Colorado Vacation, Day Three - Dinosaur Resource Center

Saturday morning we decided to try another new activity - the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center. Not all of the skeletons inside were real, but some pieces were. I was really excited, because I don't think that I've ever seen (or touched) actual dinosaur bones before. It wasn't very big, but I would say we were there at least an hour. And without the family, I would have been there longer reading every sign thoroughly. :)

The mass inside this prehistoric fish's skeleton is the remains of his last meal. Very cool!

Pretending to be paleontologists

Making a dinosaur out of magnetic pieces

Raegan's dinosaur

I am so glad all of these prehistoric fish are extinct. They creep me out big time.

Just a portion of an ultrasaur's leg bone. Yikes!

Note that Raegan never took her sunglasses off once. They were her souvenir from the zoo. She is crazy about them.

Raegan was fascinated with the video about digging up and preserving fossils.

Colorado Vacation, Day Two - Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

After lunch at The Mason Jar (one of our favorite restaurants, and one that I remember well from childhood vacations to Colorado!) we headed to the zoo in Colorado Springs. All I really remembered of it from my childhood was that it was on the side of a mountain and a lot of walking. I may or may not have kept that information to myself to convince everyone that we should go. :)

The first exhibit we visited was the giraffes. It was awesome! We didn't buy anything to feed the giraffes, but they still came right up to us to check for food.

I just took this picture to show how long their tongues are. Ewwwww!

No zoom - this is how close they were getting to us.

Photobomb #3

A small play area that we stopped in for a few minutes.

I really liked the reptile exhibit (not something I usually say about the reptile house!) All of the reptile habitats were arranged like works of art, with plants or beads or sculptures. It was pretty cool.

"BIG CHAIR! Take my picture, Mama!" :)

The cutest baby to ever hatch out of an egg :)

Raegan posed this way entirely on her own. Is she picture perfect or what?

Brave girl petting a snake (while holding Daddy's hand)

Raegan entertained herself for the last half hour or so of the zoo by reading the map. It was pretty cute.

Colorado Vacation, Day Two - Cave of the Winds

We started off bright and early Friday morning with a trip to Cave of the Winds. This was a place Luke and I wanted to go to on our trip out last fall, but we simply ran out of time. We really enjoyed it a lot with the kids, but honestly, it would have gone better if Raegan were a little older. She liked looking around in the caves, but she got bored a lot quicker than we did. Just a tip for anyone with small children.

Even though we promised Raegan up, down and sideways that there were no bears in the cave, she kept calling it "The Bear Caves". So we thought it was pretty funny that there was a statue of a bear right at the entrance. :)

While we waited for our tour, Zane and I played a game where you had to hit disks as they lit up. It was onlky a minute long, but it felt like forever when you were going as fast as possible. Zane and I were wore out by the time we were done. Raegan joined in the fun, and even managed to hit a few lights.

There was a wooden maze for kids to give them an idea of what spelunking in a cave is like. It was recommended for ages 4 and up, but Raegan figured it out pretty quickly, and ended up going through 4 times.

Photobombed again!

The writing on the monument says that it's to be opened in 2081, but it didn't say what was in there. Very interesting to me....

The pictures really don't do it justice.

These formations are called bacon rocks. Luke and Zane sure liked that. If you look at the one on the right, it's broken. Our tour guide said that it hadn't been broken the week before, but they noticed it after a few tours the previous weekend. People sure are jerks sometimes. :(

Colorado Vacation, Day One

I decided to break up the pictures of our vacation into a few posts, because I took a lot of pictures. A lot. I thought I took a lot when Luke and I went last October, but it's funny how many more you take when you have this super cute subject to take pictures of. :)

We left bright and early Thursday morning. My goal was to get out by 8:00 and we were on the road a little after 8:30, so I was really pleased. Raegan did a fantastic job on the trip there. Every year she gets a lot better at long trips. If my husband could handle it, I would say we should try a trip to the Grand Canyon or Mount Rushmore in a few years. She played very nicely with her toys until after lunch in Colby, then we hooked up our new in car DVD player. Raegan's amazement at having a TV IN THE CAR was hilarious!

We reached Woodland Park about 3:30, which was even better than I had hoped for. We dropped off our stuff and then headed back to Manitou Springs to introduce the kids to the outdoor arcade and penny arcade downtown. Most of the games there are super old school, and there isn't much there that's over 50 cents. If you go into the penny arcade there are games that are a penny, and many that are 5 or 10 cents. We had a lot of fun playing various games, and Raegan loved riding as many rides as we would let her. Most of them were a quater, so she got to ride plenty.

Raegan loved all the rides. She was so excited! (Notice Zane photobombing in the background? He kept doing it on purpose the whole trip. I told him I'm going to make a scrapbook called "Zane's Photobombs - Colorado Edition. hahaha)

Daddy teaching Raegan how to play Skeeball. She doesn't have quite the arm power yet, but we'll get her there.

Mommy played quite a few games herself. :)

Zane said something to provoke her at the exact instant I took this picture. Love the look on her face!

After playing games we walked the downtown for a little while. When Raegan started getting a little (or a lot!) fussy, we realized it was getting kind of late by Kansas time and went to dinner. The first picture is from before supper, the second and third picture after. Food makes quite a difference in Raegan's temperament! We ate at Hell's Kitchen Pizza, which Luke and I discovered last fall when we went. It's fantastic, and pretty decently priced too.



Raegan's Dance Recital

Luckily for me, my friend Christina has a fabulous camera and managed to capture all of these great pictures for me. I took pictures with my camera, but without being able to use the flash, they were all somewhat blurry and/or far away. Raegan did a fantastic job. She didn't seem at all nervous, and she did all the moves exactly like she was supposed to. I really just enrolled her in dance to fulfill my desire to have a little girl in a tutu, but she loves it so much it may be something we stick with. :)