Ken's Birthday - Part 3

 After looking at the Zoo Lights, we headed to the UW district because there was another area there that had a lot of houses with Christmas lights on them.  We also needed to get some dinner and Kyle and Kari had recommended this place in the U Village that makes Taiwanese dumplings.  We tried to get in, but it was going to be a 30 minute wait and we were really hungry and didn't want to wait that long.  I took this picture of them working on making the dumplings though because I thought it was really cool to see them working on the dumplings with everyone wearing a face mask and a hat.

 The area that we went to after dinner wasn't far from the UW area and it's called "Candy Cane Lane".  I liked the Santa in the doorway in this one.

 Another pretty house and several other beyond it.  There was only one house on the street that didn't have any lights on it.  I wonder if "The Cranks" lived there!

 At the top of the street there was a traffic circle that was decorated also, with lit train figures going around like a merry-go-round.

 That's before I was born...

 A sign to show the traffic which was to go.  Because we were there on a Monday night, there wasn't that much traffic, but I've heard that on the weekends, traffic can be really bad to get to go down the street.

 Two more nicely decorated houses.

Tuesday morning, we headed over to Seattle Center and saw an IMAX movie at the Science center about building the railroad across the Canadian Rockies.  It amazes me what people went through back then to build railroads, etc. with no machinery, just using hand tools and their bare hands and in terrible weather conditions.  So many men lost their lives doing it also, that I can't believe men kept coming to help with it.  The movie was very well done and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Ken's Birthday - Part 2

 We had never gone to the Woodland Park Zoo "Wild Animals Light" display, and decided to go to it while we were in Seattle this year.  This first picture is of penguins on a wall and a flamingo in front of the wall.

 The lights down a pathway.

 Panthers in a tree.

 An entrance into a building where kids could play awhile.

 These lights were inside a building that you could walk through, see some of the reptiles and the lights.  Has anyone seen the new lights that look like icicles that are dripping?  That's what the blurs in the picture are.

 A cute little tiger on a branch.

 More animals.

 A gorilla mom and her baby.

 There was a Seahawk there also.

 A flower with a bee as big as it was.

 This eagles nest was up in a tree.

 Some mountains with an elk in front of them.

 My favorite lights were these!  It was a watering hole with a hippo and 2 giraffes at it.  They had it set up so that gazelles jumped across the field in the back ground and the elephants slowly approached the watering hole, then turned around and left, fading into the darkness.

The elephants arriving at the watering hole.  We've been to Warm Beach several times and this was a nice change, but definitely not as spectacular, but good in it's own way!

Monday - Ken's Birthday, Part 1

 For Ken's birthday, we decided to go to Seattle and spend the night, just like we've done in the past for a Christmas weekend in Seattle.  It's nice being semi-retired, and able to go on a Monday instead of the weekend!  There were a lot less people around, so that made it doubly nice.  After all these years living in the Seattle area, we finally made it to the "gum wall" at Pike Place Market.

 It's really pretty amazing the amount of gum that's on the walls going down the alley.

 Our next stop was the annual Gingerbread House display at the Sheraton Hotel.  The theme this year was based on Christmas songs.  Some displays used several songs...

 ...this one just used one song, the Hawaiian Christmas song called "Mele Kalikimaka", and you can see Santa and Mrs Claus on the beach in the top half of the picture with sea creatures swimming around underneath the beach.

 This one was based on "Christmas in the Northwest" and a couple of other songs, but I forgot what they were.  It featured sights of Seattle, including...

 ..."Big Bertha" digging the tunnel with money pouring out the back representing how much money is being spent on it while it's stuck underground.

 This is the star for several of the familiar Christmas carols about the birth of Christ.

 The song on this one was "O Christmas Tree" and seemed to be a conglomeration of things including...

 ...a crane with a "Seahawk" in it.

 This elf was a part of that display also.

 A manger scene that was under the star.

 This waterfall was really pretty.

This was part of the view out our hotel room window.