October has come and gone

I can't believe its already time to start planning our Thanksgiving dinner and start pulling garlands out again!

In October we spent one weekend re-staining our concrete retaining walls in the backyard, one hiking around the alien looking landscapes of Bisti Wilderness, one having the flu and/or recovering from the flu, and one raking leaves and getting some firewood for the winter.

School is going great although we did have to take two weeks off for the flu. Its been exciting to see Jadon progressing in learning the alphabet, sounds and numbers. Sophia parrots him when I quiz him so I know she is picking up a lot as well. Alexia is learning a lot in the sign language class at the co-op we go to and she really enjoys it. She is also improving in her normal subjects and has about five different books going at any one time. I don't know how she can stand having so many different stories going on at the same time but to each his own I guess!

Here are some pictures from Bisti

And we finished up the month with an afternoon of snow! It was fun while it lasted but thank God it didn't last and we are back to 70 degree weather!

Pictures from the month of September

September always seems like a busy month for us. We celebrate both my parent's birthdays and my husband's birthday with a picnic in the forest. This year we also went to the state fair here in town, and had another picnic. Then we are also getting into the swing of school and the homeschool co-op starts up along with girl scouts. Lots of fun things and others that just take some getting used to after the carefree days of summer.

State Fair

Silliness on the trampoline

Picnicking and hiking

Starting fires with a magnifying glass (don't tell Smokey)

Some other things we did with the cousins

Browsing in 'Old Town' Albuquerque - would you believe this area of town is 300 years old?

Dining at one of the local establishments - Red or Green?

And of course no visit with Susy is complete with out ice cream :-)

Sophia and Jadon watching the Sandia Peak Tramway come in...

Riding the tram... a 15 minute ride up 4000 feet in elevation

Playing around at the top

View of Albuquerque from the top of Sandia

The Forest Ranger(ette) talking to Jadon and Alexia about their Junior Ranger badges they worked on.

more pictures from the grand canyon

I just have to share a few more pictures with you -

Awesome dead tree hanging out over the canyon...

My adorable husband taking yet more pictures...

One of what must be hundreds of little canyons...

Iconic forest hiking along the Widforss trail - complete with wildflowers...

Have I made you want to go yet?

Grand Canyon

We went to the north rim of the grand canyon for the first time in the end of August. We had been to the south rim in 2000 but never to the north side. Its a several hour drive from the south to the north rims and a very different climate/foliage/population density. They are both amazing but I like the quiet of the north better.

It was so much fun with the addition of some lovely gals who also happen to be related! I lured them out here from Michigan and they were great sports and so very helpful - makes me wonder how I can get them to move.... :-)

Anyway, Susy and Ashleigh flew out for a week and I really enjoyed having them. We all missed them dearly when they went back.

So we drove out to the canyon and camped out for three nights and went on a few hikes. I was rudely awakened to how out of shape I am. :-(

The weather we had was great though! The two little kids stayed home with Grandma so we just had Alexia and she did pretty well. Now she says she should have stayed home too since the little guys bragged about the things they did with Grandma! Really though, she had fun and kept up with us for the most part.

Robert had fun taking hundreds of pictures - who knows how long it will be until he gets them sorted out and edited though.

That place is so HUGE! We would hike and see huge canyons and then take a drive and see whole new areas even more huge. It is simply amazing.

its just a little project...

It seems I have been wallowing in painting projects all summer but I just had to do one more room! Jadon and Sophia have been sharing a room for over a year and so their room has been rather plain and blah - I couldn't think of a good theme to go with for both boy and girl and besides in a year or two Sophia will need to move into the 'girl's room'. What to do?

Add to that - most nights they would all prefer to sleep in the same room and when we have a guest it becomes necessary for them all to bunk together. We had already moved all the toys downstairs to the family room so there wasn't much in there anymore.

I was thinking about how much they loved camping and then thought maybe I could make a 'campy' themed room. You know like lanterns, woodsy stuff, a canvas 'tent' for the bunkbed, buffalo check fabric... you get the idea. I didn't want it to be too fussy or too expensive so here's what I came up with -

The canvas was actually drop cloths from Lowes, they have all different types of sizes so I had minimal waste and very little sewing. I used an old closet dowel and screwed it into the ceiling to hold up the middle of the 'tent' - that was the hardest part. I made some pillow covers with fabric that was half off or already in my stash. The curtains and blankets were already there and the dresser was from my parents. We found the log basket at Kohls and we filled it with rocks we have collected. The little tree has been Jadon's Christmas tree for many years. They were all excited thinking it was almost Christmas or something when I brought it out of the attic. I framed a map we had of the Goosenecks (in Utah) with a frame we had. The lantern lamp we bought at Lowes and Jadon picked out the paint color. I would like to get a sheepskin rug to put in the corner for reading and I need to think of something cute to hang above the dresser - but for now its done. While it is a boyish themed room - the girls love it too. So thats it - really Im not painting anything else! :-)

Catching up

Time has been flying by for us the past month so I am quite behind with my blogging! I wanted to share some pictures from a weekend camping trip we took awhile back.

We actually had a great time and no huge storms or wild beasts ruined the trip. Here in NM, most campgrounds are rather rustic with bathrooms you wish you didn't have to use - so we tried just going out into the National Forest on our own and finding a cozy spot. Lots of people do this so we were not alone but it was definitely quieter than a campground and we could not see anyone else from where we were. The site we found was perfect - it had tall pines all around, granite boulders to climb on, a cute stream with lots of dead wood to climb on, wildflowers, fairly smooth ground for a tent, even wild raspberries!

Have you seen those little 'outhouse tents'? We took one of those and it was perfect. Much better than a pit with who knows what crawling in there!

We plan to visit that spot again sometime when its not so busy ( ie. not a summer weekend). The only bummer of the trip was that it was a much higher elevation than we thought we would be at (9500 ft or so) and it did rain just a bit in the evening so it got down to 39 degrees... in early August...while it was still 95 at home during the day. We weren't quite prepared for that cool of temperatures!

Overall though it was a great success and the kids want to go again so thats a good thing.