Denver Lights

 Downtown Denver

 looking for Santa

 and reindeers

 State Capitol building at night

There goes Santa!

 Afterwards, we drove to the Pepsi Center to watch Disney on Ice, featuring Toy Story 3.

 Beli's favorite part was when Minnie and Mickey made an appearance.

A fun filled Saturday evening.

How was your weekend?

A pizzeria where you feel like ~ un membro della nostra famiglia

This holiday weekend  my sister and her family visited us from Iowa. On of the nights, we went out to eat for dinner. There were a total of 8 of us: four kids and four adults so we decided it was best to go to a family restaurant and have pizza.

We chose Virgilio's, after watching an episode on Food Network. We met the owner of the restaurant, a native of Naples, Italy when he came around the tables to see if everyone was enjoying their food.  You can read more about the restaurant here.

photo with the owner

We ordered spicy mussels with garlic knots, mozarella sticks, pizza, spaghetti, fresh mozarella and tomato salad, and dessert! Everything tasted really good. Friendly service. We definitely felt like a member of the family.

 Beli really enjoyed spending time with her cousins. There were also visits to the zoo, an amusement park, the pool, fireworks and more food!

I kinda felt left out as I worked all weekend and only saw them in the evening for a couple of hours. But my sister took lots of photos so I will be posting them later this week.  Did you go to see fireworks?  And for my friends overseas, how was your weekend?

 This month we have a friend visiting from Croatia. One of our favorite places to visit is Colorado Springs, about an hour south of Denver, as there are many attractions there. Our initial intent was to drive up to Pike's Peak but the road was closed due to a race (we learned this when we  made a pit stop for some ice cream)  and we were wonderfully surprised by this vintage inspired cafe. Howdy, donald duck!

 First time at the Cave of the Winds.

 We only admired the kids climbing here. Would you try it?

 Beli insisted on a photo by the water.

 Hiking trail below. It was in the upper 90s so going into the cave was very refreshing.

After the caves we drove near by to the Garden of the Gods park.

 Holding the rock all by herself!

 kissing camels

 Catch me if you can.

 And we ended the day with a concert at the park.

Alpacas

This past weekend we went to the National Alpaca show and I can't tell you how thrilled Beli was to see them! 

Beli wanted to hold one.

One of the owners at the show allowed Beli to pet the alpacas.

Beli to alpaca, "Hi! don't be scared, I want to be your friend."

...................................

(so much prettier than the snakes, right?)