NinaPapa Visit Part 2

Here's our little bird friends!!! There really are three of them, but one of them is very shy and ducks whenever we come out the front door. They look very angry due to their coloring, but they are very quiet and interested in us (except that shy one). Now they're starting to sit on the edge of the nest. I think they're thinking about flying away soon, which'll make Evan super happy since he hates the mound of poop they leave on our front porch. Oops.



Back to our NinaPapa visit!

Tuesday was Evan's birthday, but he still had to go to work. :( So, we went to visit some more fantastic sites in Colorado Springs! We started with The Garden of the Gods. It was a gorgeous day and not too hot when we went in the morning. Elisabeth was excited about getting to climb some of the rocks again and going on a couple of trails.
Jana and Elisabeth climbing through a crevice in the rocks.
Keith pushing Julia in her stroller.
While Jana, Keith and Elisabeth climbed Balancing Rock, I stayed down below with Julia. Julia had a rather extensive conversation with this nice lady that lasted 15 minutes.






After The Garden of the Gods, we headed over to the Air Force Academy. The Academy is located right under the mountains and has some of the greenest scenery in the Springs. You can tour the chapel on base and there are a few trails that visitors can walk along.
The Chapel.
The chapel was very interesting. The first floor is a protestant chapel, which is gorgeous with its ceiling and stained glass windows and biggest organ ever. What I didn't realize, was that there are 4 more chapels on the lower floor--the Catholic chapel, the Jewish temple, the Buddhist chapel and the Muslim chapel. I wasn't sure how they could make the other 4 chapels as beautiful as the protestant one, but I was pleasantly surprised. Each one is so breathtaking that I had a hard time deciding which one I liked the most. We didn't get a chance to see the Muslim chapel because Julia started getting restless on the tour, but I will definitely be making a trip back.



We celebrated Evan's birthday with dinner at Famous Dave's and then presents and cake at home.

Here's my every day, folks. When I look down, this is what I see...
Keith and Jana got Evan a steam cleaner for the carpets. Look at him, he's the most excited carpet freak ever!!!
Keith is holding the phone so that Kyle, Matt and Ethan could sing Happy Birthday with us. I must also note that it was Ethan's half birthday, and now my little man is 2 1/2! (Oh, and look at Julia's face in this picture...she is only barely keeping her cool while she waits for her piece of cake. And, yes, she did scream when Evan got the first piece instead of her.)



Wednesday, we hung around the house a bit and relaxed. After lunch, we headed to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. The cool thing about this zoo is that, not only is just half an hour from our house, but it's actually built into the mountain. So cool!!!

Oh, and also, you get to feed the giraffes. For $1, you get 3 crackers to feed to them. How awesome is that?!

Julia loved the giraffes. She kept yelling out in her Julia language for them to come see her.
She had a long talk with this giraffe who put his chin on the fence to listen to her. It was super cute.
Elisabeth loves meerkats.

Watching the otter exhibit. They were most active when we saw them.



They had 6 gorillas at the zoo. This poor baby gorilla was desperately trying to get one of his family members to give him some leaves. Eventually, one of them caved and gave him a snack.
This was the silver back. He was all business.


Jana and Keith left Thursday morning. We said a sad good-bye as they drove off to South Dakota to visit Mt. Rushmore before they headed back to Illinois. We had an awesome time with them here, and I had a rough day after they left. I realized that we won't have visitors until fall, and that is a long time from now. It's just still hard being here all alone. I've joined some groups and have a routine going with the girls, but I miss having friends and family at my disposal to visit and see on a regular basis. I still have to remind myself that I've only been here two months tomorrow. That's not very long in the grand scheme of things if you think about it. I mean, Evan was gone longer from us then we've been back together. It was very sad the next day because Julia kept looking up at the loft where Jana and Keith had slept on our futon. She'd point and jabber like she was asking where they were. :(

So, if you want to visit us, come on out! We have a futon now, so we have somewhere for company to sleep! And, we live in one of the most beautiful cities in America, so we'll keep you busy with sightseeing! :)