Turkey Trot

 Look at this cute little face!  Today was the 2nd grade Thanksgiving program.  It took Cameron a long time to spot me when he first came into the gym, but he was obviously looking around for a familiar face.  Since it hadn't started yet, I finally half stood up and waved at him.  He got a big smile on his face and waved back.  Those are the times I'm glad to work from home so he can always have somebody in the audience.  They sang some silly songs, recited some turkey-related poems, and then paraded around the school making turkey noises with a wet string and a sponge attached to a cup.  Cameron was just a tiny baby when Kenzie had her Thanksgiving program, so it was weird to come full circle and have it be Cameron's turn this time!

Cameron's part: "A is for Americans.  Some of the earliest Americans were the Pilgrims.  They wanted to be free to have their own religion."

As always, it was difficult to get a picture of my own kid with the sea of parents swarming about holding their devices up high, so here he was when he got home!  It's now Thanksgiving break!

Celebrity Sighting

Look who we ran into during Parent Teacher Conferences last week!  Kenzers has moved up to cleaning every day after school instead of just being a sub, and she is quite proud of herself!  

Bookie's Farewell

 The day after we returned from our trip, our niece Madeleine gave her farewell talk before leaving for the MTC November 13th (tomorrow! Crazy!).  She mentioned several good examples in her family during the talk, so I gave her a hard time for not mentioning me from the pulpit!  She promises to do better during her homecoming talk.  ;o)

 Chris being silly for the "group" photo.  We will miss Bookie - she's a fun one to tease!

 This was hilarious - the luncheon was held at the same venue as Brilee's wedding, and there's not much there besides a kitchen and an open room.  We found Cameron in the foyer with a small audience of younger kids, who sat transfixed as Cameron put on a little show for them.  He did voices and told stories (and from what we overheard, there was a lot of potty talk, but I guess he knew his crowd!).  It went on for the longest time, too.  Chris said the mom of one of the little kids asked him, "Does your son babysit?"  

The people in the Riverside California mission will be lucky to have Sister Arnold for the next 18 months!

Monticello Temple - The Final Stretch Home!

 Saturday we had been gone from home for a whole week, and we were ready to sleep in our own beds again!  The only stop we made besides a quick stop at a rest area later was at the Monticello Temple.

A random lady in the parking lot offered to take a picture of us, so this is officially the only photo we took together the entire week (and you can kind of see us, ha!).

We ate many meals out of our cooler on this trip.  It saved time and money, sure, but we were often in the middle of nowhere at lunchtime and there really wouldn't be a single option if we didn't have a cooler packed with salads, lunch meats and cheeses, Lunchables, etc.  We finally resorted to McDonald's on the very last day as we drove back through Moab, and the kids found that exciting (plus we lucked out that the Happy Meal toy was a Pokemon thingamajig, so Cameron was entertained for some time with that).  We plowed on and made it home around 4:30.  Traffic had slowed to a crawl only a few miles from our exit, and Cameron really started whining about something Parker was doing that was bugging him.  We had made it so close before the meltdown!  It was almost comical that without traffic, we would have had perfect timing before the kids hit the end of their ropes.  As it was, they really were pretty good overall.  It had obviously been a long drive, since Chris and I both got out of the van and kind of groaned at the exact same time!  We're getting old.  It was fun to spend that week together, though, and we saw a lot of new things.  The kids said they were satisfied, so it was a great Fall Break!

Four Corners

 This is all Four Corners Monument is - a dirt parking lot, and then this cement pad signifying where the four states of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico meet.  A few vendors have set up shop around, but otherwise there's nothing there.  It's $5 a person... so I kind of thought maybe not, but when discussing the trip, Parker specifically asked if we would stop there.  Then he mimicked standing in one state and holding a pretend phone up and said, "Hello, Colorado?" and giggled to himself like it would be amazing.  Well, how can you say no to that?  

So we stopped, and we each took our turn being in four states at once. 

