Cougar Mountain Zoo

Last weekend we made another escape from the city, out to Issaquah and the Cougar Mountain Zoo. So far Issaquah is our favorite Seattle suburb--full of trees, right on the slopes of two small mountains that are also large wilderness parks, with a charming downtown reminiscient of a ski town. It was our first choice for a house, but the rental market has dried up and we had to look elsewhere. Oh well, we can still visit!

Cougar Mountain Zoo is a small private zoo in Issaquah. Private means that its a little pricey, as zoos go, but well maintained and clean. The scenery is beautiful, and the best part is that you can really get up close and personal with the animals.

The zoo mascot was waiting to greet us as soon as we got in (apologies for all the phone pictures, I keep forgetting the big camera!)

What a handsome pair!

How up close and personal? Well, outside all the tiger areas there are big signs that warn "you are in a spray zone!" so look out for tiger butts.

As for the less dangerous animals, you can buy various animal treats all over the place in order to tempt them closer, and even though we didn't have food most of the time, the animals seemed to expect it. We stopped by the alpacas as another family was feeding them and Sam thought they were hilarious! He laughed and laughed, until the alpacas decided they didn't appreciate us getting a free show and started making sounds that sent us running. (We know just enough about alpacas to keep our distance if it sounds like they're going to spit)  

This crane was disappointed in his search for treats, but didn't mind a quick photoshoot.

The mule deer agreed to pose in exchange for kibble, which Sam gladly handed over. Sam thought that was pretty cool, but not as funny as the alpacas!

 This is the button you push for the animals to come, right?

Watching the cougars :-)

REI Convert

The last time I was in need of outdoors gear, I headed for the big Bass Pro Shop in Grapevine. If Bass Pro is the mecca of the hunting/fishing/good 'ol boy outdoorsy life, REI is the equivalent for the sporty/hippie crowd. There's an interesting dichotomy between the two, a difference in philosophy and approach to nature. I'm more philosophically aligned with the Bass Pro side of things, but since I neither hunt nor fish, REI works just as well!

I knew Sam would be needing rain boots before we were ready to take advantage of the winter weather, and Google informed me that there's an REI near our apartment so I pointed us in that direction. It's really quite close, only about an 8 minute walk past heavy downtown traffic, stores and road construction. Then we turn a corner and find a lovely forested oasis, complete with waterfall and mountain bike testing trail.

A helpful sign explained that this was"the first corporately sustained urban forest in Seattle"

Turns out this is their flagship location! I knew that REI was famous for its indoor climbing walls, but in addition to a large one, this place also has the aforementioned forest and bike trail, a US Ranger Station, indoor children's play area, cafeteria, and who knows what else. I even met another Texas mom! (Yay for Aggie shirts!) They'd also recently relocated to the area for Amazon. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get her name because I'm horribly awkward and scatterbrained. I'm really regretting that because she had a little boy not much older than Sam and it would have been great to compare notes.

By the time we got to children's footwear it was almost lunch and nap time, so Sam wasn't in a mood to linger or particularly interested in trying on shoes (by which I mean he screamed every time we approached his feet). In his defense, Mommy made the mistake of exploring the store and letting him play *before* we tried on shoes. >_< The lady who helped us in the shoe department was still very helpful and sold me a pair of boots (to be tried on at home) and a membership. 

So now I have another good destination to take advantage of while we're downtown! On the way out, I snapped a picture of the view:

Not bad for downtown!

Aquarium Trip

We went to the Seattle Aquarium last week and it was a huge hit! Sam enjoyed the fishtank at the Children's Museum (also awesome), but when he saw the full wall of fish at the Aquarium entrance, he was absolutely entranced. "Fishies! Fishies! FISHIES!" For awhile I was afraid we wouldn't get any farther into the exhibits, because he was about ready to camp out all day. Every few minutes he'd run back and drag me to the glass, just to be sure I wasn't missing anything ^_^ He kept trying to count the fish, but his grasp of counting isn't quite ready for anything that wiggly.

My pictures didn't turn out so great, boo!

Eventually I lured him away with the promise of more fishies, and we found the tide pool/shoreline exhibit. This tank had a wave generator and every 15 sec or so a big wave would go through. The waves surprised him, every time one went by he would yell "hey!" I hope it didn't bother any of the other guests; I thought it was hilarious.


Then we moved on to the hands-on pools, where you could touch starfish, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and I don't even know what else. Sam was mostly interested in the water ("splash splash!"). We didn't hang around too long, but I did find a star fish for him to touch. Dunno how impressed he was though, since it neither glittered nor wiggled.

