Denver

So the kids and I sort of had 3 trips back to back in July/August.  After spending two weeks in Texas, then we spent several days around Colorado with Aunt Irina and then we spent two days in Denver just the 3 of us after we dropped Irina off at the airport.  We were glad to stay at Eric and Paige's house, even though they weren't there:(  Hopefully next time we will actually get to see them.  They told us about Flatirons Mall and gave us a pass to the Denver zoo.  We had such a fun mini vacation!

 This is the play area at the mall, the kids absolutely love climbing around this stuff!

 Nate liked to roll over the lady bug and then fall on his back.  

He would laugh hysterically at himself and then do it all over again!

We really miss Riverbanks Zoo and our pass which allowed us to go whenever we wanted, but alas there is no zoo in Grand Junction (although some rumor of someone wanting to get a movement going to open a zoo here!).  So we were thrilled when Paige left us a pass to the Denver Zoo, the greenest zoo in the country by the way.  They will be using 90% of human and animal waste to convert to energy!

Unfortunately, I didn't feel the animals were as "out" as I thought they should be.  Maybe because we were there first thing in the morning?  Not sure, but we did get to see some animals and the kids really enjoyed it. 

 The elephant show was pretty fun!

 Alina could have watched these seals all day!

 Those are penguins, a bit hard to see.  It was another "show" and

 we learned a lot about these little guys.

 Nate reading on the way home:)  I am so proud of these two little kiddos!  They spent soooo much time in the car during all of these trips, but they did a great job.  Nate did start to cry when we would strap him in, but he's over that now. 

Just to give you an idea of how much time we spent in the car this summer:
1st trip to Texas and back - 1000 miles each way (about 18 hrs each way)
Glade Park camping - only about 1 hr each way
Silverton Camping Trip - 3 hrs each way
2nd trip to Texas and back - 1000 miles each way
Trip to Midland to see Grandma Eva - about 5 hours each way
Mesa with Irina - only 1 hour each way
Ouray/Silverton Trip - about 3 hours each way
Drive to Denver and back - about 5 hours each way
*Grand Total -  about 108 hours, so we're staying home for awhile:)