Seattle Day 3

Today was one of my favorite days of the trip because I have a serious love for animals and today was the day that we went to Woodland park Zoo. Very very pretty zoo. If you are ever in the area, I would highly highly recommend visiting this zoo. It was so real like because of the natural beauty of Seattle. It didn't feel like a man made zoo. It just felt like you were wondering through the Jungle.

To start the day, we went to the Fremont Troll. There is a story behind this troll. The Fremont troll has been lurking under the north end of the Aurora bridge since 1990. The head-and-shoulders sculpture is 18-ft. tall. The shaggy haired troll glares southward with his shiny metal eye -- a hubcap? In his left hand, he crushes an old style Volkswagen beetle (which originally contained a time capsule of Elvis memorabilia; removed after the car was vandalized and the California license plate was stolen). The community pays tribute to the troll every October 31st with a mobile "Trollaween" party, starting under the bridge and wandering to other funky art sites and events in Fremont. The troll achieved more notoriety in 1998 when the a man shot a bus driver and ran the bus off the Aurora bridge, crashing on top of an apartment building. The building is adjacent to the troll, and was reported to get as much attention -- for a while you could still see evidence of the impact.

This sculpture was crazy looking. Very cool though. I thought Eli was going to be to scared of it to climb up on it and take some pictures, but he actually was super excited to climb up and pose for me.


A couple of family shots. Ethan wasn't very happy at this point as you can see in the pictures. I think he was hungry.

This is at the entry gate of the Woodland Park Zoo. It looked like a good picture taking spot.

Ethan sporting his new hat that his amazing Aunt Heather had just bought for him.

This is a new classic Eli picture. I love how he will humor me by taking the pictures even if he is totally terrified of something, as is the case in this picture.He was so scared of this monkey, even though it was well away from him and behind glass. He sat there for me to take the picture but We couldn't let go of his hand and he was leaning away as far as possible. So cute.

I love this picture because it has all three of the apes in the picture. The mom, the dad, and the cute little baby up at the top. I have seen Apes at almost every zoo I have ever been to, but these three were by far the most entertaining Apes I have ever seen. They were so active and the baby was all over the place. He was swinging and jumping and just being so fun to watch.

A cute shot of Ethan. He spent a lot of time in the stroller but he was such a trooper. He did so good and was so happy all the time, even though he was in the stroller a lot.

Which one is the Ape? It is so hard to tell between these two.

Ethan was definitely not loving this. But I really just thought it would make a cute picture. And It probably would have, if he had been a little bit happier.

This one turned out way better of Ethan. He just looks so small in that Big Apes arms. I love this picture though. I tried really hard to get Eli to go climb on his back or sit off to the other side of him, but as you can see, we didn't get that one.

This is my husband. Sure do love him.

A really cute picture of Heather and Eli. These Ape statues were so much fun to take pictures of.

Ethan sporting some very hot shades.

This was another one of my favorite animals about this zoo. I have see hippos before, but never life this. He was so active. And walking around outside of the water, then back into the water, then out of the water. I have just never seen one like that, never nearly this active,

I love this new photo of Ethan.

I really did love these guys. I think I could have sat and just watched them for at least and hour. They were so fun and they kept going in and out of the water. I have never seen hippos like this and they are such fascinating animals.



This zoo had so many cool statues and as you can plainly see from all the pictures, we took full advantage of most of them. Eli use to be so afraid of them, but now he is all about them. And most of the time, he actually asks me if I will take a picture of him on them.

My cute little safari boy showing of his very cool hat that his Aunt Heather bought him at the zoo.


I had to get at least one shot of the two of them together and since Eli is not quite big enough to hold his brother standing up yet, we had to put them both down on the ground. Ethan was not super overjoyed by this, but still a pretty cute picture.


I love this picture. He was so mad a me. He loved all the other statues at the zoo, but apparently he didn't love this one. He did not want to get up there for nothin, but I put him there anyways and seriously... This is what I got. But I still love it. It is just such a serious sad face.

And this his dad comes over and he is all about taking a picture with the lion.... go figure.

Matt...... what were you thinking? Are you trying to be the new king of the jungle?

Is this not the weirdest animal ever? It looked sort of like a giant black and white ant eater. Not that I have ever seen an ant eater in real life, but that is sure what it looked like to me. It was so weird.

Eli lounging in the elephants trunk. Like I said before, he was loving posing with all the statues.


Eli and his favoritest Aunt Heather. They had so much fun together on this trip and I don't really know that I could have done it without her. She was such a big help with the boys and Eli really does absolutely adore her.

All of us just hanging around.

Eli and his daddy standing on a Komodo dragon. That really is just what they look like and about the same size to. They had a real one just right inside the building that we had just come out of. Biggest lizard looking thing I had ever seen, but very lazy and not very much fun to watch. They don't really move around all that much.

Sleeping bear...... SSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH don't wake him. He looked really big.

A pretty cool shot of an otter. These guys were pretty fun to watch jumping in and out the water and they were so fast. They were all over the place.

And of course we could not have got out of the zoo without riding the carousel. Why do little children find these things so fascinating? All they do is go round and round.

Love you Eli.

SO, good old Archie McPhee. For all of you with a really good sense of humor who likes unique things, and loves bacon. This is the store for you. If your ever bored, go look it up on the internet. The most unique stuff you will ever find, and I wasn't kidding about the bacon part. The store is obsessed with it. In fact, off all the weird things they have there, Matt bought bacon flavored tooth picks and a bacon car freshener..... Ask him what he was thinking? So, because my husband loves stuff like of course we had to stop by and visit because I actually think there is only one and it is in Washington. So this is Archie McPhee's... a very very interesting store.


Ethan and Matt just chilling at the house.