend jaunt for us when we lived in St. Louis. We love the St. Louis Zoo and as a result had pretty high expectation for the Woodland Park Zoo. Though it was no St. Louis Zoo, the Woodland Park Zoo was fun and we all had a great time. Especially Anna who adores all animals right now.
Due to the fairly chilly weather many of the animals were not out on display and those that were tended to be huddled together snoozing but we got to see several of Anna’s favorites and we are looking forward to heading back on a warmer day to see those we missed. The girls had fun playing on the many animal statues around the zoo grounds. Those are often Maya’s favorites these days anyway. I mean who needs to see a really gorilla when you can climb on a fake one 
A big hit was, of course, the carousel. I’m glad they had one since that was always Maya’s favorite thing to do at the St. Louis Zoo and she probably would have been highly disappointed with a trip to a zoo that did not include a spin on the carousel.
Overall we really enjoyed the zoo and decided to purchase memberships so we can head back for several more visits. Though it was certainly no St. Louis Zoo it certainly was a nice zoo.
Another Christmas vacation is coming to a close. Lorne went back to work yesterday and Maya heads back to school on Monday. I’m always amazed how quickly the holiday season comes and goes. It feels like we spend so much time preparing for it and it is gone in a blink of an eye. But, at least we made the most of it. This year, since we weren’t busy with traveling for the holidays, we made it our goal was to do something fun every day of our vacation, make it a funcation. And boy did we have fun. We did so much. The days flew by in a blur of smiles, laughter, and fun.
We kicked off our funcation with a trip to the Seattle’s Children’s Museum. The girls had a ton of fun exploring all the different activity centers. Maya’s favorite seemed to be the dress up and stage area (no surprise there!) and Anna loved the under 3 area since everything was just her size (well almost). They both had fun “shopping” in the pretend grocery store.
After spending most of the day in the Children’s Museum we headed outside to check out the fountain in Seattle Center. Maya and Lorne tempted fate by standing awfully close to the water, luckily no one got wet (that time anyway). Anna and I had fun watching and laughing at them every time they almost got wet.
Day 2 was spent in the mountains sledding. The nice thing about living where we do is that we get the best of both worlds in the winter. Our temperatures of fairly mild and we don’t have to deal with the white stuff on a day to day basis, but if we get a hankering for a little fun in the snow we just have to take a short drive into the mountains and there is tons of it. Anna wasn’t too sure about the whole sledding thing at first, but after a few trips down the hill she was having a blast and asking for more. Spent a couple of hours sledding and playing in the snow. It was great fun.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day offered their own fun. The girls had a great Christmas and got spoiled as always.
After spending a couple days indoors busy with Christmas stuff we decided to head out for a hike on Boxing Day. We checked out the cute little hike close to us that is perfect for kids. They have story boards set up along the trail and you read a bit of the story at each board. The story is about a little field mouse who takes a trip into the forest and what he encounters along the way. It was adorable and Maya had a lot of fun.
Thanks to an awesome joint gift from the girls’ Aunt Kathleen we spent the next day at the Seattle Aquarium (family membership!!). It was packed but we still had a great time. We can’t wait to go back.
Our fun the next day took us back outdoors. We did another nice little hike around a lake at a state park not to far from us. Maya wasn’t as into the hike this time and spent a good deal of it whining, but, we stopped periodically for her to create little performances that we filmed and that seemed to make it a bit more fun for her. Anna slept through most of the hike.
Germs found their way into our home the next day, it was bound to happen given all the time we spent around small children, so the rest of our funcation was pretty low key. We had a quiet little New Year’s Eve celebration complete with appetizers for dinner and sparkling cider all around. New Year’s Day we took a nice drive around the city to check out the mountain views since it was a clear, sunny day.
I’d say our mission of making this a fun filled Christmas vacation was accomplished. Everyone had a great time and we got to check out several new spots in this still new to us city of Seattle. Maya has lots of fun stories to share with her friends when she heads back to school on Monday.
