in this first box, i found our pics from our summer vacation to new mexico | red river. this was a family vacation with cousins and parents/in-laws and it's also a bit of how kizzle d and i spent our birthdays this year....although she just recently got done celebrating hers. you know, she gets like a full 6 months every time! :)
the cozy cabin we stayed in just outside of red river was extremely elevated; i want to say 10k feet up.....and not an inch of it was wasted because a lucky handful of us got the "alti-tooties" and oliver couldn't stop making jokes about it and then laughing at his own jokes, then tooting and laughing at his own toots. i may have laughed a few times myself! to cut right down to it though, it was an awesome vacation, fantastic weather (yes we had snow falling on us in july!!), with humbling views no matter where you were, and with frequent visits from natures gentle residents.
so what do you for fun in the mountains?
ATV rides | hikes | naps | reading & coffee, endless coffee | geocaching | ski slope lifts | napping | horseback riding | whitewater rafting | hot air ballooning | napping | more and more horseback riding | more geocaching | more naps | tons more coffeeyep, i would say that the only thing we didn't do well was schedule in some time to ourselves. that would be my only do-over and probably only because it was my birthday week and it's RARE that i get to take vacation time irrespective of the 130+ hours i have accrued! :)
but i still can't complain. starting off a morning rushing to my pot of joe, then to my shower with one eye a quarter of the way open versus a morning that goes somewhat like this:
coffee? check. rocking chair? check. blanket for snuggling? check. reading material? check. camera in case the hummingbirds come to fight? check. wrap-around scenic porch? check and this should have been first on the list right after coffee...so, um, second on the list!
so there's NM in all her glory and majesty! the weather couldn't have been more perfect. it was hard to walk away from. so we decided to drive instead. in fact, we even flew the second half of it home! the best part was that the last day of the trip was Kiran's actual birthday and what fun is it to end a fun trip and have that last leg of travelling on your 10th birthday? well mom had a little something up her sleeve. i know what you're thinking. and if you know me pretty well you're probably always right on target if you get troubled thoughts about my next UNgreat obtuse plan that only i think is funny! i thought i did well, though. as kiki passed me to locate seats i whispered to our first flight attendant greeting us that it was her birthday and that i would really like them to try to help me make her feel special. she hadn't gotten quite all of the attention she wanted, but that was surely about to change! more than halfway through the flight, she saved me from nearly crying out in fear that she had forgotten! she picks up her remote-telephone-thingy-ma-bobber and begins to celebrate the little scoops for all on board. she was definitely unique about it though! after calling everyone's attention to little Miss Thang, she had everyone on the entire plane sing happy birthday to her and then we all had to raise our hands to our little service lights above our head and turn them on ten times like they were little candles and then we all blew them out (aka turned them off) at the same time. it was fun and i knew it was just what she needed. had i done that in a restaurant where everyone could face her, she would have bolted to the bathroom and cried. the plane was the perfect platform in the clouds because people really couldn't turn to look at her and there were basically 10 family members in the surrounding seats. so NOTHING to worry about! i GOT this guys. chill.
this next photo album i see is also labeled "Kiran's 10th Birthday 2.0". i am not sure i have the energy to open that one tonight so we will save that for another day. i do feel like i am getting caught up and that the cob webs are coming off of things though. and if everyone has given up on checking this blog - that's okay, i still need to do this for me. that's your cue to keep coming back if you don't have anything else better to do either.
until then.