Despite being in the middle of nowhere, there were several cars in the parking lot and we had to wait our turn for pictures behind a few people.  No one was behind us for a bit, but as we finished up another family showed up.  

At least now we can say we've done it!

This pose cracked me up.  Cameron is a goofball!

El Malpais National Monument

 Friday was another day of driving through nowhere, but we did make a short detour to visit El Malpais National Monument to stretch our legs.

 We took a short, flat walk from the parking lot, so when all was said and done, Cameron claimed this was his favorite stop!  Funny kid.

 La Ventana Arch is one of the largest in New Mexico.  I wasn't sure if we would be impressed or not after visiting Arches National Park at the beginning of the trip, but Cameron claimed this was his favorite arch (again because of the super short walk from the parking lot, but it's still something I guess!).

 The kids love to take a "goofy face" photo whenever given the chance.  I have so many photos of them being strange!

 The sunlight did cause a neat yellow light behind the arch, which made it stand out more, so that was pretty.  We had most of the trail to ourselves, too, and only passed one other person, so it was far quieter than Arches had been!

I thought it was neat to see!  It gave us a chance to use the restroom and dig in the cooler for lunch before heading on our way again all the way to Four Corners!

Bandelier National Monument

 Parker earning a Junior Ranger patch by studying in the museum before we walked the trail at Bandelier.  There had been snow on the ground in the parking lot, so we hung out inside for a minute before braving the outdoors!

 Thankfully it wasn't windy here, so it really wasn't too bad.  Cool, yes, but not frigid like the Tent Rock hike had been.

 The deer were obviously used to people, since this one just stared at us for a long time.  We tend to scare off most wildlife by traveling with a noisy Cameron, but we did see several deer on this hike, a bunny in Aztec Ruins, and a lizard and chipmunk in Arches.  

 Cameron's job for his Junior Ranger booklet was to identify some trees at the end and fill out some questions about if he would live in the cavates - he adamantly circled NO.  The booklet asked, "What would you miss if you lived here?"  Kenzie immediately piped up, "Wi-Fi."  This made us laugh, but I said, "How about toilets before Wi-Fi?"  She agreed with that, though!

 The neat part about Bandelier is that they have a few ladders where you can climb up into the cavates and actually enter them.  The people who lived here hundreds of years ago built their homes in front of the rock face, so the small rooms would be a storage area or a back bedroom or something...

 ... which made more sense than thinking this was their entire home, because the four of us barely fit in this first one!  (Chris was still at the bottom of the ladder)

It was kind of novel to be allowed to explore a bit, though!  It wasn't too busy there, either.  A small group was ahead of us and a few people were behind us, but it didn't seem like we had to wait for each other very much.

 Cameron was more than happy to explore the cavates (which were neat, and still had black marks on the ceilings from fires).

Here's a better view of the inside that Chris took. 

Right up Cameron's alley to peek out of a hole! 

Chris took this one of the view from inside.

 The holes were visible where the roof beams were, and there were still some pictures drawn on the walls (we liked to pretend those were bedrooms and the kids drew them).

 Heading back towards the Visitor's Center across some patches of snow!

 It was a pretty walk back through the fall leaves, so of course I made the kids stop for yet another picture.  They're good sports.

 Back in Albuquerque, we had to stop at the Owl Cafe for our owl-loving Kenzers!  She thought it was hilarious that the restaurant had a giant owl on top.  There were little owl figurines all throughout the restaurant, too.

We got to sit at the counter, which I don't think we've done before so it was neat for the kids.  The waitress brought us a few bowls of windy chili, which is a staple in New Mexico (pretty much just pinto beans with green chiles on top).  The boys wouldn't even try it!  (To her credit, Kenzie did try it even though the chiles are spicy!)  The boys ordered chicken tenders and a hot dog and were happy.  Chris and I did try the New Mexican specialty of the green chile cheeseburger, which was tasty.  I don't know that I need to drive all the way back for another one, but it was fun to try.

