Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years weekend, I know I did.  I started out the weekend getting to sleep before midnight and missing all the fireworks, I did it on purpose as I had a full weekend ahead of me and wanted to be well rested!  I would say it was certainly worth it if you asked me.

On Saturday we went over to visit with my parents and get our Santa pictures with my Dad before he cut his beard back to a more managable length, I know it's after Christmas but things just didn't work out to get there earlier.  Don't worry he will be growing it out again for next year!  We got a few good pictures which I'll post below.

After visiting with my parents we headed down to Vancouver to spend the weekend visiting with the Hoppers.  We ate good food (Salmon, Spaghetti Pie, Biscuits and Gravy, yummy!), had good company and played quite a few video games (Wurms, DDR, WiiFit, and some Game Show game that I can't remember the name of).  It was a nice relaxing weekend spent with some really good friends.  I took a couple pictures of Dereck and his parents, he was so much fun this trip.  It's amazing how fast the little ones grow.

Santa Pics:

The Hoppers:

A broken arm...

My mom fell on Thanksgiving day and broke her arm.  A spiral fracture of her humourus to be exact.  She spent a few days at the hospital thanks to it being a holiday weekend and no one was working at the insurance place or doctor wise.  She has since been in a rehabilitation facility where she is doing physical therapy and occupational therapy so she can be strong enough to go home and go about her day to day activities.  Two weeks later she now has a new cast, is still at the rehab place and will hopefully be coming home next Friday if all goes well. 
It's just weird not having her around for the holidays.  I've gone over and helped Dad decorate the deck and various other things.  I have no clue how mom manages to do all that decorating. When I do it, it just feels cluttered, she makes it look like it is meant to be there. 

Another thing this has made me realize is that prior to her fall, I really wasn't going to visit her half as often as I should.  She isn't THAT far away.  How is it that life feels so busy that I can't drive over and visit?  I mean really, we all know I spend WAY to much time playing on the computer anyways, some of that time could actually be used visiting my mom. 

Yikes!

Wow, Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away, and my house isn't anywhere close to ready for that.  I had better get off the computer a bit more and get to working on that!   I have a couple blogs started for last month about our hike and trip to the zoo. I just haven't gotten around to finishing them... I'll work on it as I can between cleaning and keeping up on the way to many apps I play on facebook.  Nothing new to report really... I just figured it had been awhile since I blogged.

To the Zoo we go... Finally!

Another post I started long ago and am now just getting around do finishing.  Once again this will be mostly pictures... I really do love the zoo.  We hadn't been there in forever so it was about time we went again.  I was quite sad that I didn't grab my back up battery for my camera, not that I didn't get enough pictures but the battery did end up dieing before I was really done taking pictures and the hippos were being quite active.

It was a beautiful fall day and the autumn colors have been absolutely stunning this year!

I have always loved the birds, one of our favorite places at the zoo is the aviary in the Tropical house where the birds are free flying around you. This was our first time to the zoo since they opened the new penguin exhibit, it looks like a much better home for the penguins.

The River Otters were running around outside of the water so I got a few pictures of them that I quite enjoyed... they are one of my favorite animals at the zoo.  Right up there with red pandas and the baby pudu.

Lions and Dragons and Bears... Oh my! and a Lemur? Yikes!

Well, that was our trip to the Woodland Park Zoo!

Kendall Katwalk. It's a hike... but well worth it!

Once upon a time I was going to write a nice little write up about the hike... but it's been too long and I'm thinking now I'll just post pictures and be done with it.  But I will do a tiny little bloop.

The hike was beautiful, lots of switchbacks going up.  Our weather was perfect, just a little cold, but otherwise amazing weather for October.  The family met in Northbend and then drove up to the parking place.  It was Richard, myself, Dad, Dani, Chad, Jeff, Pamela, Josh, Tony and Dallas... oh and Rosco too!  Rosco enjoyed the hike so much, and he looked so cute in his little dog pack, we made him carry his nail clippers (just in case), treats and a water dish.  After all the switchbacks we got onto a trail that was a little flatter and easier to do.  There are views of various mountains around the area from most of the hike, it's nice to know I would have had beautiful views even if I wasn't able to make it to the Katwalk.  After the 5 and a half miles up we eventually got to the Katwalk where I immediately said This was so worth it... apparently Dallas said This was so not worth it upon getting up there. Though I'm sure she was excited to have cell phone coverage at the top.  Kids and their texting.  Ugh!  The veiw from the Katwalk is breathtaking and I would certainly recommend this hike to anyone.  I managed to roll my ankle not to long after starting down, but it wasn't so bad that I couldn't walk or anything, just a nusance.  We got back down to the cars as it was starting to get dark, drove down the mountain, stopped for some burgers in Snoqualmie and then headed home to get some much deserved sleep!

Some pictures of the views (and the Katwalk)...

Some pictures of the mushrooms...

Some pictures of the Rosco...

Some pictures of the people that went with us...