A rooster says meow

Mima and papa came bearing many gifts (so many, in fact, that I think this was the reason they had to check their actual clothes suitcase -- which promptly missed their connection, though it thankfully arrived the following morning). One is a classic mobile (and by classic, I mean circa 1960s, and last used by Zachary's uncle J as a young child) of Snoopy and Woodstock on their flying dog house in an eternal circling aerial battle with the Red Baron. It's got real working propellers and little lights that are supposed to be the guns; we've all been gradually assembling it, and will hopefully hang it up in the guest room (soon to be Zachary's room). Zachary's favorite gift of the moment is a seriously sturdy diecast battery-operated Thomas. He's about ten times heavier than Zachary's previous wooden Thomas, but the battery operation makes him a hundred times more fun. Thomas has even pulled Thomas around the track a few times, in addition to freight, egg crates, and New York subway cars.

With a lovely turkey dinner behind us, we headed yesterday to the Bothell Country Village, a faux-frontiery/Santa's villagey group of buildings that host lots of stores relating to fabric, stamping, papercraft, antiques, confectioners, and even a few tea rooms. Oh, and apparently a large family of chickens and roosters live there as well; we caught a few snuggling for warmth outside of the toy store, and later, the roosters were strutting around crowing at each other. Zachary thought this was hilarious, and kept occasionally meowing back at them:



The village also has a 1/4 mile 'train' ride (several carts that get pulled around by a golf cart), which Zachary laughed and smiled at when it drove past, as well as a duck pond, where he quacked and smiled at all of the ducks swarming kids feeding them breadcrumbs. And they also have a park with some fun play objects -- a carousel-themed merry go round and a community created pirate ship. Zachary had a great time walking around in the sandy (and from the rain, a bit muddy) hold of the ship, and Meh enjoyed opening up the treasure chest "hidden" in the main deck. He probably had the most fun at the tea house though, where we warmed up with hot drinks while Zachary played with magnetic letters and numbers on a giant board as well a large (what else but) Thomas train track.