Z is for Zoo

I've been putting off posting about Z.  I am pretty sad that our A-Z adventure has come to an end. It was so much fun and I highly recommend doing it with your family!  We've made some wonderful memories in Seattle! Check out all our old A-Z posts for more info.  We're not going to start over yet...we're going to wait until we move to do it again.  BUT we are starting a new installment of adventures.  We are going to do 20 dates under $20.  I've been coming up with some fun ideas so stay posted for more Bohman adventures.I've been dying to go to the Zoo since we moved here (I kind of LOVE the zoo) but I'm so glad we waited this long. Sophie was definitely old enough to really enjoy it. She has been learning her animals signs and sounds and she LOVED the zoo. I was actually shocked at how much fun she had and how many animals she recognized. She couldn't really see the animals well until they moved but if they did she started squealing with delight and yelling at them. She would point and sign; it was so adorable. She went insane over this giraffe. Her other favorites were the elephants, bears, monkeys, kangaroos, and the Malayan Tapirs. Tapirs seriously look like a cross between elephants, pandas, and pigs. She couldn't take her eyes off them! I really liked how this zoo was set up. It is built in different habitats so not only are all the animals from the same place all together but the trees and plants and foliage are authentic too. Logan's favorite animal was this peacock.   It stood there strutting in place for like 10 minutes! I've never seen one with his feathers displayed for so long!  Does anyone know why peacocks are farm animals?  We couldn't figure that out.  My least favorite part of the zoo was Bug World.  I'm still creeped out by the cockroach display and the huge spiders!  I loved everything else though and I can't wait to go back...esspecially because of this cute little monkey!To make the end of the day EVEN MORE perfect...our friends Daryl and Sarah treated us to some AMAZING Central American Food. Daryl served his mission in Honduras and they have pretty similar food to Guatemala so we ordered some wonderful memory jogging dishes. We had banana licuados, plantains, pupusas, yuca frita, and pastelitos. It was just heavenly and we were a bit too distracted by the incredible food to stop and take a picture...sorry.  Great day, great food, great friends = great memories.

Y is for Yoga and Yogurt

I've been a bit of a blog slacker...sorry.  But Y was a very momentous day for our little family.  We got up early one Saturday and did a little family yoga.  No one needs to see pictures of that...but Sophie was having the time of her life crawling all under, up, and over us.  She has also perfected her downward dog.  We spent the whole morning telling Sophie about frozen yogurt. There's a new trend that has hit Seattle big time in the last few months. Little Yoggi shops have sprung up all over the place selling delicious healthy frozen yogurt! I love them but Logan does not. He says nothing frozen is worth eating unless it's chocolate. I do love chocolate but there's something so delicious about a fruity frozen treat. Plus, it doesn't hurt that I can get a huge bowl of frozen yogurt with chocolate chips and raspberries for 120 calories! Anyways, we spent the morning vying for Sophie's vote. We were going to to let her have a taste test to decide which yogurt was best! We picked up some Costco chocolate frozen yogurt for Logan and drove to CeFiore for me. I got original with white chocolate chips, granola, and blueberries. Then came the moment of truth. We gave Sophie a bite of each and then set them on the table and let her choose. SHE CHOSE MINE EVERY TIME! WHOOHOO! Now anytime we want yogurt we get to have my kind;) Tee hee! It was a great day!

