Hunt Family Adventures : Christmas 2024 and New Year 2025

Two days before Christmas, we drove down to Pueblo to see the Christmas lights at the Pueblo Zoo. Caitlin and I wanted to take our kids up to some of the lights in Denver, but even 10 days in advance, both the botanical gardens and the Denver Zoo were already sold out on December 23rd. Pueblo was far from sold out and was a lot less expensive, so we went down there instead. Since it was a long drive, we decided to get there early and see Moana 2, which was a lot of fun. We rarely take the kids to see movies in the theater so both of them thought it was their first time ever (it wasn't, but it'd been several years. Allison struggles to sit still for that long).

We still had a little bit of time before Caitlin and family arrived, so we tried to hit up the arcade in the mall. We found the arcade, in spite of it not being in the mall directory, but unfortunately you have to buy a day pass to even set foot on the floor. It would have been a good deal if we'd had more than 20 minutes, but it wasn't worth $15 a person for that brief amount of time. We browsed some of the shops for a bit then made our way to the zoo.

It's a small zoo, but they do a really good job with the space they have. For $9 per adult and $7 per kid, it's definitely worth the trip. There weren't so many trees covered in lights, but there were a lot of fun animal shaped lights. I liked the one on the right of Santa's sleigh being pulled by sled dogs.

There were also several moving lights representing animal movements, like an eagle flying over our heads.

And most importantly the kids had fun. There was a lot less complaining then when I took them to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo lights (even though they were fantastic!) because they had friends to play with and weren't thinking as much about how tired their legs were.

This display was neat. Riley was a bit shocked when the beaver disappears. At first it looks like the beaver knocks over the tree which in turn crushes the beaver, but then you wait a few seconds and you see the beaver hanging out in the middle of the tree.

All of the kids enjoyed playing in this giant egg before we had to tear them away. We then went inside to see a few indoor animals. That's one nice thing about zoo lights. You can take indoor breaks and see a few animals. You won't see nearly as many animals as going to the zoo in the day time, and many of them are asleep, but you can usually see the reptiles and such which are already in indoor enclosures.

Cute little meerkats! It was relatively warm that evening, and we had several layers on, so we got hot quickly and didn't stay inside too long.

I really liked this cute Christmas train and the farm animal lights.

We even got to meet Santa! This has to be the shortest line for Santa only two days before Christmas. He was a great Santa too. He asked good questions and told Harper he wouldn't bring her a skateboard if she refused wear her helmet.

We saw an armadillo inside before I took the kids to Pizza Ranch for dinner and we drove home.

For Christmas Eve we took the kids to eat at Fazoli's and then to play at Urban Air. There weren't many people there, so the kids were able to get a lot done without many lines.

That evening Santa came, Nibbler made a run through all the new presents, and I sat down to bask in the Christmas glow.

On Christmas day we opened presents all throughout the day and took breaks to eat breakfast and let the kids could play with their new stuff.

The presents were very well received. Allison got two new Lego brachiosaurus, and she already had a gray one, so she mixed all their parts together to create multicolored hybrids. Apparently they really like eating her ramen!

After all the presents were opened Tyler got to work on his robot and Allison got to work on her multiple roller coaster sets. Thanks to Hogokids and Akwame brands for making roller coaster sets that are far less expensive than Lego brand (but are still compatible with Lego brand).

Over the next several days it turned into a full on theme park. She called it "Worlds of Adventure" with Ocean World, Princess World, and Sky World.

The next day we discovered a new game with Nibbler - Whack-a-ball. He was having so much fun! Too bad the ball popped. He doesn't like the harder balls they make for cats, so I guess we'll just have to order a bunch of cheap inflatables.

On Friday we went to Urban Air again after our appointments at the eye doctor. It was considerably more crowded. We'll have to time it properly in the future.

Over the weekend Oscar kept working on our counter tops and Nibbler was cute.

The next week Tyler and Nolan put together the new Marble Run course he got from auntie Malia.

Tyler and I went to Nolan's house for New Years Eve where I lost spectacularly at Phase 10. We'd put our sparkling grape juices outside to keep them cold, but it was about 17 degrees, so it got a little slushy. The slush was great, though. Now I have to figure out how to do that intentionally. Caitlin decorated the plastic glasses with frosting and sprinkles, so we had some pretty fancy drinks.

Allison struggles to stay up late, so I suggested she go to bed early and let Oscar wake her up just before midnight. He said she was so tired she could barely drink her sparkling cider before going right back to bed. They did get a little fireworks show, though. Tyler and I saw fireworks coming up from that same area on our drive home.

Earlier I'd taken Allison out for Chinese then picked up pizza and crazy bread from Little Caesar's for the boys. Apparently getting pizza for New Year's is very popular. Allison and I ended up having to kill time at Walmart and wait nearly an hour before we could get their pizza.

Tyler found one last Christmas present as we took the tree down and I took some photos of the advent calendar Legos builds before we put all the Christmas decorations away.

On January 2nd we decided to see the lights at the Denver Zoo. Since we were already driving to Denver, I took the kids and Nolan up to the Children's Museum. I couldn't believe how many people were in line to get in at 2:00pm when they close at 4:00pm. It took us a good 20 minutes just to get through the line. They played inside for awhile, but then they went outdoors for "Snow Days."

They had fun going sledding, ice fishing, and ice skating until the museum closed. We drove towards the zoo and stopped off for food at a nearby Sam's Club before meeting Caitlin and the rest of Nolan's siblings at the zoo.

3 of 6 Dollar Tree Christmas light necklaces worked (though 2 more turned on later when I tried them a different day). Allison, Tyler, and Nolan were all able to wear them. We'll see if they all work again next Christmas.

I liked this display of Santa's sleigh being driven by hippos.

There were several indoor areas to see animals and give you a break from the cold, but the layers made you get hot fast.

There were several large books around to tell you about each area you were going into. We really liked the pastels and other non typical Christmas colors.

Like Pueblo, they had moving animal lights. Unlike Pueblo, they had many large trees full of lights. Allison liked the elephants splashing themselves with water lights.

The best, though, was the Treemu! It was just mind-blowing.

There were some scorpions around the treemu that we nearly missed and only noticed when we looked behind us.

We saw a couple tree kangaroos before heading to the Asian area.

We briefly went inside where we saw a fishing cat. There's a beautiful view of the lights across the water from inside, and there's a pretty flower just outside the doors. I couldn't seem to get a clear picture of the fishing cat. It moved too quickly.

We got to see the elephants, though we really only saw their butts.

The kids spent a bunch of time playing on the hippo statue just before heading into the arctic area.

In addition to the treemu, we were also really impressed by this northern lights tree. Google fancied up my picture of it on the right.

We also got to see some sleeping tigers and some tiger lights.

From there we saw the giraffes. One had its ossicone stuck in the ball, but they figured out how to get it out. We all cheered once they managed it.

After that we went inside to see the reptiles, fish, and a few other indoor animal enclosures. If we hadn't been so hot in all our layers the kids could have stayed here for hours. I told them I'll have to bring them back sometime in better weather.