Our ringing in of the New Year has been very low key (and chilly) this year as 2 out of 4 of us (Lorne and Anna) are sick and our furnace is not working, hence the chilly part. Thanks for coming in with a bang 2013 :/
Last night we spent the evening celebrating with the girls. We had a dinner of appetizers and sparkling cider. The girls had fun and after they went to bed Lorne and I managed to stay up until 10pm!! before calling it a night. We really know how to party!
We woke today to a chilly house filled with beautiful sunshine. A crystal clear blue sky is a rare sight in these parts this time of year so we felt the need to do something. Since Lorne and Anna still aren’t feeling well we decided to take a quiet drive around to see the city and the mountains bathed in sunshine. We really are incredibly lucky to live in such a beauty rich part of the country. Everywhere you look there are incredible vistas. Mountains all around. Trees reaching high into the sky. When you light that with often hidden winter sun it really is something. Our drive was the perfect way to kick off the year. We chatted and took in the breathtaking sights from the warmth of our car while sipping hot chocolate. Can’t think of a better way to welcome 2013.
Tomorrow promises more sunshine and hopefully a warmer house once our furnace gets fixed (thank goodness for our kickass gas fireplace). Looking forward to another great year with my little family watching my girls grow and enjoy life, spending time with my love and taking in all this great city has to offer.
Happy 2013 everyone! I hope this year brings you lots of smiles and laughs, lots of time with those you love and a chance to do the things that make you happiest.
This was a big weekend for us. We had some family in town and, of course, it was Thanksgiving, but that isn’t what made it a big weekend around here. Our weekend was big because….we moved!!
I realized as I was posting on Facebook about our moving day that I hadn’t really told very many people, oops. Ya, so, we decided to buy a house here in Seattle. Apartment living just wasn’t working and we really wanted a house so that it would really start feeling like home here. After much searching and a few offers that got rejected we found our perfect house. Our first offer was turned down in favor of a higher offer but the higher offer fell through so they came back to us and everything worked out and the house was ours. It really was meant to be 
We love our new house and are busy unpacking and getting settled in.
Without further ado, some pictures. Excuse the mess, I’m still in the midst of unpacking
The front of the house and front entryway.
The front living room, dining room and entryway.
Family room and kitchen.
Master bedroom and bathroom, and the girls rooms.
We feel like we have so much space. The house is huge compared to our apartment and is even quite a bit bigger than our house in St. Louis. I’m having a lot of fun getting settled in and figuring out how to place our furniture. The last two days have been gorgeous and the sun in streaming in the back windows soaking the whole back half of the house (where we spend most of our time) in tons of natural light. I’m loving it.
We are currently in the midst of some absolutely glorious weather here in Seattle. Since we arrived almost 2 months ago we have had awesome weather, it has only rained once. Now, given the fact that Seattle is known for its rather soggy climate I’ve been a bit surprised by how lovely it has been (but loving it just the same). I’ve heard over and over again how unusual this weather is. The summers are usually dry and sunny here but by now the rain would have set back in along with much cooler temperatures. Instead we’ve had endless days of sun and perfect temperatures. I’ll take it. The rain can hold off as long as it likes.
We are trying to take advantage of this weather and soaking up all the sun we can. We’ve been spending lots of time outdoors because we know the rain is just around the corner (in fact according the forecast it may return later this week). Since this past weekend was more of the same perfect weather we headed outside. Saturday was spent downtown Issaquah at the Salmon Days festival the town holds every year to celebrate the return of salmon to the Issquah river to spawn. It was a ton of fun. Sunday we wanted to do soemthing a little more low key and headed out for a hike to Twin Falls.
The sun was shining, we were all in good spirits and the hike did not disappoint. We were surrounded by beautiful scenery and the falls were very pretty.
The girls had fun. Maya did a really good job on the hike, even with all the up hill walking to get up to the falls. Her favorite part of the hike was the end when we stopped and had a picnic lunch on some rocks by the river. She loved clmibing on the rocks and throwing rocks in the river. She especially loved throwing in the big ones to see if she could make a splash big enough to get us all wet. Anna enjoyed the rocks too
We may not get many more days like this but for now we are just enjoying this gift from mother nature.