X is for XXX Burger

For X we ventured over to Issaquah to have lunch at one of the last remaining Triple XXX Burger's in the country.  There's only one other left and it's somewhere in Indiana!  XXX started over a century ago!  In 1900 they created a line of soft drink syrups under the name of XXX.  They began serving root beer and then created a root beer bar and restaurant in the early 20's.  Over the years it grew into a drive-in and it hasn't changed much!  They still make their root beer in the shop with real sugar cane!  Holy beverage...it is delicious.  They have HUGE burgers and shakes AND as an added bonus we were able to see, with our very own eyes, the largest plexiglas sign in the west!  Who knew something as cool as that was so close to us?!  The food was amazing; even Sophie ate a burger and liked the root beer!  I pretty much love that sign by Logan too!  They have fabulous 50's and 60's music playing and memorabilia displayed all around.  The owner was the coolest man too.  When it was our turn to order he made us feel like it was the highlight of his life that we were there!  We were almost short by a dollar (cash only) and he was like, "Just owe me next time you're in!"  Isn't that sweet?  It was an absolutely beautiful day too!  The sun was shining and that made it all the more spectacular because everyone brought their old cars out to show in the parking lot.  Very cool.  It was so nice that we had to make a pit-stop on the way home to feed the ducks and play at the park!  Sophie is getting so big.  She loved playing with her daddy and I loved being able to see my man for longer than a second!  He is so good with her and they are so much alike.  Proof: for dinner they shared a bowl of spicy curry that made my eyes water.  She loved it so much and cried when it was all gone!  It was truly the best weekend we've had in a long time!  Thanks X!  I'm drawing a major blank on what to do for Y.  Any ideas besides learning how to Yodel?

W is for Wrap and Roll

Chinese New Year is one of my all time favorite holidays. I'm completely enthralled with Asian culture. I think it's so cool. I even studied it a bit at BYU. Logan is so nice to humor me and to watch my most favorite movie, Shaolin Soccer, with me over and over again! This year we were able to go downtown for a special celebration to watch the dragon dances. A martial arts team was performing it and it was beautiful...until we were hit in the face with firecrackers. We also got to walk along all the red lanterns and watch old men create some beautiful calligraphy.  I want to go to China so badly!  Despite the fact that I moaned the whole time about how my family went to China without me last year, this ended up being the best Chinese New Years we've had...because we threw a WRAP and ROLL party! It was an absolute blast! I made chow mein, sesame wonton salad, and my Aunt Val's amazing pot sticker soup. When everyone came over we made the fillings for egg rolls, pork dumplings, and lettuce wraps. I must say, our guests are expert wrappers, definitely level intermediate advanced! Everything was fantastic and I love having a full house. Someday I WILL actually have a house to fill because it's not that hard to fill our ridiculously small apartment. We had so much good food, great company, only one incidence with some exploding rice noodles, and even Sophie was well behaved. Afterwards we relaxed and watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, shared fortunes, and ate some amazing Asian dessert cake that our friends brought. I love Asian cake because it's so light and they make the best fruity fillings. We had strawberry and cantaloupe! I'm inspired to make some similar dessert filled cupcakes now! We had a wonderful night with wonderful friends and wish you all a happy happy new year! Gung Hay Fat Choy!

V is for Vegetation and Vietnamese Food

We were snowed in for almost a week before Christmas so we weren't able to go see the garden d'lights display at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens.  Apparently EVERYONE was snowed in so they kept the display open for an extra week so people could come and see it. Yay! Logan was secretly happy that we had missed it; I kind of had to drag him out there.  But once we were inside, he enjoyed it more than I did.  I was laughing so hard because he just kept saying things like, "Oh wow, this is just fantastic and amazing."  Or, "I had no idea such marvelous lights displays existed!"  Or my favorite, "Honey, can we come back here next year?!"  Yes, my love!  We can!  Seriously, this was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.  They transform the gardens into a garden of lights.  The pictures DO NOT do it justice.  I thought they were just going to wrap lights around some of the plants but they literally made a ginormous garden out of lights.  They shape lights into bundles to look like different flowers, plants, and animals.  It was just stunning.  We can't wait for summer so we can go see what the gardens look like in full bloom!  After visiting the lighted vegetation we ventured out to try Vietnamese Food for the first time.  Here in Seattle there are small shops that sell Pho like there are starbucks.  They are literally on every single corner or more.  My tutoring kids finally explained to me what Pho is and corrected my pronunciation. Pho is simply beef noodle soup and it is a very common and delicious Vietnamese dish.  Pho is not pronounced 'foe.'  It is pronounced more like 'fuh' as in 'duh.' Therefore you can imagine my surprise when we pulled up to the restaurant 'What the Pho' and I finally put two and two together. I pretty much love the guy who named this franchise. We had a really great laugh over that. The pho was quite good but the things they did with the chicken, oh my, I have never had chicken like that. We also had some delicious egg rolls and Vietnamese salad. Sophie really enjoyed the pho and was eating it with several spoons at once. V made for a very educational, delicious, beautiful evening!

