Orelia's Denver

We spent every waking moment of our Denver vacation doing activities Orelia would enjoy.  Her first morning was spent at the children's museum with Mommy (sans camera), and that afternoon she was wowed by the aquarium.

As my old boss said, "Leave it to you guys to go to the middle of the country to go to an aquarium," but Orelia had a great time.

 Orelia loved seeing the "ee-orses" and turtles.

 They had lots of very large sharks at the aquarium, and Orelia loves to get tickled to the "Jaws" theme song.  What a gal.  We had dinner at the aquarium restaurant, which essentially had tanks full of brightly colored fish on every wall so as to entertain the children better.  It worked like a charm.

The next morning we headed to the zoo to see what kind of creatures Orelia could spot on land.   She loves "raffes," and thanks to a wonderful Eric Carle book, likes to demonstrate how they bend their necks.

 The seal lion show was a huge hit with Orelia who kept asking for "more more more" when it was over.  We think she's going to enjoy Sea World in July.

 The zoo has a huge new elephant exhibit, and this "baby" elephant Billy showed off by taking a nice swim for us.  Now Orelia equates "agua" and elephants despite the fact that she may never seen another elephant swim for the rest of her life.

 We didn't dawdle at the elephants, however, since we had already told Orelia there was a train ride in her future and that was all she could think about.

 I swear, smoosh face means she's enjoying herself.

Smoosh face even made an appearance on the beloved carousel.

John and I were especially exhausted after the zoo, and we all headed home to take naps before our next adventure.

Denver has it's own "insect zoo" whose main attraction is actually a huge butterfly greenhouse.  

 Literally the week before we left for Denver, Orelia became obsessed with butterflies because we began to spot them flying around our backyard.

 I randomly decided to Google "Denver butterfly" and found out about the Butterfly Pavillion just outside of the city.

 Orelia had a great time and we literally saw a thousand butterflies.

 Every night was capped off with a swim in the indoor pool at the hotel and we all slept soundly after fun-filled days.  John and I didn't get to explore the trendy parts of the city or eat at any nice restaurants, but we had an amazing time as a family.  We knew that if Orelia was happy, we were all happy.