Lights: House & Zoo

Our Christmas lights aren't the fanciest. But I sure do love pulling into the street in the evening and seeing the glow of our house.

This house is the source of a lot of emotions right now. Mostly bad. I'm trying so hard to love it. But this tiny little sardine can is draining my patience, my tolerance, and my bank account (our sewer drained backed up this weekend-yay for surprise and expensive home repair projects that are becoming way too frequent for this 103 year old house). This house is probably the biggest reason why I am not getting my third baby. It is also why I cannot begin the process of becoming a foster parent (which I feel so strongly called to do). And we're kind of stuck here for the foreseeable future.

Some days, I just want to walk away from it. I literally want to exit the front door and never come back. But I can't.

 So, I wrapped it up in Christmas lights instead.

 

This is our entryway/living room/dining room. The kitchen is behind the wall with the bookshelf. Two other rooms and the bathroom are crammed off to the right. That is my entire house. 

At least it's pretty - when it's not filthy and littered with toys that have no place to go.

Lucky for us, we spend a lot of time outside.

Last Friday evening, we packed up the kids and went on an impromptu trip to Zoo Lights. I was exhausted from working all week but we decided to suck it up. It's just not Christmas without Zoo Lights.

 We saw Mt. Rainier.

Not quite sure how the polar bears migrated to the Pacific Northwest. Maybe they rode on Santa's sleigh?

The kids were bundled up in their finest jackets and whatever other warm accessories we could find.

For some of the displays, I was a teeny bit more excited than the boys, as evidenced in this picture:

My husband pushed the stroller ahead of me and walked way too fast. But I still stopped for a minute or two here and there to play with the shutter speed on my camera, even at the risk of getting lost/separated.

The light technicians recreated the Tacoma-Narrows bridge.

And a creepy tiger.

Ryan looks so handsome in this picture. I love that guy.

And this guy is simply hilarious although not so easy to wrangle away from any item that might be used as a playground. I present, Jacob the hermit crab:

The next picture was taken especially for Ryan. Jacob has a small stuffed shark that is most beloved by both boys. In fact, they fight over it constantly. Most mornings I wake up to the sound of Ryan yelling, "Sharky! Sharky! My Sharky!" I can usually get a sense for how the day is going to do based upon Jacob's response. (If he shares, then we are usually in for a good day.) I

Ryan was very excited to see a real-life shark.

Jacob was just excited to be set loose at the zoo. He must be doing a happy dance here.

One final pose before everyone (including me) got crabby.