Lost in the "Maize"

The kids had been begging us to go to McCall's pumpkin patch and pick out pumpkins. McCall's is where we went last year and had a great time. The only problem is it's about 90 minutes away each way so we kept putting it off. We finally put if of long enough that it was finally the last weekend we could go before we just wouldn't get pumpkins. We decided to find a patch a little closer though. There were two that were fairly close one just down the street and the other in Corrales. Corrales is the oldest farming community in the United States! We love it there so we decided to go pick our pumpkins there.

The Patch was at Wagner Farms, it wasn't as huge as McCall's but we had just as much fun. You start by going through the corn maze first. The maze was only 1 acre which is pretty small when you think that the one at McCall's is 13! The way they had it set up was really cute. They gave you a map and there were 12 checkpoints on the map that you had to find and when you got to the checkpoint stand there was a special shaped hole punch to punch your map. The kids loved this and couldn't wait to see what the next shape would be. It took us about an hour to do the whole thing. And we made it through the maze without getting lost and with all of our checkpoints punched!

Ready to start! It was so warm and sunny that day! It was amazing.

At the lookout in the middle of the maze. You don't really need the lookout but it's fun to be able to see the whole thing from the top.

When you are finished with the maze you can take a tractor ride to the pumpkin patch or just walk to it. The kids really wanted to ride the tractor so we hopped on and made our way to the pumpkins. Since it was so late in the month the pumpkins were pretty picked over so kids didn't find any that they liked. So we told them we would go find one somewhere else. On the way out the kids wanted to stop and get a snocone. Liv and Harris both got a blue one and while Harris was eating his he paused and showed it to me and said "mom, why is there purple in it too?" I said "well they must have gotten some red in it." And he happily kept eating it. After a minute he looked at me and showed it to me again and said "how is there more purple in it?" Upon closer inspection of his snocone it dawned on me what it was... Blood! The ice had ripped his mouth back open! (Ewwww! He was eating a bloody snocone!) I immediately took it and threw it away and got some napkins for his mouth. By the time we got back to the car the bleeding had stopped and he was no worse for the ware.

Just down the road Wagner Farms has their own farmers market where they still had a ton of pumpkins. The kids were able to find some that they liked and we also picked up some fresh pumpkin bread. Before we left Corrales we wanted to try a restaurant that is a local favorite called Village Pizza. We took and seat on the awesome patio and ordered pizza and breadsticks. It was awesome even though it took 45 minutes to get our food. ;) It was a perfect fall afternoon.

All I Want For Christmas Is

On Wednesday afternoon when I picked up the kids from school they asked if we could have Chick-fil-A for dinner. I was okay with this since Chet was out of town and I hate cooking for just myself. We headed to Chick-fil-a and then to Target. When we left Target and were back in the car Harris wanted to finish his Sprite so he reached across the back seat to the cup holder and got a hold of it by the lid and of course the Sprite spilled all over his lap. So I of course told him that he was going to have to shower when we got home.

When we got home he got into the shower and proceeded to do what 6 year old boys do in the shower, karate. All seemed to be going well when all of a sudden I heard a loud thud followed by a blood curdling scream followed by frantic calls for MOM!!! I ran in there and was confronted by Harris standing outside of the shower covered in blood. I freaked out and yelled (frantically not mean) "what happened?!" As he tried to tell me what happened he spit blood and teeth into my hands!  Crap! is what I was thinking at this point. I got him back into the shower to get him rinsed off and to evaluate the damage. It was bad. I got him out and immediately called the dentist. It was already 5 o'clock but he agreed to stay until we got there. Usually it takes about 15 minutes to get there but of course there was a car accident and it took us almost 30 to get there!

I took this while we were sitting in traffic on the way to the dentist. You can see the three holes on the outside of his lower lip and his missing teeth. And if you look closely you can kinda tell that the top left tooth doesn't look quite right.

When we finally got to the dentist and got into an exam room most of the bleeding had stopped but he was in A LOT of pain. When the dentist began the exam Harris actually asked him to numb it! The dentist looked at me and I said "if he's asking you to then go ahead." It took 2 whole vials to get him numb enough for the dentist to get a good look!

The first thing he took care of were the 3 holes he bit into the outside of his lower lip. He cleaned them really thoroughly with special antiseptic for teeth bites and then had to use a coagualnt to stop the bleeding before he could close them up. He decided against a stitch in each one and used surgical glue to seal them shut and minimize scarring. After the outside of his mouth was taken care of  he moved to the inside of his mouth. It was ugly. His gums on the top and bottom around his 4 front teeth as well as his lower lip were dark purple and looked like hamburger. His bottom gums and lip were so torn up he had to debride the torn up tissue from them. When he was finished with that they gave his mouth a good rinse before taking a look at his teeth. As he was looking at his teeth I commented that it looked like he had chipped one of the teeth on the top next to his fron tooth. He took a look at it and said it's not chipped but I want to get some x-rays of it. When he was examining the x-rays he said everything looked fine except that one tooth which was inverted! As in he hit it so hard it went back up into his gums!!! He said it wasn't a huge deal because it was a baby tooth and it would either fall out or come back down. So far it has come back down most of the way and gotten loose so we will see what happens...