U is for Underwater

I've been absolutely dying to go to the Seattle Aquarium since we moved here and we finally had an excuse! I LOVE aquariums; they remind me of going to the tide pools when I was kid with my family. This one was fantastic! I was pretty much squealing with delight the entire time. Our first awesome experience was feeding the starfish their lunch! We were touching them and a lady came over with a big bowl of muscles.  She let us place a muscle next to each starfish. We watched them inch the muscles closer and closer and then pry them open. It was very cool. The next incredible sight was this octopus. He swam over to the wall of his tank and latched himself on. He just hung out there wiggling his tentacles all around. I couldn't stop thinking about Pirates of the Carribean. The docent told us all about gigantic octopuses. Freaky. We also saw a ginormous puffer fish.  He was given to the aquarium by a restaurant because he had grown too big for his tank.  When he puffs he gets to be over 3-feet wide.  Sophie wasn't a fan of the aquarium.  She was actually quite bored the whole time. We couldn't get her to crack a smile at any of the fish until we went to Ivar's on the pier and let her eat some.

T is for Troll

For T we paid a visit to the Troll lurking under the Fremont Bridge.  He is HUGE!  He is 18 ft tall and was constructed in 1990 during the Fremont Art's Festival.  He's tucked away in a little corner and he makes for quite a surprise when you happen upon him!  You can climb all over him.  He's got shaggy hair, a hupcap for an eye, and he is crushing an actual Volkswagen Bug under his left hand.  Apparently, the Bug used to hold a time capsule full of Elvis memorabilia! While we were there exploring, (and telling Sophie the story of the Billy Goat's Gruff) it began to rain too hard for us to explore much more of Fremont.  So, we began a quest to find a delicious treat starting with T.  Logan wanted Tirimisu so we popped into a new couture cheesecake shop downtown Renton and they actually had ONE slice of Tirimisu cheesecake left with our name on it!  It was incredible!  T made for a terrific day!

