Woodland Park Zoo

We have been wanting to go and visit the zoo for awhile now. Especially since the Nocturnal House will be closing on March 1st and this is one of our favorite exhibits. Since we had several days of clear weather and the rain is headed our way again we decided to go. It was a little chilly out but we saw quite a few animals and luckily the zoo was not too crowded. Ethan really enjoyed seeing the animals, especially the Howler Monkey's.

Ethan's Daycare Winter Gala Performance

Ethan is the one on the far left in the brown shirt once the song starts. Enjoy!

Food Lifeline Volunteer Event

Last week my work had a team volunteer event at Food Lifeline in Shoreline. We volunteered our time for three hours by sorting frozen veggies into small sized bags that would be sent out to the food bank. Because of our efforts we packaged over 4 thousand meals to people in need which is pretty amazing for a short amount of time.

If anyone is interested in volunteering with Food Lifeline they have a community volunteer event every Wednesday evening. Check them out here.

Happy New Year!

What are your New Year's resolutions? Below are mine in no particular order.

- Have a lot of different adventure's with Ethan and Jeff.
- Attempt to have more home cooked meals instead of pre-packaged easy food.
- Learn to play the guitar. I got a new book and tuner from Ethan for Christmas that should help me achieve this.
- Try to be more organized.

Wishing you all a prosperous and fantastic year in 2010!

Great Wolf Lodge, Grand Mound WA

Jeff, Ethan, and I just returned from an overnight trip to the Great Wolf Lodge and boy did we have fun. We arrived at around 1:30 and the line at the lobby was pretty long. They do a good job of moving people along though and we were checked into our room in about ten minutes. Luckily our room was ready so we went right to it and changed into our swimsuits.

This is definitely a place for families. In the main lobby area there were tons of kids running around waving their magic wands to activate certain areas. This was a game that you could purchase that took you around the whole resort. We opted out of this one though since Ethan was a little to young to participate. When we got into the water park it was a huge area. Ethan headed straight for the wave pool and loved going in the innertube with Jeff into the choppy water. He also got a kick out of pushing the innertubes into the large water fountains and under the waterfall umbrella. They had a really large fort type area where a huge bucket at the top would drop water on to the people below about every ten minutes or so. In this fort was a ton of water guns and buckets that you could activate to drop on unsuspecting victims below. They also had a few water slides in this area as well. Unfortunately Ethan was to young to go on those slides but Jeff and I took a couple of turns down them. The toddler area was closed on the first day we were there so we spent the majority of the time in the wave pool, the fort, and the activity pool that had basketball hoops. After swimming for a good three hours or so we went and explored the arcade where Ethan got to play some games and win tickets. After the arcade we headed to dinner and ate at one of the restaurants that was similar to a Red Robin instead of the buffet restaurant. Once dinner was complete Ethan wanted to go in the water again so we went back in and then all headed to bed. Ethan was so exhausted from swimming he didn't wake up at all through the night which is unusual for him in a new place. I guess he had a ton of fun.

The next day we woke up and went to the breakfast buffet. They have a ton of items for kids to choose from so this was a good option for Ethan. Then after swimming we went to the lobby clocktower where they were having a animatronics show. Ethan loved watching this and sat down right in the front. At the end of the show there was even snow falling all throughout the lobby. After the show we went back to the waterpark and this time the toddler area was open. Ethan loved the jet ski's in this section that sprayed water and had a water gun to spray at other kids. They had two water slides that he loved going down as well. It was hard to get him out of the water and head back on the road. My one suggestion to anyone that is thinking about going here is to go during the week. The weekends have a lot more kids in the waterpark. We went on a Sunday through Monday and Monday was definitely a lot less crowded. We will definitely be back here again in the future.

(Water fort)

(Wave pool)

(Toddler pool)

(Ethan in the wave pool)

(How come this keeps moving)

(Heading out to the waves)

Christmas Photo's...

I finally had some time to upload a couple of our Christmas pictures from opening presents Christmas morning. As you can see, Ethan must have been a very good boy.

(Christmas Eve after Santa arrived)

(New Elmo phone and dad's candy)

(Chef Ethan cooking us breakfast)

(I didn't know that kids got excited about wooden food but I guess they do)

Merry Christmas!

Yes, I know that I am a day late but with the hussle and bustle of yesterday I did not have time to make an update. I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas. I know that we had a great Christmas and Ethan made out like a bandit from Santa and the grandparents. This year was the first year that he actually opened the presents and paid attention to what was inside instead of just the boxes and wrapping paper. The only problem is that everything he got he wanted to open immediately and with all of that tape and fasteners that toys now have it took a very long time.

For Christmas dinner I made a ham and we had my dad, Jackie, and her children and grandchild over. We had a great time and no one left hungry.

I still have to upload my photo's from the big day and promise to do that in a few days when things settle down but here is a picture of Ethan on his new bicycle that Santa brought. He is still getting used to it since it is a new bike but he seems to like it. Enjoy!