He also really liked the jellyfish exhibit, but just like the hands-on pools, I suspect he found the media more interesting than the inhabitants. It was a big transparent ring with jellyfish rotating through and a color-changing backlight on one end. He plastered himself to the light and informed me of all the color changes.



We wandered around for a bit after that but were starting to run out of steam. Sam liked the otters, especially once I pointed out that they were kind of like our puppies if Millie could swim. Hopefully that doesn't lead to confusion down the line.

The problem with going to the Seattle Aquarium via public transportation is that our bus dropped us off waaay up on Pike Place (in front of the Market) and we had to trek down a looong stairway to get to the aquarium. It was doable first thing in the morning and going down, but I wasn't about to attempt it going back up afterwards. That meant a long, roundabout bus ride with a (level) walk to catch our original bus back home. And guess what happened on the first bus?

Yeah, sleepy baby did not wake up through several blocks of being juggled through the city, onto bus #2 and all the way back to the apartment. He's a heavy boy! 'Course, it's his mommy's fault for not leaving sooner or bringing a stroller, but wheeew it made for a long haul back. Totally worth it to see him at the aquarium though!

Downtown living

As far as I'm concerned, big cities are terrifying. Alien planets, foreign soil; too many people in too little space, too much misery and crime in the bad sections and too much money and high fashion in the good ones. Growing up we made a general progress from suburb to small town to middle-of-nowhere and I loved it. Soooo, now we're smack dab in the middle of downtown Seattle for a few weeks and I'm resolved to enjoy the experience instead of just surviving.

Pre-move thinking went something like this: Lots of people enjoy living in the downtown areas of big cities, gotta be worth a try, maybe we'll really like it! It was a sound theory, with several promising points. For one thing, Jonathan's commute is only about 10 minutes of walking, and there's a good bus system for Sam and mommy to use when exploring the city.

But my first impression, after a long day of travel and stress, was less than positive. Mentally and physically exhausted, I puttered around our new apartment home, frustrated at what felt like every turn. Why would anyone choose to live like this?! How do people raise children in this building?!

After a night of sleep though, I had to recant my ill-tempered musings. For one thing, this is the view I get with my morning coffee:

On the other side of the table, Jonathan also approves of his view:

It's not like I can fault Amazon's relocation arrangements--it's a fairly new, generously-sized two bedroom apartment--as much as I complain, we're not exactly (nowhere near!) slumming it here.

So, on our first morning in Seattle, fortified by sleep and a little relaxation, we started our first weekend of bravely facing big city culture shock!

I'm totally lying; we turned tail and ran for the suburbs. In our defense, we needed to stock our new apartment with a bunch of odds and ends, which required the car's hauling capacity and big box stores like Target and Ikea with plenty of parking. But yeah, other than walking the dogs I didn't venture outside my comfort zone much for the first couple of days.

Now that we've had a few days though, we're finding plenty of other good things about our temporary abode. Jonathan is enjoying his walks to and from the office (not to mention the new job!), and after a couple of nights Sam adjusted wonderfully to his new sleeping arrangements. St. James Cathedral isn't too far, and mass on Sunday was beautiful. I took Sam to the Children's Museum yesterday, and he had a blast--we'll be going back for more! (and posting pictures)

The weather our first few days here has been a dream--highs in the mid-70s or high 60s, with the autumn chill and color changes just starting up. We've only had one and a half cloudy days so far, but those were almost better than the sunny ones! (This is the only area where I feel sympathy with vampires--full sun is highly overrated. But ask me again after a few years up here and we'll see if that holds)

On the whole, we're still putting a lot of effort into finding a good rental house out in the scenic suburbs, but I'm glad we have this opportunity to experience Seattle up close and personal.

Weekend Update

So busy! We'll see if I can actually post regularly for a bit :-p

This weekend we had our first house showing, with all of 30 minutes warning >_< that was an adventure! Thankfully, Oma and Grandpa were there to help or else we never could have gotten ready in time.

Last weekend Jonathan and I took our house-hunting trip to Seattle. It was actually more of a neighborhood-hunting trip, since the rental market turns over so quickly, but we got a good feel for where we'd like to look for a place.

We also did some tourism stuff, and Joanthan had fun with an app that makes nifty panoramics :-p Here's one from the top of the Space Needle: (link has a viewer for the pic)

The Amazon offices are slightly right of the middle in this shot, a very nice location!



The weather was amazing, although is did get warm in the middle of the day, all the way up to the mid-80s! (oh no!) The scenery all over was beautiful, trees and water everywhere. Should be fun to explore ^_^