Around Our House

Oh my, I'm so behind on blogging stuff. It's been weeks since my last post. I just did a post of Halloween and now this one should get me caught up.

Noah made honor roll at school.  This is a bad picture. He's in the back row to the left of the boy in the green jacket.  You can only see his head.  Anyway, I'm super proud of him. Only 6 kids from his class made honor roll and one made principal's list. They were all girls, but Noah. His teacher is super tough, and he worked hard. Go Noah!

The weather here has been gorgeous. Low's at night in the 40's, so we open up the windows and put fans in them in the evening to get some cool air in. I was in the bedroom and David was in the living room and we both jumped up to shut the windows as we smelled a skunk.  Well, Rocko got skunked right in his chest and face. Poor dog.  And poor David who was out using apple cider vinegar to get him bathed at 9:00 at night.

And we were all dying inside and making Kleenex nose plugs. The smell was awful. We've all smelled skunk, but when it's that close, it's a whole new level. It stinks so bad it burns.

Then, we realized we could go in the pantry as it smelled great in there!  Thanks Dad and Suzy for the skunk shelter! It took a few days to get the smell out of the house and Rocko still smells a little.  Ugh, hope that never happens again. I don't know if it got in our backyard or what, but it was awful.

Then, poor Prim got spayed. I was dreading this day. I know the cone of shame is awful.  So, interesting fact. If a female cat is spayed they put a little green tattoo below their incision as you can see in the picture. This way, if a female cat ever goes to a shelter, they can tell she was spayed and won't cut her open to do it again. Makes sense. You can tell a male cat is neutered from the outside, but there is no way to tell if a female cat is. So, our girl got tatted up!

Awww....this is just so awful. She didn't do great the first night, but after that she was fine.

We would take off her cone and give her lots of love. The first night was rough, so Emily stayed with here and gave extra lovin'.

The good news is it's been 8 days and her wound is all healed up. So, the cone is gone as of today!  Yippee!

Emily had a band festival here at home at her high school. The other ones have been in Phoenix and Tucson, so it was neat to have one here. So, I took a few of her friends to see her and a few other bands perform. It was neat. 

And her football team made it into the playoffs, so they thought 2 weeks ago that the season was over, but surprise...they had a game tonight! When I told Emily the team got in the playoffs and there was another home game, she was super excited. So, I guess that's how you know it's been a fun season and she doesn't want it to end. Unfortunately, they lost tonight, but it was still an awesome season.  Up next tryouts for winter guard.  Which is color guard, but not with the band.  I'm hoping Emily gets some down time before that happens. A month off would be nice.

Halloween

The clubhouse always has a Halloween night with a maze and trick or treating. But, the do it on Halloween, so we've never been since we prefer to be out knocking on doors. This year, they put so much work into the maze that they did it the night before also.  So, we had to go check it out and it did not disappoint.

The maze was so cool and totally scary. I thought it might be a little lame, but it totally wasn't. Here's Hannibal trying to eat Ben's liver with a nice chianti and some fava beans. The had different themes around every corner. It was so fun, the kids went through twice.

Then, Ben was Michael Meyers from Halloween and there was another one at the clubhouse. He was super creepy. I hate Michael Meyers. I don't know how I'm even sleeping with that mask in our house.

The kids did a pumpkin. They do it on their own for the  most part.

Once the guts were out, everyone but Noah gave up. So he carved the whole thing by himself. 

He did a great job and was so proud of himself.

Halloween night, we got ready and headed to trick or treat with our friends.  Noah wanted to be this inflatable dinosaur, which was hysterical. We loved the costume.

When we met up with our friends, someone had the big dino costume. The problem was Noah could barley move in the thing. So, after we did about 20 houses, we go by our house. He runs inside and takes it off and puts on a Spiderman mask. He was done with the dino.

Emily and her friends went as M&M's.

Here's our big candy haul.  Ben got more than everyone as he went off with some of the older boys and they went to more houses. But, we all share, so it's all good.  And by share, I mean I steal about 10 pieces of candy while they are at school and by 3:00 when they get home, I'm sick. It's awesome. I can't wait for it to be gone.

And that was our Halloween!  It was lots of fun. And next year Noah says he won't wear a costume that he can't run in.  Lesson learned.

