Time to get back to it

So I see it's been since mid-September since I last posted. Hmm....I didn't mean to putz out, but I got preoccupied with the house, Paris, holidays, and I have no excuses since the new year.

Nana and Pa just headed back home after a nice 2-week visit. The Albuquerque winter has been unusually mild, and we've been having warm weather, if not windy and full of pollen. So much for escaping Cedar Fever.

With my mom here, Jamie and I were free to do some hiking with my dad. The original plan was to go ski in Santa Fe, but with the weather has being so warm we were worried about ice. So the first weekend we hiked in the southern part of the Sandia's one morning, doing the Three Gun Spring Trail. Dad and I gave up when the trail started to head back downhill, which was a mistake. Jamie said the top part was awesome and we missed out. Of course, Jamie had to run the last two miles of the trail, hardly able to stand hanging with us slower people.

Later that week we went to the zoo and met up with some mom-daughter friends from the library. Jordan got a lot more out of it this time, being much more interested in the animals. We got to see them feed the seals and seal lions and hear them bark. And the Siamangs, which are like Gibbons, were all riled up and whooping. You could hear them through the whole park. This must have made a huge impression on Jo b/c when she talks about the zoo, she whoops like the monkeys :-) It was a nice morning and we all enjoyed a picnic lunch after some playtime at the much-coveted zoo playground.


Dad and I did another hike on our own during the week, this time the Embudo Trail, which we finished. It was a lot steeper than the last one, and you had to crawl through a dry waterfall area made up of huge granite boulders. So that was pretty cool. We got done just in time as the winds had started up. I just can't get used to this wind....


Saturday we had our ABQ friends over and cooked a big turkey dinner. I figured with such a large crowd it was a good excuse to cook the turkey that's been squatting in my freezer and taking up space, as well as to cook other stuff I wouldn't dare make without several extra mouths to help me eat it (like cheesecake). Sunday afternoon we went for our last hike. A friend had strongly recommended Tent Rocks, which is about an hour away. None of us had ever heard of it before. It was amazing! You hike through a really tight canyon that's been eroded away by water and wind. In some places the canyon bottom is only a few inches wide. In other places, hard rock sits above soft rock, causing the soft rock to erode away teepee-style, hence the name Tent Rocks. I got some really cool pictures. It would be awesome to go at dawn or sunset when everything changes colors. Naturally, they're closed at those times.

The last "vacation-y" thing we did was take Jo to the jumping gym. I think this must be her favorite place in the whole world. We told her the day before that we were going, and she talked about it until we went, and then gave us the highlights once we got back. She's gotten really good at recalling her day and reciting it back to you. She likes to do this at naptime and bedtime. So she had fun boing-boinging, chasing me through the obstacle courses, and riding the slides (which she's still too chicken to do by herself).