The big, long vacation post, Part 1

This year for vacation we went to Colorado. My family has a cabin in Green Mountain Falls, a few miles outside of Colorado Springs. It is a GORGEOUS mountain community. It is such a relaxing spot. The town is small so you walk to breakfast, there's no fast food just one restaurant. And yet, you are 10 minutes from bigger towns with all the conveniences and loads of attractions and things to do.

Here is our cabin, the Sleepy Seven:




The kids walking up the street to the cabin, holding hands. Awww...



This is Green Mountain Falls:



In the mornings we walked down to breakfast at the Little Pantry, a place I have been going to since I was about 9 months old. It's a cute little restaurant where the portions are huge. This is Big Boy getting his Mother Lode Pancake- and it's the children's size!!

Our first day we visited the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs. In my lifetime I have been to that zoo more times than I can count. But they have recently remodeled it and it was the absolute best zoo I have ever been to. Here's why!

1. It is IN the mountains. Absolutely gorgeous, 6,800 feet up high on the mountain. You are surrounded by natural wildlife and incredible views the whole time.

2. Every exhibit is designed to get you inches away from the animals. Their cages/environments are built around the visitors. For example, the mountain lion's cage- built around a see-through plastic tunnel you walk through. You are right in the middle of the cage and you get the best view.

3. The giraffe exhibit. It costs over 11 million dollars to create and it is the largest of any zoo in the world. We got to feed them, and as you can see, they get pretty darn close to you!

It was actually a little freaky how close we got. If you look carefully, that mountain lion saw T coming a mile away. It was so scary, as we got closer and went into the enclosure that mountain lion just stared at Big Boy, wouldn't take it's eyes off of him. The other people walking through with us were taking pictures of it, it was so crazy. I grabbed my fresh meat Big Boy and got the heck out of there!