The Gales: Washington Trip Part 2

After our time in Kennewick, we went to stay with Nikki's family in Western Washington. Again, we loved seeing family and friends. You'll notice that Allie has her sippy cup in quite a few pictures. If you remember, she hadn't quite mastered it before the trip, but she fell in love with the sippy cup on the trip. She would use it like a pacifier at times. Besides our fingers, it is the first thing that she will take as a pacifier. It was actually quite nice at times to be able to give her something to soothe her.

Here are some pictures with family and friends.

Being cuddly with Papa Alton

Cuddling with our friend Becky (with Brad beside them)

Grandma Alton's turn to cuddle with Allie

As we mentioned above, Allie loved her sippy cup and would use it as a pacifier. At times we were a little concerned that she was getting too much water. The night when she was so cuddly with everyone (as seen in pictures above), she had already had a lot of water. Nikki planned on nursing her before putting her down, so we wanted to make sure she would have room in her tummy. The solution that we came up with can be seen in the picture below (above, too, but better in this one.

Allie sucking on the top of her sippy cup - content as can be. What a funny girl!

We spent a day down in Tacoma. It was a very full and enjoyable day. First, we stopped by the University of Puget Sound (UPS), where Nikki went to college and got her degree. It was a beautiful day, and the campus was as gorgeous as ever. After visiting UPS, we went to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. It really is a cool zoo and aquarium. We saw just about all of the animals in the Zoo. We had pretty good timing because a zoo-keeper came around and fed some of the animals when we were around their pens. So we got really good views of some otters, monkeys, and a porcupine. The aquarium had sharks, tropical fish, sea horses, and lots of fish from the Puget Sound. I think our favorite exhibit was that of the walruses. Allie was mesmerized by them, too. They would swim upside down from one side of the pool/exhibit to the other,then flip and turn around and swim upside down to the other side. They just did a bunch of laps. You can view them underwater through glass. Allie loved this! She just sat and watched them swim right in front of her. She was content to just watch them for about 10-20 minutes. The last part of our Tacoma trip was visiting our good friends, Becky and Brad Lee. They have two cute dogs, and Allie absolutely loved them. They were the first big dogs she had been around, but she was not frightened at all. She would shriek with excitement and chase after them. The dogs were very good with her, too. We had a great time with them, though we forgot to take any pictures from that night. We tried to get video of Allie with the dogs, but she wouldn't perform for the camera. Here are some pictures from that day.

Pretty building on UPS Campus

Nikki and Allie by Nikki's favorite tree on campus

Closer up by same tree

Allie in her stroller at the zoo

Grandma and Grandpa Carpenter walking with Allie at the zoo.

They were going to go to a concert in Tacoma that night, so they met us at the zoo and spent some time with us. It was a lot of fun!

Allie mesmerized by the walruses.

We had a couple of opportunities to spend some time with Nathan (Nikki's brother) and his family. The first was the night that there was a family dinner at Mom and Dad's house. It was fun seeing everyone and also watching all the little ones play. Nathan has two little girls and one little boy. The girls, Hailee and Caidance, love Jared. They were probably just as excited to see him as they were Nikki and Allie.