Colorado Springs

This last weekend we took the kids to Colorado Springs for a mini-vacation.  We booked a hotel for 2 nights and figured it would be fun to just have a couple days away from home.
Here are a few things I discovered.

1. There is no such thing as a vacation when you have kids.

2. Babies are horrible little tyrants when they do not get their daily dose of napping.

3. You cannot beat pink eye.

4. Brian snores louder than a train wreck.

5. No matter how much time I spend making check lists and packing, I will still forget very important items such as swimsuits or diapers.

6. Aspen does not appreciate eating processed baby food from a jar.  If she must be subjected to such torture make sure it is some kind of delicious fruit like pears.  No veggies, please.  And not bananas.  NOT. BANANAS.

The list goes on and on, but I will leave it at that.

We left Friday afternoon and checked in to our Ho-en-tel (as Mason would put it) around 5:30pm.  So the first night we just went out to dinner and the boys played in the pool with Dad.

 

Aspen decided to stay pool side in her jammies because she was feeling quite cranky after dinner (and it was her swimsuit and swim diapers mom forgot)

 

After swimming we watched "The Missing Lynx".  Well, Mason and Brian fell asleep after about 10 minutes.  I caught bits and pieces while drifting in and out of sleep (Aspen was bound and determined to keep me awake) and Micah was wide eyed until the end of the movie (about 11:30pm).  

Oh yeah...after swimming Brian also uncovered a special little something.  Also known as...

Pink Eye!  Surprise!

The next morning after breakfast we made a trip to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.  It is a pretty neat zoo.  There aren't as many animals as Denver Zoo, but I like the arrangement at Cheyenne Mtn better.  Right after you enter the zoo the first animal display you see is the giraffes.  The cool thing about this is that you are up high on a bridge and you can see the giraffes eye to eye. 

Up close and personal with the giraffes

We bought the boys some crackers to feed the giraffes, but it was pretty hard to get any of them interested in eating. I assume they had all been force fed approximately  20,000 crackers already seeing as how it was about 10:30am and the zoo had been open since 9am.  I think just about every person standing around me had a stack of about 9 crackers in their hands. 

All the giraffes were intersted in doing was this...

 

Yeah, they stand around and lick the wood poles all day.  Apparently that is what they would be doing in the wild...tasting tree trunks and eating leaves.  

Eventually we did get some giraffes to take the crackers, but I wasn't able to get any pictures.

I did get to pet a giraffe on the face, though.  That was neat.  Their hair feels just like a horse.  

We also got to pet a baby wallaby (no pics of course) and Micah and Mason got to help feed fruit bats.

 

This was not the one we pet, but I think it is cute that he has a surrogate pouch to cozy up in.

 

Micah making fruit kabobs for the bats

  

Hanging the food in the cage

 

There was also a cool playground for the kids to play on.

 

The boys used some of their money to go on a pony ride.

 

The boys' favorite exhibit was the naked mole rats.  They were pretty ugly and had a large series of tunnels to occupy their time.  I think the boys just liked watching them scurry up the clear tunnels.  

After the zoo we were all pretty pooped, so it was back to the hotel for some rest (well, for some of us) and more swimming.  We tried to watch another movie after swimming but not even Micah made it through that night.  It's okay...the movie was pretty lame.  

 

On Sunday we checked out of the hotel and decided to visit Garden of the Gods.  The boys were excited to be doing something else before heading home, so we set off.  We got on the interstate and just a couple minutes into the drive one of my front tires blew out.  It being a Sunday, no tire stores were open except for Wal-Mart.  We didn't want to chance driving home on the spare, so we ended up spending way too much money and 2 1/2 hours sitting at Wal-Mart.  Needless to say, a lot of the time was spent in the toy department.  By the time we got to Garden of the Gods it was late in the afternoon and the boys were spent.  After walking for a total of about 15-20 minutes they were done.  It really is a beautiful place, though.

 

My next vacation better be to Hawaii.  Sans children.