Our Day at the Zoo

Sundays are our "special day". Kaeli and I spend the entire day doing fun things together, whatever Kaeli wants to do! Except for the airplane rides she's been asking for recently! Today we had breakfast at McDonald's, where Kaeli is much more interested in playing in the tunnels and slides than eating her eggs. Then we went to the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, where NaiNai and YeYe bought us a membership. It is a nice small zoo set on a steep hill looking out over the sound.


Kaeli loves to use the map to decide what we're going to do next. We usually have to sit on a bench to look at the paper map that we carry with us and then confer about where we've been and where we should go next. She very carefully points out and names each animal we've seen, and then suggests what ones we should see next.

The day was warm, and we took a break to have "ice cones". Kaeli has become very adept at eating them and not making too big a mess anymore. We also got water and lemonade later.

Our Day at the Zoo (continued)

Kaeli asked for FIVE rides on the carousel, and MaMa agreed. Kaeli kept track of them - counting how many we had done and how many were still left

Watching the Wildlife Show, we sat in the center of the front row, where all the birds in the show swooped right over our heads. We saw a bald eagle, a barn owl, and a vulture. We also saw a porcupine, a beaver, an armadillo and some rats. At the end of the show, Kaeli donated some money to the animal rescue fund and a macaw parrot helped put it in the box.

These are the two show presenters, who Kaeli really enjoyed!

When we finished riding the carousel, Kaeli tried her hand at the "Lover's Tub", a round seat with a stationary pole in the middle. You twirl yourself around by pulling on the round disk in the middle, which doesn't move. You can get going REALLY fast! Kaeli loved it!

Kaeli was quite tuckered out by the end of our five hours at the zoo! She laid down for a 10 second rest and then was recharged and good to go again!

At the end of the day, we stopped for the traditional balloon animal outside the zoo. Today Kaeli asked for a mouse.

Our Stylist

Katika taught Kaeli today how to "style" her hair. While MaMa and Katika were catching up at the end of a long day, Kaeli disappeared upstairs and came down in all this fine regalia. She was quite pleased with knowing how to put clips in her hair all by herself now!

She carefully went through all of her hair accessories and pulled out all the pretty painted wooden ones from Hanna Andersson and used them - the clips and the necklace. She added two bracelets and the large yellow butterfly ring and the blue sunglasses to complete the effect. What a model!

Olympia Blueberry Picking

Kaeli, her friend Elena from Chinese school, Elena's MaMa, and NaiNai and I went to a wonderful, huge blueberry farm in Olympia to pick blueberries. There were acres of tall blueberry bushes and we had a lot of fun!

Kaeli is a VERY good blueberry picker! She had several cups of berries in her bucket at the end of the morning, even with Elena "borrowing" handfuls every now and then! I think Elena put more in her mouth than in her bucket.




NaiNai and MaMa made blueberry pies - one regular size one and one just Kaeli's size - with a "K" and a heart of dough as the top crust. Kaeli and Katika ate the "K" pie together to celebrate Katika's birthday.