When we were done at the dentist Harris asked if we could stop and get a smoothie. I obliged and got him one. We quickly discovered that he was too numb to drink it though. It kept dribbling out of his mouth! He gave up and decided that he wanted to call Gram Wendy and Auntie Lindsay. (One thing I forgot to mention is that the next day was school picture day...) As he was talking to Gram Wendy they were talking about school pictures the next day and said "It's school pictures tomorrow. But don't worry Grandma, it will be a good memory." And then while he was talking to Auntie Lindsay she told him "to smile real big for pictures so he can always remember he knocked his teeth out the day before. Harris said in reply, "Looking at those pictures later will still be really painful for me." Haha! He's so cute!

I took these the next morning, it actually looked a million times better. I was so glad.

It was quite swollen though!

Although it was a very traumatic experience Harris was really brave and handled it very well. I'm glad that he's all better now!

Twinkle Twinkle Glow

Yesterday was the start of the 2011 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta! Last year we went to the Mass Ascension at 5 in the morning on the first day and sat in Fiesta traffic for almost 2 and a half hours! So this year we decided to skip Mass Ascension and go to the Glow on the first night. Chet got tickets from work so that meant that we got to hang out at the HP tent and have dinner and chill for a while before the event started. This was a good thing for two reasons. The first was because Casa Vieja was catering dinner and the second was because we could just hang out and watch the whole park for the balloons to start going up. For a while it looked like it was going to be too windy but then Scott the balloon pilot for HP headed out to the field and said it was a go.

Standing next to the HP balloon while they were filling it.

All the balloons have names. The HP balloon is just called Hewlett-Packard. Boring, right? At least it's pretty. ;)

This balloon was right next to the HP balloon. It was may favorite (next to Spyderpig). The way it glowed was just so pretty. Loved it!

The kids really liked this balloon because their school mascot is the dragonfly. I'm sure it has a name but it must be one of the ones that didn't pay to have it put in the magazine.

Every once in a while the announcer would tell the all the balloons to light up at the same time. It was awesome. But when he would tell them all to "flicker" it would freak out my eyes! I'm pretty sure it would cause some seizures.

I also love the one with the giraffes on it. It's called "It's a Zoo". I think that would have been my moms favorite. :)

This balloon is brand new this year. It is very neat looking. All the letters and barbed wire are 3D so they stick out of the balloon. 

Pink pig in the sky!!!

This one is simply called Carousel.

This is Tropical Sunrise It was one of the last ones lit when all the others were deflating.

 

We bought Harris a program that has all the balloons and their names listed and the first one that I saw when I opened it was Spyderpig. I was like, "I want to see that one!" It is also brand new this year. It is also a special shape so I wasn't expecting to see it until the Special Shape Rodeo. But as we were heading out I caught a glimpse of a red webbed balloon. We rushed over since the Glowdeo was coming to close.

 

Is it a pig? Is it Spiderman? No it's Spyderpig!!

 

 

 

The Wells Fargo balloon, Centr Stage, Joelly the bee and Betty Jean the butterfly with Spyderpig.

 

We had a great night! The Glows are much cooler than the Mass Ascensions. Although I am looking forward to the Special Shapes Mass Ascension on Friday!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Labor Day weekend we went to Utah for 2 reasons. The first was for Aubrys birthday and the second was to go to Mary Poppins at the Capital Theater! I told Chet last year when I found out that it was coming to Utah that we were going! He remembered, even though I hadn't said anything recently about it, and got me tickets for our anniversary!


Chet isn't a big broadway guy so it was a girls afternoon for me and Liv! We had a blast. The show was so cute and the set was amazing! The Banks' house was like a folding dollhouse! I really wish I could have gotten some pictures of it.  While I didn't get any pictures of the show I did get some cute pictures of Liv inside the theater before the show started.

Outside Capital Theater. I wish that the lady would have gotten all the signage, oh well.

Our seats were 4th row on the balcony. They were perfect.

My daughter is gorgeous! If I do say so myself. :)

After the show!

We had an amazing time. And I am so grateful for the wonderful husband that I have that remembers the little things I tell him.

Babies

Recently there have been tonz of babies born at the zoo and the kids and I have been dying to see them. Since Chet is finally back in town, he left work a little early so that we could go today.

