Becca's Backyard: denver

We kept pretty busy while we were in Denver. In addition to all of the food we ate, we visited many places.

We went to the Denver Mint, but they don't allow a single picture. If you take a picture, they escort you off of the tour.

Another place we visited was the Capitol Building in Denver. You can do anything you want there as long as you aren't too noisy. They have tons of beautiful quilts hanging all over the building. Below are a few of my favorites.

Here is a fun view looking all the way up to the top of the capitol building:

I got a great shot of the Senate Chamber:

Our main reason for being there was my cousin's 8th grade graduation. Below is a picture of her little class:

My favorite part of the trip was definitely the Wild Animal Sanctuary. They rescue captured exotic and endangered carnivores. While they are rehabilitating the animals, they live in small-ish areas. Once they are "tamed", they move to huge open spaces. I learned that there are more tigers in backyards in Texas than there are left in the world. It is an awesome place and you should definitely visit if you ever find yourself in Colorado with some free time!

Oh yeah, they also rescue dogs. That is a humongous dog with my cousin, Tanya.

Above is a tiger in its cage.

Above is a tiger in one of the bigger cages.

We must have come right after feeding time because the lions had a ton of meat!

Above is a male lion hanging out. He never looked up and I couldn't get any closer! :(

Tigers sure do sleep a lot!

I love this picture. Big cats are so gorgeous!

I'm really impressed that I fit my whole trip into just two blog posts. I hope you enjoyed them!

I have been back from Denver for a few weeks now and haven't had a chance to post about my amazing trip yet! We went out there for my cousin's 8th grade graduation but had plenty of time for sightseeing, eating, and seeing friends as well!

We started off our trip with lunch at Cici's Pizza. Their commercials play here all the time but we don't have one. I have been wanting to go for a LONG time!

Macaroni & Cheese Pizza...delicious!!!!

My amazing plate of dessert...the thing on the right was the best but I have no idea what it was!

That is me in front of Cici's to prove I finally got to go there!!

That night for dinner we decided to be adventurous and try a small, local restaurant. My mom is newly obsessed with Middle Eastern / Mediterranean food so we ended up going for Syrian food at Ya Hala Restaurant & Grill. It is a smaller restaurant but it had good Yelp reviews so we decided to go for it.

Every meal comes with a beautiful plate of hummus (and unpictured pita) to start

You also get soup or salad!

This is my delicious falafel plate.

These are my mom's meat kebabs. They are beef, that's all I know!

The next night for dinner we met my friend Danny who goes to college in Denver. He suggested a favorite of his: Mici. It is a family owned and operated business. They have delicious food and amazing gelato!