Meteor Crater and Journey Home

It was our final day of vacation, and I was happy to get home. I tried to not have more than 4.5 hours in the car on any given day. So, we had a visit to the meteor crater scheduled at the midway point of driving today.

Here's some more of the beautiful desert landscape. I'm being sarcastic. I felt like my eyes had a buffet feast of color for 5 days and now I'm just hungry.

 Ben is really into science this year. I think he really likes his Science teacher, so he wanted to see the crater. Noah did too. He's studying Arizona this year, so he's seen all these places on the maps they've been working on. 

 The crater is about a mile wide. It's pretty impressive when you see it up close.

 Emily was not as impressed. Ah, teenagers. She said she came here on a field trip, but I don't ever remember that happening.

 David thought we'd be there for 5 minutes, but they have a cool museum to walk through, so we were there for like 90 minutes. The kids like all the exhibits. They aren't at the bottom, but it sure looks like it.

 Here's a piece of the actual meteor. Most of it shattered upon impact.

 And this cool picture window was neat.

 Then, it was time to hit the road again. The best part of getting home was that Noah's Halloween costume was here. It's this inflatable dinosaur and it's hysterical.

I'm on my fifth load of laundry and trying to salvage the five pairs of sneakers that were covered in mud after the Jeep got stuck. I always bring an extra pair of sneakers. And this time, they were very much needed. 

It's good to be home.

Telluride

I was having a hard time blogging the last few days of our trip. I didn't want to get out the laptop, and what I can post on my phone is so limited. So, here it goes.

We woke up to some snow on the mountains and more rain. But, these mountains. Gosh, they are gorgeous, and I think even more so covered in snow.

I can't even apologize for all the fall tree pics. Every single corner, I was oohing and ahhing. It was just amazing.

 We got to Telluride and took the gondola up the mountain. At the top is the Mountain Village with condos, restaurants, shopping, etc. Obviously, for the uber rich. Not us. But, we can enjoy the free gondola ride! 

 Going up the mountain we saw more and more snow. At the top, there was lots of snow and then the gondola goes back down the other side, and no snow. It's pretty cool.

 We got off on the other side and headed for a pizza place. I'll admit, I thought it was going to be a bunch of snobby people and overpriced food. I couldn't have been more wrong. We got two huge salads and a pizza for $40 and it was delicious. I realized on this trip that if our family can eat for under $50, we are doing great.

 The service here was so good too. And how cool is free foosball?

 We stopped to look at the ski map and wouldn't you know it, the highest baddest peak in all of Telluride is Palmyra Peak. That's my middle name. I'm named after my grandma that passed recently, except she spelled it Palmira. In any case, I've rarely seen Palmyra anywhere. So, I took it as a sign that my Nana was watching over us. It's no wonder we had a great day.

 We headed back up the mountain and got off at the op for a snow ball fight.

Then, we headed back down the other side of the mountain.  It's all fun and games until someone farts in the gondola. We were dying. They have these tiny windows, so we were trying to get air in there. Whatever you do, don't fart in a gondola.

 There was this sweet golden walking around named Parker. We gave him some love and as we walked away, he just sat and looked at us. How cute is he? It's a very chill town. A lady walking by said he belongs to someone who lives in the building and he just hangs out.

 Isn't this a beautiful town?

 Then, we were headed to Gallup, New Mexico. So, we had a 3.5 hour drive ahead of us. But, don't worry, I took plenty of pictures!

 When we finally, got to New Mexico, I was kind of sad. Where are the trees? Where is the color?  Blah, desert. I know everything has it's own beauty, and my Aunt who lives in Halifax and sees trees and colors all the time thought this picture of a rock was amazing. It is prettyish, I guess. When you live here all the time, it's harder to find the beauty of dirt and rock.  But, every landscape is beautiful.

 What's even more beautiful was this amazing restaurant named Jerry's Cafe in Gallup. Wow, just wow!  It was such good food and service. We were loving it and wanting to find an excuse to come back to Gallup just to eat there.

 You get sopapillas at the end and can drizzle honey and sugar on it. Oh my, it was so good. That's my kind of dessert. Not too sweet or heavy.

 We finally made it to our hotel, and David used my massager for a bit. I got it for my birthday. It's awesome.

And check out this clock. It's actually three sided and genius!  Why haven't we seen this before? It just makes sense in hotels.

I took the kids to the hot tub and we crashed. That was the end to our first day without any major hiccups. Thanks, Nana!