The weather was surprisingly warm, 88 degrees according to Chet's car! It was perfect in the shade though.

My babies. :)

We decided to head to the "Cat Walk" first to see the 2 baby snow leopards that were born at the end of June. We were surprised when we got there to see a large group standing at the tiger enclosure. When we got up to the enclosure the tiger was up and walking around! This was very cool because we have never seen him even awake! Awesome!

He is beautiful! I kinda wish I had one. ;)

When the tiger was done showing off we continued down the "Cat Walk" to the baby snow leopards. They weren't out all the way but we could see them well enough to get a cute picture of them with their Mama.

Awww!! Mommy baby love each other!

The jaguars we sleeping but we noticed something very cool about one of them...

It's kinda fuzzy but he has hidden Mickey spots!

At the end of the "Cat Walk" are the kangaroos. And we learned (and be "we" I mean Chet) that it is difficult to get a good picture of a joey in its moms pouch but we tried.

For some reason this disturbs me.

After the kangaroos are the polar bears and they are very boring unless they are being fed but the kids love to go sit in this spot inside the "cave".

Looking for the polar bears.

See? Boring but oh so cute!

As Chet mentioned in our PCH Road Trip blog, Liv is going through a seal phase. She LOVES them. It just so happens that we have a brand new baby seal at the zoo and he LOVES Liv.

She would swim up to the window and pose for Liv who was taking pics with her phone.

After spending a lot of time watching the baby seal we finally went our way. We skipped most of the monkeys and eventually the hippos. And you all know that Harris HATES hippos so while we were all looking at the hippos...

No bubbles or wiggling ears but Harris wouldn't even come close. ;)

Harris was over here... Hiding

Silly boy.

Finally we made it to the last baby on our list to see. The giraffe.

They were headed in so we didn't get a very good picture.

I have to say that the zoo is one of my favorite places here. I love the time that we get to spend together just hanging out.

Off

Liv got her braces off today! I remember the day I got mine off! How can it be that she is that age?! It was fairly quick and painless and her teeth look fabulous! Although now she thinks she needs to have them whitened... I told her when her last 2 baby teeth fall out we will do it. :)

Right after they took them off

Putting her permanant retainers in

A pic with Dr. Jorgensen

Gorgeous!

Carlsbad Caverns

As summer began to wind down we realized there were a couple things we wanted to do but hadn't done yet.  One of those was a visit to Carlsbad Caverns.  We had heard from the locals that is was a cool thing to do and we had actually seen a National Geographic special that highlighted some of the neat formations that could be found there and only there.  The following is a photodocumentary of our visit there.

 There was a result of the wildfires that went through Arizona and southern New Mexico over the summer.  I thought these looked cool.

 The drive wasn't too bad, we stopped in Roswell on the way there and ate at a freaky McDonald's.  We slept at a hotel in Carlsbad, got up early and headed out to the Caverns.

 Heading down...

 The formations were so cool and the Caverns were so massive.

 Outrageous!  We also took the opportunity to try out our new camera and see how well it could do in low-light conditions...

 Cute kids!

 The formations in the distance are called "Frustrated Lovers".  People used to think they were touching and labeled them as some sort of kissing formation but turns out that they are actually separated by a very slim margin (according to the tour guide, a ranger slid a paper between them to prove his point)

 These look like some sort of pita chip to me...

 The Caverns are around 57 degrees year round, it felt quite chilly in there.  This picture reminds me of how cool is was in there for some reason.

 This is a cool formation that they call the "Witches Broom"...see it?

 It looks like it might have been claustrophobic in there but it actually wasn't.

 A number of the caverns were enormous, up to 300 feet high!

 For some reason this picture reminds me of Narnia...a strange statement on my part, I know.

 Some of the formations had signs to point out a specific name or shape.

 The handsome couple...

 As you can see, Harris was very impressed by the Caverns...

 This one was called the "Veiled Statue"

 See the kids way up there?

 It was like being on an alien planet.

 Welcome to the Hall of Giants...

 Aw, happy family...800 feet in the ground.

 HeeHeeHee...

This formation is the "Totem Pole"...Liv thought they looked like muffins

 This formation looked like a creepy dude to me...

 So cool!

 National Geographic did a big article on the Caverns in 1924 that really began to make them popular.  Having visited it I can see why.

 They had this cool lecture area that we stopped at for a photo opp.

 Mirror Lake was cool.  They hung the sign upside down so that you could look in the lake and see it right side up.

 I thought this looked like ice...it wasn't.

 Doesn't "Rock of Ages" sound grand?

As we said goodbye to The Caverns we stopped for one last photo.  We loved the experience and look forward to doing it again next year!