babywearing at the cheyenne mountain zoo!

Well today was an excellent day in Colorado Springs and perfect for our first trip to the zoo. For those who don't know, we are zoo junkies :) we've checked out zoos in memphis, tucson, pheonix, san diego, anchorage ak, and now colorado springs with hopes to scope out many many more when our kempe world tour is over. Needless to say we couldnt wait to add to the list. There was a wrap who had been sitting in the closet for months, untouched, begging to get some lovin and it was the first day of Beau's four day weekend so today was perfect.

We arrived around 2 o'clock. Immediately busted out my brand new didymos eis linen babywrap and wrapped up my 24lb 7mo, who was dead asleep, in a front carry. We realized we had forgotten the stroller (aka diaper bag holder) but oh well, who needs em right :) Parker has taken over as the family photographer and his siblings are a bit jealous so he doesn't always have the most cooperative subjects lol. After snagging an entrance photo we promptly joined the zoo. kinda an odd step to join, seeing as we hadnt ever been there, but when you have a family of 7 our member ship will pay for itself if we go twice this year, so it was a must!

The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is different from any other we had visited. as the name suggests, its on a mountain. Not near one, or beside one but built right into the mountainside. This makes for quite a workout, but provides really unique habitats and a ski lift!!! minus the skis of course, but oh how fun. It takes you right to the top and you can work your way down, which we found out after we had climbed the zoo in full lol. Even the alaska zoo wasn't on a mountain, so I was impressed.

The first thing we did was feed giraffes. We have done this a couple of times before, head level, and ground level (so they have to stoop). It never gets old! They are so cute, all 16 of them including two teeny babies!! This was the largest giraffe habitat we had seen and they all seemed to be having fun, very personable, although their tongues were much shorter than the giraffe we met in Memphis :) While I think the ground level is the most fun, this was still amazing esp the babies cuz u know i luv me some babies!

The zookeepers were super nice and totally help make the zoo a fun place. A junior keeper saw my kiddos admiring the sleeping snow leopards and went and got their keeper who was preparing treats. The let us watch them do some training behaviors with a laser pointer and then devour some big bones. The kids loved em and they were gorgeous. Once they got the bones they wouldn't do much, the kids were sad , Piper concluded that those bones must be really really good! and it was on the the naked mole rats....

I found it odd that there was an entire marketing campaign centered around naked mole rats. kinda atypical, but whateva. We had to check them out (so i guess it worked) per the request of a thousand billboards around town. They were super fun and just as cute as they were disgusting haaa. We then wandered over to the little reptile/mouse/skunk building. A keeper hanging out in there asked my kiddos if they would like to help her feed her mice! We were so impressed with all the friendly folks and their willingness to include and educate my kiddos. They each got to choose their favorite fruit from the fridge in the back and bring it out and feed the mouse of their choice, then she let everyone hold Pouffany, a sweet fluffy little black and white mouse whom all the kids now love!

This is about the time that Pike woke up, two hours into the adventure!! I thought he might want to get unwrapped and stretch or something, but no, in true low maintenance Pike style, he snuggled up in his linen didy and enjoyed the rest of the trip (another hour or so) in the comfort of mamas arms :) takin it all in!

Last but not least were the monkeys. They were great, but it was what i found in the monkey house that impressed me most....a babywearing exhibit (they called it backriding) ! Now this is MY kind of zoo! looks like monkeys and mamas have something in common!

Thanks to everyone at the zoo for making it a great trip!

happy fathers day :)