Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

To celebrate MyGirl's birthday on Sunday, we went to the zoo on Saturday. The weather was cool, but calm. It wasn't crowded at all and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. This zoo had a lot of interactive areas. Because its a mountain zoo, there were unique features I'd never seen before at a zoo. Everyone liked the many caves. And, the view from the top - Amazing! The Cheyenne Mountain Resort is below it, where the famous Broadmoor Hotel is located.

My favorite zoo animals are the elephants. Probably ever since I fed one a peanut at the LA Zoo many years ago.
First time we'd ever seen a moose at a zoo. It was the first time BigBuddy had ever seen a real one at all, so he was quite excited about that.

Who doesn't love the zebras?
Most exciting for everyone, however, were the giraffes. I counted eighteen here. Never have I seen so many, and they loved to be fed. It was the highlight for MyGirl especially! She loved feeding the baby ones the most.

The adults leaned right over the railing so we got to see them so close-up. It really was fun!

Cowgirl is with us this week. We're having a great time with her here. As always, she was the first to try something new, and helped her little sister realize that feeding them was fun.

They had a ski lift to ride up, which was new for my younger children. The views were great, and it was between several great exhibits. We were thrilled when we saw the two grizzlies on their hind legs playing with each other. I wish I'd gotten a better photo, but I was moving perpendicular to where they were dancing/sparring/playing, sitting on a ski lift, so there was only so much bending I could do to get a good shot.


On the way down, they were further apart. I felt so lucky to see them standing up when we did.
At the top of the lift was a small rock climbing wall. Only BigBuddy could make it all the way around the inside of the building. It wasn't high, so the challenge was to move across.
LittleBuddy was most nervous about the ski lift, so he sat close between his dad and me, while the other three were in front of us. MyGirl loved it!
I forgot to mention that that morning we had seen a coyote out back right after breakfast.

Then, today LittleBuddy and I saw a fox after breakfast. BigBuddy gets up early every morning just to look outside and see what's moving. He had just gone to shower, so he missed it. Then he came back up, spent ten minutes looking out the windows, then went back downstairs, to finish his room. Another fox went running by. This time Cowgirl spotted it first, and BigBuddy missed it again. He couldn't believe it. So, it was good when a half hour later he spotted a coyote pouncing on something not too far away. We've loved watching all these natural creatures out back and living in our "country" setting. . . until this evening.

I was sitting downstairs in the rocking chair reading, when I heard "squeak, squeak." Oh no, I thought. Then I heard the unmistakeable sounds of a mouse. I don't like them. I don't like to look at them, and I certainly don't want to touch them. I yelled for the boys, who came running to see, and I showed them the general direction I heard it from. They found it in a trap behind the TV. I told them to check all the other traps downstairs, and they found another in the food storage area. YUK!

We had an incident with a mouse last week right when I was going to bed. It took an hour to catch that one, because there is no chance I could go to sleep knowing one was upstairs in my house! MyMike is my hero, for sure! That led to the purchases of many more traps the next day, and now we need two more! Help!!! We NEED to find where they're coming in. This is the downside of country living. My neighbor recommended getting a cat, but since MyMike is allergic, that's not going to happen. Oh. My. I just hope I can get some sleep tonight.