Small and Simple Things: The Zoo with Cousins

One beautifully warm and sunny winter day last month we went to the Denver Zoo and were met there by cousins Ande and Kyle and their momma too (John ditched us). Ande, Kyle and parents have recently moved back to Colorado, we missed them and are happy to have them back.

Amik with Kyle

Fionnula and Ande

We are generally lovers of zoos, and have visited a handful of others, but the Denver Zoo feels very much like it is ours. We have been visiting there since our family began.

We celebrated Erin's first birthday at the Denver Zoo. She made kitten noises at the mountain lions.

Once, we took Erin, Bayley, Kegan and Rhys to see the holiday zoo lights. We got there and realized we had forgotten to bring the girls' coats. It was cold and dark and after bedtime. We ended up bundling the girls into the double stroller with lots of blankets. I pushed the girls and Kris carried a toddler on each arm through the whole zoo. By the time we were done, Kris's arms were so sore he could barely move them.

When Kegan was two we went to the Denver Zoo with our LaFond cousins on Christmas Day (yes, really, Christmas Day). A snowball fight that day nearly turned lethal when Kegan tripped, smacked his face on a rock and broke his nose! He effectually ruined Uncle Greg's jacket with the copious amounts of blood that flowed freely from his face. Most of my kids, even those who were not yet born that Christmas, can still point out that offending rock.

That was back when Enrights and LaFonds lived about 20 minutes from one another. Years later, they traveled from Pennsylvania to visit us in Colorado Springs and we wanted to go to the Denver Zoo together, of course. The day of the zoo trip turned out to be rainy, but we went anyway. Mostly the rain just effected the picnic part of the day, not the moods of anyone involved. At lunchtime we piled into the two vehicles to eat our lunches. Everyone was happily eating and chatting and loudly laughing when in the bus there was a sudden and complete silence followed by a loud chorus of "Ewwwww! Gross!" And an extremely efficient evacuation of the bus. Rain was nothing compared to remaining in the vehicle that poor Ronan had just puked in.

Last June we met cousin Alison for the first time at the Denver zoo.