Theodore 10 Months & counting!

This little Man is spending his 10 month birthday sick. :( He has a terrible cold and nasty gooey eye and refuses to eat therefore has been extremely fussy and throwing fits. His update for the past month: got 2 more upper teeth (total of 6 now), crawls super fast, walks assisted with walker/toy, likes to climb over and play with Shelby and his newest thing is when he see's you, he doe this GREAT BIG smile and puts his head straight into the air. Funniest thing we have seen in a while.

New Mexico Road Trip - Day 4

Day 4.

Today we begin our journey home. We decided to go a different way home so we can see more sites. Our first stop was Salinas Pueblo Mission National Monument. They had 3 sites (all 25 miles apart from each other) so we only hit up 2 of them. Here is the first one. You pulled up to see this! What a beautiful site!

We drove to the second site which was much larger area than the other. The stonework was a little lighter color also.

Between this rest and the next we had to take a state hwy for 55 miles. Along that hwy it was really over grown which means birds LOVE to be along the side of that hwy. Well there was one bird that had a suicide wish. I hit it going 70 miles an hour and you know how most birds when hit just fly up over the car? well not this bird...it SPLATTERED and was de-feathered and stuck to the windshield. Lets just say instant dry heaving was going on as I tried to look past it. After Joshua was done laughing at me, He had me turn on the windsheild wipers....which then of course spread blood and feathers so I couldnt see. SICKEST THING ALIVE! After a couple of minutes, all what was left was streaks. Of course after this incident, I had the instint to start yelling at the birds as they would fly up in front of the car "go, go, go, go, ahhhh!!!" Joshua was laughing so hard he was crying. Those stupid birds just had suicide wishes or something. They just couldn't make up their mind on which way to fly! Darn things.

anyways - 4 hours later and a couple stops through border patrol we arrived at White Sands National Park. Oh....it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen! The sand was whiter than Florida sand and this went on for miles! Here is a picture that I got offline. We only went to the border of it and didn't feel like hiking the kids in sand to the big open area.

Charlene was so excited to see the sand, she started to do summer-salts!

This was Theodore's first time touching sand. We had to convince him a little that it was ok to play with it.

Once Theodore got used to the sand, all he did was crawl around like the wild animal. He would go in circles, stop, play a little then keep crawling. He was so cute!

After soaking up the sun a little. The next stop was suppose to be a old ghost town on the border of NM and AZ but I guess it is only open certain days, so we ended up going to Burger King for the kids to play in the play area for a half hour.

We pulled up into the garage around 9pm that night. We didn't unload anything but just simply take the kids in, put them to bed, put ourselves to bed and then in the morning deal with unloading the car.

What a fun trip. All I have to say is...I love Joshua's job that makes his traveling worth it when we can come with!

New Mexico Road Trip - Day 2

Day 2.

What a night! Joshua and Theodore slept fine while I froze :( After the long drive yesterday then setting up camp, Joshua and I both agreed that yeah....on long road trips.....its best to use our points for hotels....or at least the KOA little cabin that was $70 a night. ha ha (making note of that now)

So we woke up and noticed there was no fire pit in our campsite. So I went to the little store and asked about that since we planned on having some of our meals cooked over the fire. Find out that in NM its illegal to have open fires. Ok....another thing that didn't go as planned. Looks like eating out it is for the meals for here on out. :(

After finding heart attack in a sack (McDonalds) we went on with our plans. First stop of the day.

The Albuquerque New Mexico temple.

After the temple we drove 10 minutes to Sandia Peak which is the worlds longest Tramway. Charlene was excited to ride it but then once on, she wanted to be held.

I think I would be afraid a little too if I was a kid and looking at this (picture below)

We got to the top and it was cloudy at top and only 27 degrees. There were hiking trails all over and a nice restaurant at top also. We didn't do hiking nor eat at the expensive restaurant but we did however go through the visitor center that they had.

Before getting on the tram down, Theodore spit out his passy and at the same time a gust a wind came and before it even hit the ground...it flew off the edge of the cliff! Passy 1 of 3 lost.

Next stop. Pecos National Historic Park

It started to sprinkle a little and there were under ground Kivas that you could go into. So we decided to head under ground to try to keep away from the rain.

The instant Charlene got down there....of course she spotted the one and only bug and freaked out! She wouldn't get off the ladder and wanted out of there!

On the way back to the car, I captured these cute shots of the kids.

We headed back to town to meet up with Joshua's boss's family for dinner but I guess his boss ended up working late because their manager was out of town and his supervisor ended up with a bunch of work. :( So we just ended up at Chillis for dinner. and of course we had the chocolate molten cake for dessert! ;)

Day 3....to be continued.

New Mexico Road trip - Day 1

Day 1.

Got the car PACKED (literally) full of camping gear and headed out around Thursday at 11am. The kids were berried and we had the top carrier on which was also packed so tight we could barely get it closed! Finally on the road. Everybody knows that when you travel with little ones, you have to take a break every once in a while. We always try to plan our "breaks" around landmarks/parks/cool things to see.

Our first break was to the Snowflake temple. It was on the highest hill in the little town so it was easy to spot. We got out and man...it was FREEZING!!! 45 degrees! Coming directly from 98 degrees just a couple hours ago it was quite the dramatic change for all of us. Theodore had never experienced that cold before. He was a happy little boy and would give big grins when the wind would blow in his face.

The temple had this cute little water fountain in the front which Charlene liked.

It was so cold, Charlene had to pee but the nearest little store was still a little drive, so we told her to hold it. RIGHT when this picture was taken she pee'd on Joshua. LOL (which is why he is holding her funny in this photo)

After both kids changed, we hung out in the car to warm up with the heat blowing full blast! Theodore had fun pretending to drive the car.

After our little break we decided to finish our 7 hour drive for the day. While Joshua was driving for a bit, He got this serious look on the face and turned to me and asked "Did you put the tent in the top carrier?" (I loaded the top carrier, and He loaded the car) LOL yeah....that is right...JOSHUA not me forgot the tent. After all...He is the one that didn't want to bring it into the house to put it in the pile of stuff to go a couple days earlier. So yeah...we had to find a walmart along the way which sucks since we have a really nice 15 person tent sitting at home. :(
We noticed a Walmart off the hwy right behind a Applebees which just so happened to be on an Indian reservation. Lets just say, at dinner and at Walmart we were probably the only white people. We were defiantly out-numbered and stood out. We found a 10 person tent for a fairly reasonable price and also picked up a couple pillows also forgotten at home (my fault this time).

We pulled into the KOA campsite around 11pm. It was our first time staying at a KOA site. Defiantly worth staying at another one for what it had to offer which was a fenced in dog area, kid play ground, swimming pool, HOT showers that you didn't have to pay for, changing tables in the bathroom, (oh and the bathrooms were nice and not muddy and also spotless!) a little store, and free pancakes for breakfast in the morning. :) I would say.... defiantly worth $20 a night....if you want to camp after a long drive and then have to set up a tent. :) Anyways - I stayed in the car with the kids (screaming at this point) while Joshua figured out how to put up this new tent. After 20 minutes in the dark, He had it up and started to unload the car. He got it all set up on the inside for our little family besides the air mattress since He didn't want to wake other campers. By midnight we were all ready for bed. Charlene was excited to sleep on her little kid cot we got her and Theodore refused to sleep in his play pin therefore had to sleep with us.