We continued our annual tradition and visited Santa at the Reindeer Festival at Cougar Mountain Zoo, in Issaquah. The boys really enjoyed feeding apples to the reindeer on the way up to Santa’s cabin. Avery was excited to ask Santa for a “Matchbox shark boat” like his cousin, Andrew’s. Kieron didn’t want to talk to Santa, or go near him for that matter. And Silas was cool with anything as long as I didn’t venture too far away.

While we waited to see Santa, Avery observed that he “looked different” this year. “Oh?” I asked cooly, “how does he look different?” I was a little worried, because he was, ahem, a few years younger than the previous year. “His beard is shorter,” Avery replied. Whew!

After visiting Santa, we strolled around the zoo and said hello to all the other animals. We always look forward to this Santa visit. It’s very laid back, and way better than waiting in a long, overpriced line at the mall. And we get to support the local zoo too!

Kieron loved the reindeer, but wasn’t keen on visiting with Santa. So I ended up in the picture… again.





“Hey boys, hop in the sleigh! We’ll get a cute picture of you all together!” Uh huh, sure.

The alpacas, this was one of the prettier ones

Another alpaca (not pictured) scared Avery with his nasty underbite and rotten teeth. I think Avery will always brush well from now on.

Pretty bird


An elf took a family photo for us