My Birthday and Mother's Visit

Micah's mother has been wanting to come visit Abq ever since Micah moved here last fall, so finally she was able to come over my birthday weekend! We took her to some of our favorite spots, as well as some new sightseeing for us, too. We climbed some volcanoes on the west side of town, went to a New Mexican restaurant (which in reality is not much different than regular Mexican food), toured base and saw all the planes, hit some golf balls, stopped in on some of our favorite book stores where she picked out some of her favorites for us, sold hot dogs (for which she was definitely a lucky charm!), and went to Petroglyphs National Monument (petroglyphs are the indian symbol/carvings in rock...it was kind of hard to tell what was authentic and what was graffiti though). It was really fun to have her here!
For my birthday last year, Micah remembered a kid's book his mom used to read called "A Time to Keep" by Tasha Tudor, about a family's traditions. One of the traditions was that they would float a birthday cake down the river, all lit up. I thought it was so cool that Micah thought to do that last year (well, we made a few newspaper sail boats and taped 25 lit candles to the big one (and a few to the others) and floated it down the Provo River. I hinted (aka told him) that I thought that was a very fun tradition, so this year, we made a big old cake (on fast Sunday afternoon!) and floated it down the Rio Grande at dark. It was really cool! I was a little afraid of being in such a desert, though, that maybe we'd start a wildfire or something! Micah learned from last time and thought to use trick candles this year, because the wind doesn't blow them out as easily.

getting ready to launch!!

Petroglyphs

Volcanoes

and the one you've all been waiting for!!!!!

Timing was perfect for her trip. The day after she left, I was scheduled to fill in and work for 2 weeks as a home health aide, so it worked out great! And that was the start of a month full of travel and busy-ness and off our normal routine, which is fun! You're all welcome to come down and visit, too!