Colorado the Beautiful

Hi, all! Well, this past weekend, we (my sister, Lily, and our friend Rachel) decided to take a short trip to Colorado to visit Angie, and also Alicia who was in town. It was fun to have the sisters all together again, even if it was just a short trip, and also to have the kids be all together. Lily kept calling her cousins "ba-ba" which means baby or really just about any kid, older or younger. She had a lot of fun being with them. I think she spends too much time with teenagers and not enough time just being a little girl. We were able to go to the Denver Zoo, which I think is really exciting. They have Komodo dragons, which Matt finds fascinating, and I just find repulsive. You can see most of their animals up close and personal, something that the Hogle Zoo is trying to do, but it did give me a pause a couple of times. At several cages they had signs posted that said "These animals are dangerous, stay back" which made me wonder if even if being caged up all they time, they are still pretty wild. A few of the animals looked at Lily like they wouldn't mind having a taste of her. She was fascinated by the gorillas, who she called "Da-da," but she was a bit scared by the huge silverback. When he came into the room (behind glass of course) she jumped into my arms and kept hiding from him. She did sneak peeks at him, though, and was sad when we finally had to leave. Needless to say, we love the zoo, and have an annual pass to the Hogle Zoo here. If anyone would ever like to go, we do have a guest pass, too!








The sisters and the kids!











This was an example of how close the animals were.








Angie and Ellie riding the oxen. I wonder if pregnant pioneer women ever got up on the oxen when they got tired.


*Oh, the post title is because the song "America the Beautiful" was originally written about Colorado. The "purple mountains' majesty" refer to the Rockies. Just a little tidbit I learned while touring the Capitol. Also, the dome is leafed with real gold!