A Visit With Family, Cameron & Brittany's Visit

Last Sunday, February 15th, we had a family get together up at my nephew Ian, and his wife, Karolyn's new home in Kenmore. They have a new baby son, Caiyan, about 6 months now? We had never met him so it was fun to get to connect with them. Unfortunately, I only have one blurry picture of him, but will get more! My other nephew, Cameron and his wife, Brittany were out visiting from Iowa. It was just a great time getting to see everyone!

A festive table and beautiful tulips. We did a potluck style taco and burrito meal.

An impromptu fam shot by Brittany!

Portrait of Mommy in the Car, by Finley.

Birthday folk, Brittany and Dad! She had German chocolate and Dad had his own personal apple pie with two different kinds of apples, Golden and Red Delicious.

My lovely niece, Lauren, and her son, Kaleb.

My lovely sister, Emily!

Dad and my cousin Sharon's hubby, Dean. Finley took this photo, too!

My cousin Sharon and her husband, Dean came over too, from Issaquah. It was great to get to catch up with them too.

Finley took some pictures of his cool Hotwheel toy.

Todd, Brittany and Emily. Brittany! Didn't you get the memo about wearing burgundy? :)

Finley, Emily and Makayla enjoying some time together. Emily and Mom were great help with getting the kids fed and watching them while Todd and I got some food, too.

Finley and Makayla wore themselves out chasing each other and playing all evening. Lauren and Kaleb in the background.

Brittany holding Caiyan, Ian and Karolyn's little guy. I'll get more pictures of him later.

Finley and Dad.

My niece, Jennifer, happened to be up from California where she's going to Santa Clara University. It was great to see her!

Cougar Mountain Zoo

Finley and Evelyn are off this week from their co-op pre-school so we decided to visit the Cougar Mountain Zoo in Issaquah. I hadn't been their since my nieces were little and they are grown women now! Needless to say, some things had changed. I was really impressed with how much they have done. It is a very small zoo but there are lots of fun statuary to play on and the interaction with the animals is amazing since you can get so close to the cages.
They had very cool sculptures throughout the park, most of which were available for sale.





These were amazing Bengel tigers. I learned that Bengels are the only tigers that can come in different shades and variations of color. It is hard to tell here, but one almost looks like a white tiger and the other one , was creamy orange and white, like a big tabby! They are getting a new habitat soon.


Evelyn! Get out from behind that rhino!
A nice lady offered to take our picture so we accepted her offer!

When I asked Finley what his favorite animal at the zoo was, he replied, "The tyrannasaurus rex, Mom."

They had some wonderful macaws and these large parrots, of which I've forgotten their name. There were also beautiful black and white lemurs, mountain lions, reindeer, alpacas, deer, crested cranes, wallabys, emus, and the two wonderful Bengel tigers.

Having fun on the "ginormous" tortoise!

Evelyn was having so much fun running from statue to statue. The kids had a lot of fun buying feed for the animals from the zoo's vending machines with quarters I'd brought.


I took this picture just as Finley was losing his footing and falling off the tortoise!

Santa's sleigh! At Christmas time they have Santa pictures with real reindeer!



And a self portrait of Finley!