The Mile High City

Denver is 5,280 feet above sea level...thus the nickname, the mile high city. Cool fact, I learned while we were there two weeks ago.

We got home from Canada, had one day to unpack, repack and get ready to head to Denver. On the way there, we took a scenic route that took us through Vail and through beautiful mountains. It was so pretty (although I confess that I only slept about 2 hours the night before, so I slept a good portion of the drive. Thank goodness for my husband who likes to drive!)

When we arrived in Denver, we headed to the Aquarium. It was very cool!
They had a lot of different animals than the Aquarium here in Salt Lake. They even had four tigers as well as birds, lizards, snakes and so on. Of course, there were a large variety of fish...big and small, seahorses, jelly fish, sea stars, and on and on.

The highlight for the girls was seeing the mermaids. They have a show where mermaids swim with the fish and sea turtles. The girls are still trying to decide if the mermaids are real. Gabby is sure they are. Ella can't decide but thinks they probably are real. Michelle is sure they aren't. The mermaids waved and stuck out their tongues, splashed and swam. It truly was fun to watch them. I've found myself singing the songs from Little Mermaid several times since this trip. (Probably a combination of the mermaids and the fact that we listened to a Disney CD with a couple of Little Mermaid songs on it while we drove around Denver. But still it's been 2 weeks and I'm still catching myself singing Little Mermaid songs. :))

This is the biggest flower in the world. It grows in the rainforest and the buds can be the size of a basketball and it can have blossoms 3 feet across!

Somehow we didn't take pictures, but the girls also all touched the rays. Michelle has touched them before...and I think Ella might have once. But Gabby has always been too scared...and Ella was nervous to touch them in the past as well. But they all touched the rays this time.

There was also a fun petting zoo just outside of the aquarium. Gabby, in particular, loved petting all of the animals. We bought little cups of food for the animals to eat, and the girls were nervous and excited to let the animals eat out of their hands. There were two goats that kind of followed the girls around until their food was gone.

Such a fun aquarium! We all really enjoyed it!