Cougar Mountain Zoo

Some friends of ours asked us to tag along on their zoo trip today. This great little zoo is closer to our house and is smaller than the big zoo in Seattle. Sometimes it's nice to have a change of pace and a bit of a smaller spot to explore with the kids. You don't feel like you have to "see it all" and so you spend more time at each exhibit.

The kids love posing for pictures with the animal
sculptures. I took about a million pics. This was one of the cutest ones.

The kids watch the alpaca eat. Watch out! He spits!

Emus. We got to see the zookepper give the emus a bath with a hose,
which was pretty cool.

Our friends' little boy, Brennan, feeds the alpacas.

Our friends' kids watch the macaws.

Forgot what these birds were called, but they are super cool looking.

The stars of the show: The cougars. This cage has three
siblings. We got to see two handlers go in and interact
with them and talk about cougar habitat, diet, etc. 

Ollie actually fell asleep in my lap during the bird show, so he and I napped while Merrit went with our friends to see the tigers.  And we finished off the day with ice cream. What a great day. Summer here in the Northwest couldn't be lovelier. The weather has, literally, been PERFECT since July.

The zoo overlooks the Cascade mountains, and (though you can't see it in this picture) Lake Sammammish just at the base of the hill. The sky was absolutely clear and gorgeous. Temps in the mid-70s.

When we first moved here, everyone kept saying, "Just wait til summer; all this rain will be worth it." 

They were right!