Saturday, August 21, 2010

i have been gone from my house for 8 days!

We got home this afternoon after being gone from my home for 8 days! That is too long for this homebody! Matt had some continuing education credits that he needed to take and so we headed down to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the AABP (American Association of Bovine Practitioners) meeting.


On the way down we stopped and stretched our legs walking around the Monticello Temple.





We then spent the evening and night in Cortez, Colorado. Matt and I used to live there when he first got out of vet school, so it was great memories for us. We took the kids to watch the Indians dance at the cultural center. We used to live only a few blocks from there and I remember going to sleep in the evenings to the sound of the drums.



We spent a day at Mesa Verde National Park. The kids sure enjoyed it. Here is Emmitt loving a diorama. He kept barking at the little dog on the other side of the glass!






There were signs everywhere all over the SPRUCE TREE HOUSE ruin that said not to climb on the walls. Kendal had a VERY hard time with this rule! Here I am whisking her down again before we all got in trouble!


Mesa Verde was great and the kids ate it up, but it was a little too warm. Our next trip there will be in October or April!



We made it to Albuquerque and Matt went to meetings for three full days. The kids and I swam, did our school clothes shopping, and played tourist. I must boast in saying that Emmitt had a 2 hour nap everyday we were there. The girls were great to be quiet and watch a movie while I pulled the curtains and turned off all the lights in the hotel room and read a book in the dark. My kids were such great kids.




We played in Old Town for a half a day. We all went to eat in Old Town the previous night and Matt and I were so impressed with the Mexican restaurant we ate at. The food was fabulous and the building was built in the 1840s and was still in use. When the kids and I went back the next day we visited the rattlesnake museum, and old convent and church, a civil war battlefield, and shopped the shops and browsed what the Indians had for sale on their blankets.

This is the San Felipe de Neri church. The original was founded in 1707 but collapsed in 1792. This church was then built in 1793 with 5 foot wide adobe walls. It is pretty amazing and it is still in use. The Union army leased the rectory of the church for a few years after the civil war and in 1881 a two story convent was built on the west side and was occupied until the late 1970s. It is now a gift shop and my girls were in awe at all the pictures of Jesus, crosses, necklaces, and tokens for sale. At one time there was also a school for boys on the north side near the courtyard.

Of course I have to include some civil war info! In April of 1862 there was the Skirmish of Albuquerque where a small detachment of Confederate Brigadier General Sibley's men were outnumbered 6 to 1 by Union forces led by Colonel Canby and they still held the city of Albuquerque. Later, when the Confederates retreated back to Texas, the artillery commander, Major Teel, buried 8 cannon barrels about 500 feet from the San Felipe de Neri church so the Union forces could not obtain them. 27 years later in 1889, Major Teel returned to Albuquerque and dug up all 8 cannon barrels that were in a chile pepper patch. 2 of these cannon remain in Albuquerque and here are my girls with them. See? The civil war is bound to find me and me to find it!

On our way back home from Albuquerque we stopped at 4 Corners. It was a quick stop, but worth the $9 it cost to get in! Emmitt has been in more states in his one year of life than I had been until I was in college. Crazy!


We thought of a unique pose for Kelsey - different from the crawling position most people do. She kept saying "Hurry dad, take the picture, my hands are burning! Hurry dad!"





We had a fabulous trip and Matt said he learned so much in his embryo transfer class. It was nice to get away, but it was so much nicer to come home and find everything well here. I am quite a homebody. I was worried about my garden and yard. We got some nice rain and the corn is fine and even bigger, and the lawn looks good too.

3 comments:

mom said...

Altho I am sure it was hard with 3 kids,, it did look like you saw some great things,,,but I am glad your home too,,,,,,, it was SO hard not being able to talk to you.

Tori said...

I cant believe that its been 8 years since we took a 10 day old Kelsey to the 4 corners and people looked at us like we were crazy!

I am glad that you had a good week, but I know how good it feels to be home too!!

Krista said...

Looks like you had a great trip, but it is always nice to come home. Well, except for all of the laundry...Yuck!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...