Road Trip to Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico

The drive from Santa Fe to Taos on the "High Road to Taos" is beautiful. It starts out through the desert and then winds through small towns tucked away in the pine trees. We went just a week early since the leaves on all the aspens are just starting to turn colors.

Taos Pueblo Cemetery

This is one of the oldest and most photographed Catholic Churches in the Southwest.

The high bridge over the Rio Grand

My Hot Air Balloon Ride over the Rio Grand

Yea! Happy Birthday to Me! I got to cross off a big one from my list--A hot air balloon ride through the Rio Grand Gorge in Taos, New Mexico. This was an amazing experience and I loved every minute of it. We got up so early and watched the sun rise over the mountains while waiting for the wind to die down. Clint helped blow up the balloon and then we were off. It was absolutely perfectly peaceful floating above and through the gorge. The gorge is amazing. So Beautiful. The company we went with had two balloons out and it was fun to radio back and forth with them and to see them ahead of us in the gorge. Our pilot was pretty adventurous and actually touched the basket down on the water a couple of times and we definately went higher than them. After the trip we headed back to the high bridge rest area and ate brunch.

Happy Ending

On Sunday afternoon the kids tell me to look outside that they saw a really big lizard with a furry tail. I wonder what it could be so I go out to see if I can find it. I can't really tell what it was since it was partly hidden behind our toy box on the patio. Just then Cooper came out the door and shuts all but 2 inches of it. Then the animal gets spooked and runs toward the door and in slow motion I see the squirrel running and I start screaming as I realize hes heading toward the open door and is now in our house.

I tore the house apart looking for the thing and nothing. Can't find him anywhere. Pierce is freaking out thinking the thing is going to be biting his toes in the middle of the night. And I'm freaking out thinking about squirrel poop in my house.

So Clint goes to Lowes and buys some traps. The guy at Lowes tells him that no way are we going to catch it and to get a cat. But we set the glue traps out anyways. The next morning-nothing. Then I lay Coop down for a nap and come back downstairs and hear him. Sure enough he is stuck. I feel so awful. He is so cute and so stuck. I called Clint and he tells me to go get one of our neighbors but no one is home. So I have to deal with him alone. I called my mom and she says to drown him and get it over with quickly. I just couldn't do it. I was hysterically sobbing because I feel so bad. Then at my mom's suggestion I got out some rubbing alcohol to see if it would loosen the glue. Nope. Then I tried vegetable oil and it worked! I was able to peel the poor little guy off the trap and set him free back into the desert. He'll probably be coyote bait since he was exhausted after the whole ordeal and maybe a little drunk cuz he really couldn't walk straight. But at least I didn't have to kill him.

Labor Day Weekend Camping Trip

Last minute we decided to go camping up by Chevelon Lake and we convinced my parents into coming down from Idaho to go with us. Good thing they came and brought their truck or we would have never managed to get all the stuff up there. It really takes a lot of crap to go camping for 3 days! We found a beautiful spot a long ways from anybody else and enjoyed hiking and exploring the area.

We took a drive up to Chevelon Lake on Sunday. It was only 4 miles to the lake but the road was really rocky and rutted so it took almost an hour to get there. Then we had a 3/4 mile hike down a rocky trail to the lake. The down wasn't so bad but we had to go back up it too. Coop was a trooper and walked up the whole way by himself. He would not let anyone even so much as hold his hand.

Clint, Cole and my dad fished but didn't have any luck. Coop and Pierce played in the mud and caught crawdads. Mom and I supervised and tried to keep Cooper from drowning in the lake.

I'm pretty sure this is the definition of white trash!

Night time is always the best when your camping. We had beautiful sunsets and then millions of stars came out. We roasted marshmallows unconventionally over the camp cooker since we can't have fires with my mom. Our s'mores turned out great and that's all that counts!

While we were hiking around our camp, we found a cute little horned lizard. Cole caught him and named him PinkyDinkyDoo. Then while she's carrying him back to camp she tripped and fell and the lizard went flying. It took forever to find him since they are so well camouflaged. But we found him and then we found another that Pierce named Spikes. So we had two lizards that we kept in Pierce's bug catcher and loved to death. It kept the kids busy since they had to find ants to feed them. By the time Monday came around we had found and caught 6 lizards. Oh my.

Then my promises came back to haunt me. At home I told them if they could catch a lizard we could keep him thinking that they would never catch one of the speedy geckos that live around our house. So we took them home. All 6 of them. We were only going to take home 2 but Clint thought I let them go and I thought he did it and then we get home and there they all were. So we went and bought a cage for them and some crickets. The crickets were $4 for one days worth. So the lizards had to go back home. I'm not spending over a hundred a month to feed lizards. So the next weekend Clint and I drove back up to Payson and released the lizards.

We really had the best time. The weather was perfect and the kids had so much fun with grandma and grandpa. I think we need to make this a Labor Day tradition.

Family Slumber Party!!

On Friday nights we have a family slumber party tradition. Sometimes we all sleep in the loft or family room and watch a movie and sometimes the kids just make beds on the floor in our room. It's so fun to see them get so excited about this simple tradition