Gas Works, trolls, zoos, proposals

Washington pics...

Seeing Kirsten is always an adventure... I won't get to see her as often anymore when I go to Seattle, though. Last week she moved out and is now living with some friends in Boise!

On Labor Day, Tyler (Kyle's brother), Kyle and I played tourists in Seattle.

We went to Gas Works Park...

There were very few nice days while I was in Seattle but since I left the weather has been "just perfect", of course. Anyway we luckily got one of the nice days for Gasworks, lots of people had their boats out and the view was beautiful.

After Gas Works we visited the Fremont Troll

I remember coming here when I was younger but Kyle and Ty had never been. I thought it was kind of funny to fly up from Vegas and show them around.

Our next stop was the Woodland Park Zoo! This was one of my favorite places when I was little.
I think I acted like a little kid running around and snapping pictures... To give myself credit though I didn't actually jump up and down or bang on the glass.

This guy's (or girl's) fur looks so soft, like velvet. I probably wouldn't want to test that theory, though.

I am not a snake fan but I don't think I've ever seen a snake actually doing anything other than laying coiled up napping or looking bored.

We only had 2 hours at the zoo (it goes fast and we didn't even make it to every exhibit) but we stayed to watch these guys for awhile. They are so colorful and flashy and this one in particular was having as much fun checking us out as we were him, I think.

The gorillas also held our attention for awhile... Sometimes their actions are so human-like you feel kind of weird watching them through glass. This female was laying with her legs crossed and her arms folded until the other gorilla got up and walked past her. Then she grabbed a stick and poked him in the butt with it as he walked past without even bothering to uncross her legs.

This gorilla was perched on a log, watching the water while musing over life in general (or its next nap).

This gorilla was showing her baby off to everyone and for good reason- It was super cute! She sat down on a log after this so the baby could scamper off her back and play.

Okay so squirrels usually aren't an exhibit at zoos but this one was so tame he jumped up on a garbage can for a closer look and let me get really close for a picture.

The hippos were pretty boring. This picture was about it.

The giraffes were more amusing... There was a big giraffe and a little giraffe ("little" in comparison to the big one, of course... giraffes are never exactly little). It was about dinner time and they were impatiently wandering in and out of their super-tall giraffe barn.
The "little" one could barely peer over the fence at us onlookers.

The big one had no problem.

I like tapirs, I wrote an article on them once. They are very interesting. Well they probably are interesting in the wild, anyway. One of them was sleeping and wouldn't even look up for a picture (rude). The other one was pacing around waiting for food and letting out weird chirruping noises that sounded like a bird.

The elephant was waiting for food, too, and wasn't doing much but you can't go to the zoo and not have a picture of an elephant.

The flamingos are a new exhibit, I guess. Mostly they are smelly and stupid-looking. Kyle said the plastic ones are probably more interesting.

Tyler was amazed at all the animals...

Last but not least we stopped at the park overlooking Seattle where Kyle proposed to me 8 weeks ago.

Ty obligingly took some pics of us.

To the very right in this picture is the exact (ish) place that Kyle got down on one knee!