Now I'm only a MONTH behind in my blogging!!!

What have I missed?
1. a few pics from our summer in NM
2. what we did here in RC the month of August (it's gone?? where did it go??)
3. first day of school (1st and 4th grade)
4. gallbladder surger (done!! yeah!!)
5. beginning September and the routine life again!

1. Thor at the Nuclear Museum, probably our favorite spot in Albequerqe... he's sitting next to the periodic table that is etched into the marble floor... element #90: Thorium (too cool!)


Liv and Anika loved the hands-on children's hall. The museum does a great job of making it a family friendly museum. The children's hall runs through the center of the other exhibits... so parents can take turns (like we did) viewing the various areas and still keeping the kids happy.

It was a rainy, cool summer by NM standards.... the flowers were gorgeous in the dessert and mountain areas. We saw 1000's of acres of wild iris (not an exaggeration), prickly pear, and many more I don't know the name of... we were told by locals it was one of the most beautiful summers they have had.





Just outside of Abq is a National Park, the Petroglyphs. Here you can see Thor and Anaika standing in front of 2 rocks that were used as "blank canvas" for native people probably 1000 years ago. Some rocks have markings that date back to the mid 1700's (are obviously Christian in nature, and are credited to the Spanish sheep hearders). I was curious how the markings could last so many years... what I learned was that the basalt rock (came from volcanos that errupted many, many years before) gets a "sunburn" as it sits out in the hot dessert sun year after year. The natives (and others) used a type of acid to etch through the sun-baked rock, to expose the natural color of the rock below. Whatever natural materials they used, also "blocked" the suns rays ... so as the petroglyphs age, the pictures actually look "better"... the basalt rock turns darker brown/maroon/black, and the drawings stay a sandy brown color.


The Abq Zoo was another highlight of the trip -
Thor and Anika got to feed Lorkeets, a jungle bird with a fuzzy tongue!


We saw all the usual zoo type animals, but enjoyed the experience more knowing WHEN to visit each exhibit. It's not as much fun to just walk past a deep "pen" of say, lions and watch them sleep in the sun. It's still amazing to see the size and so forth... but the zoo did a good job of letting visitors help with feeding times, or other interactive moments so the kids could really experience the animal "doing it's thing."

The last thing before we left, we took a train ride through the park, where Liv fell asleep in the first 60 seconds of the ride (well, maybe 5 minutes?)... but she was POOPED!!

We spent many other weekends exploring the mountains near the town of Grants, where the company provided a rental house for Dirk (and us by default!). To the north was Mt. Taylor and La Mosca Look Out ...





One of our most memorable weekend trips was to the Grand Canyon. Of course, I didn't have a functioning camera that day... so we got this LONE picture with Dirk's blackberry.

2: I don't even remember what we spent our time doing in August... it flew by so fast... Dirk had to get back to work in NM right away, so he flew back the Monday after we arrived (Sat. the 1st). I spent the first full week unpacking and re-organizing the house. Somehow living on a camper's worth of necessities made our home here in RC feel CLUTTERED and unnecessarily FULL OF JUNK!! Each of the kids rooms got a thorough purging, probably got about 1/2 the stuff our of each room (with more to go later, when I can have a garage sale or ???)

Thor had a late birthday party at Parkview pool with some buddies from school. It was our ONE AND ONLY pool date this summer?! How sad is that? We usually spend a day a week at the pool. For this year, it was OK.

Our last "hurrah" for summer was a camping trip to Spearfish with various families from our church. It was a full and FUN weekend -- Dirk flew home for 10 days vacation so he could be here for the event.

3: First Day of School: August 26th!! Zion Lutheran again this year... where we have been very happy with the whole school experience for our kids. Thor in 4th grade and Anika in 1st. Dirk was still on vacation at this point, which made it even more fun for the family... he was able to come to all the "start up" activities: the open house, 1st morning drop-off, and 1st chapel.





4: The next Friday. Aug 28th was surgery day for me, the day after my birthday??!
As a side note: I got a great birthday present!! I went to get new glasses before I renewed my drivers liscense and was told by the optomotrist that my eyes have been healed (not his words, he just said "got better")... and I now have 20/20 vision!! No glasses needed!! Isn't that awesome!!

So Friday morning Dirk took me to RCRH at 5:30 a.m. to meet Dr. Green at the pre-op area for out-patient surgery. All went just as it was supposed to, surgery started at 7a.m. and I was done by 8:10 or so. I rested in the post-op area for a few hours and was home by 2p.m.

I'm still moving a little slower than usual (1 week later), but feel like recovery has been very easy. Thanks to family and Dirk, I didn't have to do much all week -- meals were brought to my home each evening by the sweet mommies at Dove; Dirk had cleaned the whole house and done every speck of laundry; mom and dad were on hand for any other jobs, big or small this week. The only thing I did was pick the kids up from school each day at 3p.m.!


5: I'm excited about getting back into the routine of home, kids, school and church again. No matter how much I DON'T do, there is more than enough to fill every day. One thing I learned about myself while being in NM is that I liked doing a load of laundry each day vs. doing ALL the laundry in ONE day. In some ways it feels less effecient... on the other hand, if I get a day behind, I only have one extra load to pick up, rather than 10!! Besides, I never really got it all done in one day... so it was just a HUGE amount across 2-3 days... I do each person in the family on each of the week days -- then the towels and bedding on the weekends. It's also been easier to teach Thor and Anika to do thier own laundry by spreading it out like this too... just another way to delegate more work!! Yeah!!