Here’s what we’ve been up to over the last week:

Woodland Park Zoo

My Aunt Brooke took her kids to Woodland Park Zoo on Tuesday and since I’m only 5 miles from the zoo, she asked if I wanted to join them. Yes, of course! 🙂 I brought my camera with and the three pictures above were my favorites.

Caleb liked the elephants, Stephanie liked the owls, and Keegan liked the penguins. My favorites are probably the the tree kangaroo, sloth, and red panda, but they were all hiding like usual.

Marie’s Birthday

Nick and I had planned on visiting Snoqualmie Falls and hiking Little Si on my birthday, but the weather thought otherwise. After weeks of warm sunny weather, we had record-breaking heavy rainfall on Wednesday. It was so wet we cancelled our backup plans and opted for a relaxing day at home instead. Hopefully, we’ll make up our hiking trip soon. 🙂

Mom’s Birthday

July is a busy month for birthdays in our family and Mom’s comes just three days after mine. To celebrate, Mom and I met Amanda for dinner at Tutta Bella’s Westlake location. We got a table on the patio, where we ate wood-fired pizza in the sunshine and enjoyed a great view of the Space Needle.

Horseback Riding

Little Marie on a horse

Grandma and Grandpa invited Nick and me to go horseback riding with them on Sunday at Lord Hill Park, a 1400 acre park filled with wilderness trails. Nick, Grandma, and I rode their Norwegian Fjord horses while Grandpa joined us on foot. The covers over the horses’ mouths are grazing muzzles, which keep the horses from getting distracted by the yummy plant snacks along the trail.

Nick has ridden horses before, but I think this was my first time riding a horse (though I have been on horses a handful of times). When I was little, I was sitting on a horse when someone opened the gate to the lower pasture and the horse took off. Dad bolted after me as I screamed. Thankfully, nothing like that happened this time and I now have a much less traumatizing memory about horses. 😛