Bubble time

Uncle Doug & Aunt Tammy sent Zoe a little Minnie Mouse camcorder at Christmas. It's a one-button camera with an SD card. I wasn't sure what the video quality would be, but I have to say it's pretty impressive. I will upload some more videos, including some that Zoe has made, soon.

We played with bubbles on the porch yesterday. It's still cold, but not raining & foggy.

Bunch of Phone Photos

 

Zoe in her Taekwondo class. She is doing a really great job despite being the smallest, youngest person in the class. Her teacher says that she is working hard.

 

At the Children's Museum in Everett, WA. There is construction site room downstairs. We built a castle out of white blocks.

 

This is from December when Zoe woke up to see our first snow outside.

 

Just playing around. Zoe's birthday.

 

First snow.

 

At the Children's Museum

 

We took the ferry to Whidbey Island on Christmas Day to have dinner with our friends Terrina & John Guempel and their family.

John & Terrina's home.

Playing with Aunt Connie at our house.

Zoe taking pictures of the birds at the zoo. 

Riding the historic/restored carousel at the zoo.

The Willawong Station at the Woodland Park Zoo. On weekends & holidays you can buy a stick with birdseed on it and feed the birds.

At Pump It Up: an indoor space with a bunch of bouncey things.

Bedtime - playing games on Pete's phone.

 

Children's Museum - the Vet Clinic, looking at x-rays

Last weekend we went to Portland. We rode the streetcar to Chinatown for lunch.

 

Jo gave Zoe this gorgeous cashmere hat and she took it off & left it on the streetcar. Zoe said "that's okay, you can make me another one, Grandma." And Jo said "well, actually I can't, that was very special yarn. You just lost a $100 hat." [at least it was a sample skein for the store].

This big brick circle [fountain?] is in the middle of Portland. Zoe ran around every ring.

The lovely Hawthorne Bridge over the Willamette River.

Our hotel was on the waterfront by Jo's apartment so we walked back there after lunch.

We went to OMSI [Oregon Museum of Science and Industry]

Experimenting with forced air, tubes & bouncy balls

At first, she wanted to hold the mantis, and then she changed her mind.

Pete's sister, Annie, loving the mantis.

xbox

I got this new Kinect game for our xbox. It is 36 different mini games that are really simple to play and encourage you to just jump around and be silly. In this one, you are a pirate digging up your buried treasure.

Snoqualmie Snow Day

http://sdrv.ms/WoJ696

This link should take you to my sky drive - a place where I can upload photos from my phone and share them with you. Hopefully it works well.

We drove to Snoqualmie Pass - due East on I-90 - and went to a part of the ski resort where it's just hills for sledding and areas for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. We went with Zoe's friend, Madeline, and her mom, Dana.

It snowed while we were there and it was already super deep. We took some inflatable snow tubes and our sled. Zoe really wanted to build a snowman, but it wasn't wet enough; just super powder - perfect for skiing, but not building. We stayed much long [5 hours] than any of us expected to. The girls had such a great time. They were both warm & dry in their snow bibs & coats & boots and didn't want to leave.

It took a little more than an hour to drive there from our house and the roads were clear the whole way. It was a pretty easy trip to make and so much fun that I'm sure we can do it again in a couple of weeks. Zoe thinks that she wants to try to ski and ride on a chair lift. It's worth a shot. Kids here start skiing at 3 years old. Me, I'm still afraid of chair lifts, so I won't be much help.