Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

Finally, here is the collage of pictures from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo!
What an awesome zoo, and what a beautiful day it was. To top it all off, we had an absolute blast with our new friends- Natalie, Isabella, and Elliana.
As many of you well know, we are all so spread out in blogland that it's a rare treat to actually get to meet one another in person. Since we were visiting my sister in Colorado, and Natalie lives about an hour from her, we had the privilege of meeting them in person at the zoo! It was so exciting for me to get together with one of my wonderful blog friends. Natalie's blog is adorable- it's called Ladybugs and Daffodils. She always has great pictures and cute stories to share.

I met Natalie after we connected through our blogs, and I quickly grew to adore her as she is just one of those people who will do anything for a friend- or probably a stranger too, for that matter! She is one of the most positive people I know, and she has the biggest heart. She is open, generous, kind, and always so super helpful. She gives me tips she's learned to help me on my blog (like this collage- thanks N!); she shares insights with me to help me with bonding with Kelly; she encourages me all the time in every endeavor or struggle I have; she tells me when there's a good sale or even a blog makeover giveaway; and she's just an overall sweetheart in every way. I could go on and on, but I know I'm probably already in trouble (with her) for gushing over her this much, so I'll stop by saying it was soo fun to get to meet Natalie and her darling girls. They are absolutely beautiful and both girls have such sweet personalities too. Camryn adored them and really enjoyed getting to hold little Elliana. It was obvious that Elliana is very attached to her mommy, so Camryn felt very privileged when Elliana decided she could let Camryn hold her!

Back when I met Natalie in cyberspace, we became fast friends as we had so many things in common, and especially because both of our youngest daughters share a bit of history in that they both spent the first several months of their lives at Yangxi SWI. It's so cool to me that we can connect our girls here in the States, so they can share that very special bond. I think it will be especially good for them as they get older and begin to realize their feelings about it all. To have one another and to know they will understand in ways that we, as parents, never can, makes me feel so thankful to know them, and especially grateful for this Internet world! We'd probably never have connected otherwise.

Natalie did a great post about how wonderful this blog community is, and how much she enjoys checking in on everyone and all their little cutie pies on their blogs... I couldn't agree with her more. I love watching all our little ones grow and hearing all about what and how everyone is doing, so keep it up, bloggers! And for those of you who don't have blogs yet, PLEASE, start one! (You know who you are!)
Okay, enjoy the pictures! I think they're pretty self-explanatory, although I would love to caption them. I'm a little disappointed that the pictures are so small when you look at the collage. I probably should have used a smaller amount of pictures, or I should have done three or four collages, but I'll keep working at it and remember for next time! 

If you click on the collage, it should enlarge.