3 weeks in Utah

I will be going to Utah for three weeks tomorrow. Daniel heads back Tuesday morning but I am staying until the 13th or something so I can see Carly's baby. It will be fun. I am always apprehensive about being away from home for so long and being with the children all by myself. Oh well I will have my car and that it what matters. Thats all. Let me know if you want to see me.

Our Day in Santa Fe

So I loved Santa Fe so much history all around. We went up for the day. One of the highlights for me was finding an American First Edition Hardcover including dust jacket of the Silmarillion. Yes that's right a first edition Tolkien. It was only 3 dollars too.

So back to the sights of Santa Fe. We went to see the oldest house in America. 800 years old!


Beat that anyone. Then we saw a church and went into it to see what it was like. The church was only made in the 1600's I think.

That is pretty old for American history. Alexander and Melanie both hit the bell inside of it. Then we saw the outside of the church with the miraculous stair case made without nails or pegs or anything like that. It was a great town. So many old buildings that have been made into stores and hotels and things. I just loved it! Although because of its age the streets were tiny. It reminded me of Europe.

Random. On the way to Santa Fe we saw a sign on the freeway for the Mormon Battalion monument. So we stopped and checked it out. The little area looked pretty abandoned. The monument when up in 1940. It was pretty cool. The insignia looked like it was made of brass and the word Savage had been blocked out with a burner. Some of the words used to describe others is crazy too me. It was used instead of Native American. Such a rude word I am glad they burned it out.



I recommend visiting Santa Fe! So much history and fun sites. Although having two nutty kids stopped me from going inside anywhere (Museums).

Albuquerque zoo

We went to the zoo the other day. It was nice and windy so not too hot. I was surprised what a nice zoo it was. Lots of different animals I have never seen before. The camera was flipping out but I got some pictures.

I don't like Polar Bears. This one looked like it really wanted to eat us all. It was pacing back and forth and I just got bad feelings about it. There was a sign that said don't put your kids on the railing EVER and so I just kept imagining a kid falling down there and then the bear eating the kid. Sorry I get morbid thoughts like that all the time when around wild life.

One of my favorites was the toucan. I used to have a stuffed animal toucan. I also loved the flamingos. They are so pretty and it was my first time seeing them. They had Koalas there and even an iguana.



The gorillas looked extremely bored.


Here's Melanie and Eva at the giraffes.
Here is the creepy polar bear and Alexander standing on the railing!!!!!!! Daniel makes me crazy sometimes when he "lets Alexander see better"

The giant rodent. This thing was huge and I think Melanies favorite. It looks like a little gineau pig when it reality it was the size of a fat medium size dog. I couldn't believe it. So cool.

Flamingoes! Its a great zoo. It remined me of the Denver zoo but different animals.

Family Home Evening at the Park

Daniel saw a butterfly in this cloud

We had family home evening at the park. We sort of flew a kite. I "fixed" the pictures to look a bit different.

Rio Grande

We took a walk on the River yesterday. It was really hot.

Isotopes

We went to our minor league baseball team game the other day with Melanie. The blow up people were hilarious. I guess the team is pretty good, they won and even got a home run. here are some pictures.

Melanie is coming

Melanie is coming today and we are so excited! I just need to figure out how to get to the airport now :) Lucky I has a GPS to use.

Tester Projects for fun

So I have two tables for free projects. Ones a kitchen table and one is a little lazy Susan occasional table. These are from a storage unit that are still just in our garage. They are pretty rough but I see some potential so I want to do just a fun who cares project. I plan on doing this with Melanie. Sorry Melanie I didn't tell you but I figure you wont mind learning how to refinish furniture. I think refinishing furniture is fun hopefully you will too. Anyway I am trying to decide what to do. I am wondering if I should sand and refinish the kitchen table (not really what I want to do) or paint it a cool color or paint it white and blue or who knows really. This table doesn't have a function so I am not sure what to do with it.

The occasional table is actually something I like.



I do have to wood glue it because one of the seams or whatever its called is starting to come apart so I plan on getting a clamp to keep it even while it dries and getting a thin piece of wood to stable to the bottom to keep it together while it dries. This is a table I actually like. I plan to just glue it, sand it, and paint it white or black. Not sure which. I want it to go in my bedroom. Anyway some opinions on just fun things to do to these tables would be appreciated. I will post the final pictures when we are done.

Let me know some ideas of what you have seen or imagined or drawn and send it to me and I will do it. Oh and if you live in Utah I can even bring it out there when we go for Memorial day and I will give it to you (the kitchen table). Let me know.

4 Special Rings

Thus far in my years of knowing Daniel I have had 1 ctr ring and 3 wedding bands/ engagement rings. All given to me by Daniel. When we were first married we both thought Daniel would lose his ring in a week because well he doesn't like jewelry and is prone to taking it off. It ended up being me that has lost my rings. I hate to even think about it. It used to make me feel nauseous to think about it but I am getting better at realizing a lot of this stuff is just stuff and we don't really need it in the end.

My first loss happened 2 weeks after we were married. Just my wedding band in California on a beach. Luckily we had decided to go silver on the band.

The second ring I lost was a silver ctr ring Daniel had given to me in 2002. I lost it in our first apartment and have no idea where it went.

These two losses were not that bad. Well some would think they were but I didn't.

The third ring was the big one. I was extremely sad and sick about it. This one was my engagement ring. I really loved the design and the daintiness of it. I lost it the first time I put it on again after Eva was born. We were going out to eat or something in Guam and somehow it got lost in the car or whatever. Its gone forever and that sucks (I guess I am still affected by the loss). Its a black spot on Guam for me that is for sure. I still even have the appraisal documents on it.

Anyway so the 4th ring is one I got yesterday. We decided that I MUST stick with silver (that decision was more on my part) and extremely simple so that it can be replicated when I lose it again. What can I say I am a realist I will lose it again.