S is for Seaside

For our anniversary weekend we decided to drive down the Oregon Coast. It was heavenly. I can honestly say that I would move to Oregon tomorrow...I had no idea it was so beautiful! The drive down was absolutely stunning. The fall leaves were in full force and it was wonderful to drive along the coast again. We stayed in Seaside, a tiny little beach town that is at the very end of the Lewis and Clark trail. On our first day, we woke up early and had breakfast on the beach. We had watermelon, pastries, and hot chocolate. We went beach combing for sand dollars. Sophie loved her first time at the beach. It was a little too cold to play in the sand but she loved the birds, waves, and bouncing on her daddy's shoulders. Then we took a beautiful drive down to Tillamook. Until I met Logan and he introduced me to the finer side of cheese, I only ate one type of cheese and one type only. Sliced medium cheddar from Tillamook. When I found out that the Tillamook cheese factory was close to Seaside, I insisted that Logan take me. It was so much fun! We saw where all the ice cream and cheese is made and learned all about the history of the cow milking industry. Sophie feasted on little cheese cubes and we sampled all the different types that they make. We were very tempted to buy this 'vintage' cheese that was made the year we were married. Haha. The ice cream was some of the best I have ever had! We shared the German Chocolate Cake and the Marion Berry flavors. I definitely have a new favorite ice cream. I've been trying to find the German Chocolate Cake flavor at the store since I've been home but I can't find it anywhere. I'm going to ask Safeway to special order it for me! Next we drove a little further down the coast to see a beautiful lighthouse. I have always wanted to walk around one before. This lighthouse sat right up on top of a cliff. It was absolutely stunning up there. It was a little windy so Sophie stayed bundled up in her stroller like a big burrito while we hiked around. We walked all over the cliff and the Golden Anniversary Park (how appropriate for us) and discovered a gigantic Sitka Spruce Tree that looked like a giant octopus. We got some dinner at a little restaurant and we ordered Sophie her first little kid's meal! She had little hotdogs and fries. Then we headed back and made it back to Seaside just in time to watch the sunset on the beach! It was so much fun to watch the sunset on the beach all bundled up again.  It reminded me of home and it was Logan's first time!  Sophie was such a good girl with all the driving.  She entertained herself perfectly with Cheerios and juice and she slept like an angel each night.  Logan and I caught up on all our missed episodes of Heroes and The Office and we even got to watch a few movies!  Before we left Seaside, we spent a lot more time at the beach soaking it all up before going back to the rainy city. There was a little promenade with lots of little stores and ice cream shops. We took Sophie on her first merry-go-round ride. She wasn't a big fan. It went way to fast and it was actually a little scary. I should have sat with her on it because the horses went up and down so fast and so high that I could barely hold on to her. I had to way up on my tippy toes. My calves were burning by the time the ride was over. On our last day, we decided to take a detour through Portland because neither of us had ever been there.  The drive was even more beautiful than before.  That hour drive made the whole weekend perfect.  On our way through, we found a little farm that was having a fall festival.  We stopped and went through the corn maze.  Logan and I had so much fun because it was actually a really hard maze!  It took us well over an hour to get through it.  We also went on a little hay ride and took Sophie through the pumpkin patch.  We picked out a little pumpkin to carve on Halloween.  It was so much fun.  Logan had never been to a pumpkin patch before (it's too cold this time of year in Alaska).  He decided that he wants to make it a Bohman Family tradition! I wish Sophie liked it as much as Logan and I did.  For some reason, the pumpkins really freaked her out.  We had an absolutely wonderful weekend.  We loved Oregon, celebrating fall, and being together.

R is for Rainier and Recycling

Last weekend we visited Rainier National Park. We've been wanting to check it off our list for over a year now so we finally made the trip.  Unfortunately, we got hopelessly lost in the process.  It took a good 4 hours to finally find it, but once we did, it was heavenly. Here's Sophie having a quick snack while Logan checks the map. It was absolutely gorgeous driving through the park with all the trees in their fall finest. It reminded me so much of Cali and I loved every second. We were stressing about paying the park entrance fee but when we pulled up the park ranger said that it was the ONE day of the year for FREE entrance! YAY! We never get lucky like that (as you know from our previous post)! We had a yummy picnic on a ginormous tree trunk and Sophie did her very first sign for 'more.' Since then she's signed for 'juice' and 'all done.' We explored the park a little and decided we're going back for a camping trip for sure. My favorite part was studying the cut out trunk of this huge tree. It marked a lot of historical events going back through time on the different rings starting with some mini-ice age 120,000 years ago. On the way back we noticed some random metal sculptures on the side of the road.  We stopped to look and it turns out that this guy has a whole recycled sculpture museum at his house.  He makes these incredible sculptures out of recycled metal and wood and displays them on his property for people to stop and see.  It was such a cool thing to see.  Here's Sophs and I chillin' with a band of freaky skeletons jamming on some weird instruments.  Don't mind Sophie waving there.  When we pull out the camera she starts waving for some reason. Sophie and a baby elephant. Logan, Sophie, and a life-size giraffe! This thing gave me nightmares all week. It was a very cool place and it inspired me to go home and make something creative myself...I'm still not sure what that is going to be yet, but it was a wonderful day!