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Then on the way back to the hotel we tried to stop by the Albuquerque Temple, but it was closed for cleaning for the month so the gates were shut.  It was chilly outside so we just looked at it briefly and called it good!  

Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument

Thursday morning the van was finally fixed, so we were able to continue with our plans and drive out to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks for the hike there.

 I thought the cone shaped rocks were neat looking and took a lot of pictures.  I have really pared it down for this post!

 It was a very pretty hike, but the wind was nasty and storm clouds were not far off.  It got pretty chilly!

 We thought this tree was neat with all those exposed roots.

The kids are good sports always having to pose for pictures for us.  They are my favorite souvenirs.  I rarely buy anything at any gift shop, but I love to look back through the pictures of any trip we've taken.

 Entering the slot canyon.

 Sometimes there was a clear path, and other times we were trying to figure out where to put our feet to get past narrow spots.  The trail wasn't too busy, thankfully, but there were still several times we had to wait for someone to squeeze by or they had to wait for us. All part of the novelty!

 We didn't quite finish the hike, which just means we avoided the steep part (although also views from above the canyon).  It was getting uncomfortably cold and we didn't want it to rain on us, so we turned around about here.  

 The kids were excited to hear we were headed back towards the van (and lunch).

Thankfully it didn't rain until we were a few miles down the road, and we passed out of the storm fairly quickly since we were headed the opposite direction.  Besides the chilly wind, we had decent weather for late October on this trip.  We knew that time of year would be a bit of a gamble, but we'd hoped going south would help.

This was the place I'd wanted to visit most in New Mexico, so I was very glad the van had been fixed in time for us to make it there!  

ABQ BioPark

 Even from the side, can you see the excitement Cameron had for watching the penguins?  Wednesday we were without a car, so we got a ride to the ABQ BioPark, which was a zoo, aquarium, and botanical garden.  We started at the zoo area, and Cameron beelined it for the penguins first.

 Parker liked the duck pond and said he thought it looked very peaceful, which I thought was cute.

 I managed to find a quarter in my backpack to dispense some food for the ducks, which entertained all of us for a few minutes.  Some freakishly giant koi fish emerged out of the depths of the pond once food was being thrown, too!

Cameron was always rushing ahead, so it was funny when he suddenly came back around the corner because the peacock had been coming right at him!  Cameron was interested, but a little wary at the same time.

 This giraffe entertained us for the longest time.  He was really licking the bars to his enclosure, and when we would laugh about it he'd give us this funny expression like he knew we were laughing at him.

 Checking out the zebras.  All just a precursor to the main event - 

 - the wombat!  The Albuquerque zoo is the only zoo in the country that has the bare-nosed wombat, and they are so cute!  (A few other zoos have the hairy-nosed wombat, and those are weird looking).  We watched this guy lumber around for a bit (his buddy was asleep, which was equally cute).

 Then we took the little train over to the aquarium and botanical garden area.  It was a slow moving train, so we had plenty of time to eat our peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, which worked out well as a little break.

 The aquarium was pretty small, but it did have a few neat tanks.

 As usual, the kids preferred the large shark tank.

 The children's garden area was pretty fun - we entered at the castle and went through some little mazes.  There were sections where we were supposedly small that had large bugs and fruit, and other sections with musical instruments or slides.  The boys had fun, despite thinking they weren't interested in the gardens.

 Kenzie checking out some desert plants.  She loves going to botanical gardens, so she really perked up at this point!

It was a pretty fall day!

They found a pumpkin carriage!

  

Kenzie was having a great time taking pictures...

 ... the boys were tolerating it!

 It was a pretty park to walk around and enjoy.  Cameron couldn't be bothered to join in this photo.

He had been just a few feet away, but refused to move.  Goofy kid.  We had worn ourselves out quite thoroughly by mid-afternoon, so we got another ride back to the hotel so the boys could swim and I could start a few loads of laundry!