travel | denver zoo

Here is a quick post of a little trip to the Denver Zoo! I always enjoy going to zoos and seeing all the different animals. 

I really loved seeing the Clouded Leopard... How amazing is that photo above?!?! Such a beautiful animal! There was a special exhibit just for a few baby Clouded Leopards. I could have watched them for hours. The babies were playing a lot which was beyond cute, but there were a lot of people watching them and the lighting was bad, so the photo below was as good as I could get...

travel | shopping in estes park

For our last day in Estes Park we decided to spend part of the day walking around the city, shopping & eating, before heading back to Denver. (We were tired and sore from all the hiking the day before, so this sounded perfect!) The city in Estes Park is really pretty. We went into several fun shops, a nice art gallery and the pizza place we ate at was right by the river! I ended up getting a cute Estes Park T-shirt and a Turquoise Necklace that I love. (Turquoise is my favorite and I always look for it in places like this!) One of my favorite shops was The Estes Park Taffy Company. Their taffy is great and they have the most amazing salted caramels, which was a bit unexpected. If you want a sweet treat and you are in Estes Park, this is the place to go. The Danish Cone Factory is a part of it and they have a good variety of ice cream and unique flavored cones. A really great find! 

I love places like this... going into fun shops and walking outside on a beautiful day is a really great combination!

After we got some ice cream and taffy, we stopped to sit on a bench right beside some Queen Anne's Lace (!!!)
and of course, I had to take a few photos! So pretty...

Such a beautiful day!

recipe | homemade chocolate shell

I have always loved "Magic Shell" on ice cream. It is chocolaty and yummy, and I love the way it hardens on ice cream. When I was a kid I went through a phase of loving it so much that my grandma actually gave me a bottle for my birthday as a "joke gift" (kind of)... I took it seriously though and wouldn't let anyone else in my family have any. So, needless to say, I was pretty excited to find a recipe on Pinterest for for homemade chocolate shell!!!! And I will say, this is definitely the easiest recipe I have ever posted, which is awesome, but may not be such a good thing...

Homemade Chocolate Shell

Ingredients...

1 cup chocolate chips 
(I used Hersey's Special Dark chips)

2 tbsp pure coconut oil

Directions...

Put the chocolate chips and the coconut oil in a small microwave safe dish.
Microwave for 60 seconds, until it is all melted and stir until smooth. 

And that's it!
Now, just drizzle it over your ice cream and allow it to harden before eating.

Store left over chocolate shell in a microwave safe airtight container. The magic shell will thicken up when it sits, but just reheat it in the microwave for 30-60 seconds when you're ready to serve again.

Easy and Sooo good!!!

travel | hiking in the rocky mountains

Finally I am posting photos from hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park! It was a perfect day of being in the fresh air and beauty of nature. There is so much to see and photograph!
...obviously I took a lot of photos!!

Starting at Bear Lake.

Alberta Falls.

Nymph Lake.

The above picture shows all the snow and the "bridge" that we had to hike across to get to Dream Lake.
The snow was very slippery, but the view of Dream Lake was worth it! It was crazy to be hiking through snow, wearing shorts in late June. These are actually called the Never Summer Mountains.

Dream Lake.  (My favorite... so pretty!)