When it's cold outside....

My baby girl turned two yesterday. While the party isn't until Saturday, I captured a few minutes of alone time with the birthday girl and thought I would share.

She does have a little attitude from time to time.And ALWAYS has personality to boot!

Her favorite place to be. In Mommy's bathroom. What a character.....I've got my Paulee Rae. I guess you'd say, what can make me feel this way? My girl.

What's a girl to do?

I cannot believe how behind I am! I still have two more days of vacation to give you, a half written post about a dinner conversation with the kids, and just the nefarious stuff of day to day around our house. But alas, that isn't going to happen today. I'm not at home, and my pictures would be there, not with me. And I really don't want to post about our trek across New Mexico to Arizona without them. But do be sure you stay tuned. It's one for the history books!

Who was the worst creature?

Our little vacation is now up to day four. We have had all kinds of adventures, so we thought that on this day, we would do one of our favoriteactivities. We went to the Albuquerque Zoo. We LOVE zoos. Go to the OKC Zoo enough to pay for the family pass ten times over. (Thanks Mom and Dad!)

So we left camp early, (I know. It was only a two hour ordeal this day!) and drove the hour or so to Albuquerque. Now, I need to make a disclaimer here. I am not being cruel, hateful, or judgemental. I'm just going to tell you how the day went for MY family this particular day. Please don't send me hate mail if you do not agree with me. We had the wonderful surprise of getting to use our zoo pass for a huge discount on entrance fees. So much so, that my family of nine got in for the same price as my Mom and Dad. Sweet! (Doesn't seem fair considering who gave us the pass.) Once inside we thought we'd ride the train first and then see the rest of the zoo. They have like two or three different trains and such, but we chose the one that was running that day, and quickly got on. I wasn't impressed. It was okay, but we were looking at the backside of most of the buildings and exhibits. We did however get to spend loads of time at the elephant exhibit due to a train being broken down further up the line. Thankfully we were in the shade. So our 20 minute train ride that lasted an hour was soon over, and we decided it was lunch time.

Of went Heath to get the coolers and such that were packed with lunch. It took him FOREVER to get back with them. I was beginning to think he got lost on all the winding paths, but he eventually found his way to us. And was NOT happy. Apparently, he ran into the first of a long line of rude people. We quickly ate lunch, and Dad volunteered to take the cooler back to the car while we started in on the rest of the zoo. What seemed like ages later, he caught up with us. And was NOT happy. He must have ran into the same group of people as Heath.

Mom and I were having a pretty good time with the kids. My kids are the ones that read all the signs, spend all kinds of time hunting the exhibit over to find the animal, and then try to educate the general public on all they have discovered. Well, we were having a good time until we got to the sea lion exhibit. My kids were asking me which animals were the seals and which were the sea lions, and how you tell them apart. To which they were told by a passerby that how ignorant I really was. Now I edited the actual words, but really. I just ignored them, and thankfully Malcolm did to. He prides himself in his science knowledge, and of his Pop's and mother's as well. And I wasn't wrong. He quietly walked over to a sign and read it, and then innocently looked back at me and announced what the sign said to all that were standing there. It sounded vaguely familiar to something I had just said....

But that wasn't the worst. We had not been having a great time with the locals in New Mexico. Generally it had been a rude reception. And the winner of them all was here at the zoo. My Mom was standing with my kids at one of the underwater windows watching the sea lions and seals swimming all around. One of her favorite attractions. And there were hoards of people at this one exhibit. When all of a sudden a woman pushed her child in front of Mom and looked at Mom to tell her, "You need to move and get out of the way. This should be for kids, and you are too old to be standing here hogging all the space." I was so proud of my Mom at that moment. She did not retort with all the things that were fighting to get out of my mouth. (Yes, I said my mouth. I knew exactly what she wanted to say) She turned and stood at the back by my Dad. And I went to run interference for my kids who were so polite, they all moved to let the little girl and her mother in front to see the animals. Some people!

It was mostly a good day from then on. We were tired, hot, and ready to go home by the end of the day. And ready to be among polite people again. RV camps have some of the most polite people in the world! Literally the world, but that is a post for a different day.

Bread Anyone?

Sorry it's taken a while to get back to the vacation. Heath and I went to the Southern Baptist Convention. Then I had Heath's wonderful sister, Teri Lynne, and her family in, have been working on a new blog, and now we are in the middle of Vacation Bible School. But I have a few minutes this morning, since I am ignoring the laundry.

It was a great night of sleep on the second night. We already had our extra sleeping bags, I was ready for Anderson (he went back to his own bed), Paulee had been drugged (only benedryll people!), and we were so very tired from the day and night before. Of course we were up at the very crack of dawn. Little Heath was great at that. It was cold every morning. You can see that everyone wore coats, long pants, and if we'd have had gloves and ear muffs, I know of a couple of kids that would have worn them.

But the mornings were usually good. Heath figured out to just make all the boys go to the bathroom at the same time, whether they thought they needed to our not, and breakfast was never hard. I think this particular morning was cereal. The breakfast of champions! It still took us forever to get out of camp that morning, and on the road to that days activities.

We headed to El Rancho de los Golendrinas, better known to us as The Ranch of the Swallows. It is a living history museum, dedicated to the time period of the 1600s to 1700s along the El Camino Real. It was a really great place. I didn't know if the kids would enjoy it or not. But we were there during their Spring Festival, and it was a blast. The kids helped make bread in outdoor ornos, watched women spin yarn and weave blankets, made tortillas, washed clothes, saw a mill grinding corn into meal, and various other workings of a farm.
We stayed at this ranch the entire day. Lunch of course was an hour long ordeal, but was shaded and cool, so I was thankful. And since the kids stayed with the bread maker for so long, she gave us two loaves for our family to take. They were wonderful! Oh, and we did witness a run-away mule and cart. No one was injured or hurt, but it was kind of spooky. It had a long straightaway, and just took off. But there was a worker on horse that knew what to do, and had the mule and cart under control after it had a good run.

We stayed long enough to help close the place down. The kids just loved it. This was also one of the hotter days while we were in New Mexico, so we decided to take the kids swimming when we got back to camp so they could cool off and get rid of the outer layer of sand. Well, cool off they did. I think the pool temp had to have been forty degrees. It was SO cold. I just sat on the side and put my feet in and they turned purple! Terry wouldn't get in, but that was more because he's afraid of water, the cold temps just helped his cause. The four older ones just had to swim. They were chattering, purple, and cold. Heath-er once again went to far into the pool, and got in over his head. I think I may ban him from pools all together. If you don't remember my earlier post about him and pools check it out. Terry was sitting right next to me on the steps and somehow ended up face first in the pool too. Needless to say, he refused to go near any pool again. Won't even put his swim suit on. So out of the pool for everyone. We trekked back up to camp, while we re-coated ourselves with sand, and got ready for bed.

The adults had a brief conversation as to whether or not we should head home after New Mexico, or still go to the Grand Canyon. I only mention this, because it will be important in a couple of days. Trust me! Until tomorrow!

New Blog!

Just a quick note. I have started a new blog in which I am chronicling my sewing projects and such. Click here to see my first post, and be sure to join my blog as a follower. You never know when I'm going to do a give away, and I'm sure you'll want notice when I do.



I really appreciate all the work my sister-in-law did to help me get it started. It was really her idea anyhow to get the whole thing up and going. Then she was so sweet and designed the header for the blog. I love it! Be sure and check out Teri Lynne's blogs as well. They are worth your time and effort!



Don't forget! Check the blog out! I really think you'll like it!

Beth