Parental visit and a new zoo

So, as I mentioned, my parents drove out to see us last week. As they made a full road trip out of it, with lots of stops along the way, they ended up only staying with us for six days, which was very short, shorter than their usual visits and puzzlingly short for the kids, both of whom adore my parents. But we definitely made the most out of it, capped off with a visit to a zoo we'd never gone to before, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs.

It turned out that we actually liked the CMZ better than the Denver zoo... it's built right on the side of a mountain so there's some uphill walking involved, but the views are stunning and they have a lot of animals, most (though unfortunately not all) of which seem to have great, roomy habitats. Callum loved the zoo and didn't complain at all about all the walking (according to my pedometer about 7,000 steps and three miles altogether) and was generally a total delight. Annika liked the animals too, and was surprisingly content to stay in her stroller (I think part of this is that a lot of the exhibits can be easily seen from the ground level thanks to glass enclosures etc., which is an improvement over the Denver zoo where you have to do a lot of lifting up of little kids to see things).

We especially enjoyed the very first exhibit, giraffes where you could buy lettuce to feed them. Callum was super nervous about feeding the giraffes at first but did eventually work up the courage to try it and ended up thinking it was hilarious to see the giraffe use its giant tongue to gently remove the lettuce from his hand. Also, the nice thing was that the giraffes were so into the food that they were totally willing to get up close and personally and make friends, much to Torsten's benefit.

We also saw three lion cubs sleeping in a very cuddly adorable pile on top of each other, penguins brushed goats in the petting zoo, and rode the antique carousel. It was a really lovely outing and also a reminder of how our kids are starting to get to an age where they are functional non-babies who can be taken out and about with fairly minimal fuss, and honestly, that is a delight (like I said last time, I swear I will write an actual post on this topic soon).

The rest of the visit was also just lovely. My parents are great with our kids (they have stayed with them a couple times while Torsten and I have traveled on our own, which has been delightful for all of us) and thanks to the magic of weekly FaceTime, they really KNOW my kids and my kids know them despite only seeing them once every few months. Both kids wanted to hang out with them all the time, and Annika actually wept for "Grandma Bapa" when I took her upstairs for naptime.

All in all, it was adorable, and too short. But they'll be back for Christmas, a fact which we will not forget, thanks to Callum reminding us at least twice every day.