Denver Zoo

This summer we bought a zoo pass!  We haven't had one in several years, and since this was the summer of no yard, it seemed the thing to do!  So far we've gone four or five times.  We'll plan to go all year round on Saturdays and school holidays.  Lots of fun, especially when it's not so hot outside!

Caylie and Tessa.  Tessa doesn't stay in the stroller for long!

Justin and Samuel and a gorilla friend.

 Justin is usually wearing this hat when we're out in the hot sun.  Jim got it in Vietnam in 2012.

Cutie pie Tessa.

I could be a sea lion.  All they do is swim in the water; lay in the sun.  Swim in the water; lay in the sun. 
 Yeah, I could do that!

Sam said, "This guy sad."  I agree.  :(
  (Bad picture taken with my phone through a glass window.)

And another taken though glass and with the mama gorilla running!  She's carrying her little baby, but you can only see it's head.

Brown bear.

The giraffes are my favorite.  :)

Look at that cute face!

Mountain sheep.  All these pictures are taken just with my phone.  I'm thinking that after the kids go to school, I should go back to the zoo with my big camera and spend the whole day getting good shots!

Flamingos.  
There's a much better picture below, but this one had Samuel in it, so I'm leaving it in.

Another bear.

Penguins

Keelan and his girlfriend Destiny with Caylie.

Playing the bongos.

Brittany and Justin.  (And don't forget to vote for Pedro.)

We saw the elephants and decided to go to the elephant show!

They brought this guy out and after a lot of coaching, got him to swim in the water.

There he goes!

And then he did some tricks!  It was very cool.  

Another day we met up with some friends from our adoption agency, AAC, at their annual zoo event.  Here is Caylie with two of her China friends, Maleah and Willow.

Justin . . . different day, same outfit.

 Jim and me.

Turtle piggyback.

 Caylie has come a long way with merry-go-rounds!  See this post from two years ago, ha!

Samuel likes it, too.  

Emma and Willow are both from Nanchang, Jiangxi.  Caylie is from Fuzhou, in the same province, but we were in Nanchang for her adoption. 

Click:  Everybody's Got a Water Buffalo!

They also have a rhino show, but apparently he doesn't like the water so much.

Hmm, I don't remember what this is.  But it's cute.  

Brittany's favorite is the polar bear.

Aren't zebras awesome?
  (Thanks for fixing my picture, Tracie!)

We happened to be at the zoo the day after this little mountain sheep baby was born.  So cute!

Caylie, Willow, and a lion friend.  We found out that the daddy lion had died a few months ago, so this big picture is the closest thing right now.  So sad.

The lions have a huge, beautiful area to live in.  Part of it looks like Pride Rock from The Lion King.  But these lions preferred to sleep on the hard ground by the fence.  

Go figure.

I could be a hippo.  Well, except for in the winter . . . 

Different elephant, different day.

Another day we went with our friends, the Petersons.

And look how big the baby mountain sheep got over a month!  And I guess there were two!

Here's the better picture of the flamingos!

This guy looks like half deer, half zebra.  

Don't remember his name, but he's cool.

China friends.  Sarah is from Hunan province, Samuel from Guangdong, and Caylie from Jiangxi.

Summer Fun!

We've been doing our best to get out of our apartment this summer, since we have no yard!  So here are a whole bunch of pictures of things we've been doing. My friend Kimmie took us to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science with her season pass.  The kids enjoyed all the dinosaur bones.  

 Caylie loved the water play center.

And the lights.

 And the blocks.

Samuel and Justin with a mummy friend.
(This really kinda creeps me out, haha.)

This water park is just down the street from our apartment.

Samuel was all excited to go, but when we got there, he wasn't so sure about it, for some reason.  I got him to get into this picture, but that was it.

Caylie, on the other hand, was into it!

We used to go to a lot of Rockies baseball games every year, but now we're lucky to get to one a season.  This time they were playing the Toronto Blue Jays.

We had great seats just six rows up from the visitor's dugout.

Caylie and Samuel love Dinger.

Beautiful Coors Field.  It's not as good a picture as from the first base line, with the mountains in the background, but I still love it!

Troy Tulowitski's first game back at Coors after being traded to the Blue Jays last year.

 Rockies win!!

Our apartment complex has a nice pool where we've gone many mornings before it gets crowded.

Brittany and Tessa came with us once.  Tessa is a fishy!

Keelan began playing with our church's worship band.  He taught himself guitar over the last couple of years.

Poker and watermelon at the apartment.  

One rainy day, the kids went out to play in it.  But rain doesn't last long here, so it was partly sunny by the time they got outside.

And soon there was a beautiful rainbow!  

We've been shopping around for a few furniture items for our new house.  Here's Samuel with the Furniture Row guy.  

Justin and mom, being our nutty selves.

Samuel and Caylie began swimming lessons at an indoor pool.  Here is Sam's class.

And Caylie's class.

One day Caylie's teacher had the class practice putting on life vests.

And then made a little train in the water.  They're all holding on to each other's feet.

On the last day of the session, Samuel went down the big water slide.  

Caylie practicing her back float.  

They will start another swim lesson session in a couple of weeks.  Samuel has moved up to the next level, so he's excited about that.  I'm thinking of keeping him in lessons through the school year, as Justin did.  We'll see how things progress.

June 29 was Samuel Day!  We celebrated one year with Samuel at Red Robin restaurant.  (Caylie always picks Chinese . . . he rarely does.)  It was a good day.

One more month till we close on our house and school starts!