We visited Santa at the Cougar Mountain Zoo again this year. I love our tradition of making an afternoon of our Santa visit and visiting the reindeer and other zoo animals.

We arrived in the morning, right when they opened, and got to see the tiger’s “Christmas Party.” I wish we had some pictures of it. The tigers got a couple of Christmas trees stuffed with meat, and some wrapped presents with treats inside, which they ripped to shreds. Afterwards, we rushed to see Santa. When we got there, no one else was in line yet, so he spent some extra time going over Christmas lists with the boys.

Love this pic of our three little Kings!

We travelled over the pass to celebrate Thanksgiving at Uncle Scott & Aunt Manivanh’s this year. The boys were overjoyed spend see their cousins, and a great time was had by all!

Nicole, Andrew, and Avery participated in a volleyball workshop on Wednesday night. After that, we had pizza and stayed for the game. Here’s Silas with Daddy a few minutes before he decided it was time for he and Mommy to retire for the night.

It was freezing outside, but that didn’t keep us from the park.

The kids enjoyed watching Christmas specials on TV together.

It’s time for turkey!

Nicole, looking so grown up!

The boys had a couple of guys only excursions this month. Jonathan took the boys to Woodland Park Zoo. They got out of the house shortly before lunchtime, so he even packed sandwiches to bring along. I thought this was an impressive touch!


Avery offering his Pop Rocks to the interested otter

Jonathan said this otter swam right up to Silas, but he was too busy looking at his feet to notice.

One of three leopard cubs born on Avery’s 6th birthday

No trip to Woodland Park Zoo is complete without burgers at Red Mill!

They also went hiking together. Silas loved getting out of the backpack and hiking with his big brothers!
  

We took the boys to the Issaquah Salmon Days Festival in early October. We got out of the house a little late that morning, and then realized shortly after driving away from the house, that neither of us had consumed enough coffee yet. So when we got to Issaquah, we navigated around the streets that were closed for the festival, trying to make our way to one of our favorite coffee shops (because, you know, not just anything will do for us. Starbucks, or Charbucks, as we call it, just doesn’t cut it). Finally we get to the shop, wait in line for our coffee, and are ready to take on Salmon Days with our three little darlings. And I have to say, crowded festivals just aren’t that fun anymore. Not with three people under four feet tall, one of whom is in a stroller. We caught part of the parade, which Avery enjoyed, but Kieron was feeling sensitive to all the loud noise, honking, and marching bands. We meandered through the crowds and booths, but the boys were too short to see anything, and we were just happy to get through with all three of them. The highlight was leaving to get pizza at Zeek’s, a local favorite of ours. Not sure if we’ll go to Salmon Days next year, maybe we’ll just go watch the salmon jump on a weekday!