Local Fun in July

With the exception of Phil's weekend trip to Chicago to hang out with his college friends (Zach, Scott, and Eric) we stayed pretty close to home in July and took advantage of many of the fun free local summer entertainment. It was one of those summers where I don't regret not having done this or that because we managed to do most of our fun traditions and then some. Sasha especially enjoyed following the progress of our garden that she helped me plant this year. Every morning she would go out and come back with a report of how much the sunflower had grown or how many red tomatoes there were today. We went to some of the free evening concerts in the plaza with dancing and often ice cream afterwards. The hiking was great up the cool shade of the aspens and conifers. Sasha and I went to the small amusement park in Albuquerque one day and she rode all the kiddie rides over and over and over. The bravest ride we did was the Log Ride and it was her favorite in the end. The weather this July couldn't have been more perfect. Every morning was crisp and clear with blue sky and then the clouds would roll in like clockwork around 1:00. We'd get terrific rain storms in the afternoon then a clearing around dinner for a beautiful sunset. We only used our air conditioning 6 days this whole summer!

First Family Camping Trip and Misc. June

We eased into camping this year by going along with my parents who are expert campers and have a little A-frame pop-up camper. Sasha slept in there with them and Phil and I had a fitful night with Jack in the tent. It was a beautiful weekend at Lake Abiquiu, about an hour north of our house. We all enjoyed cooling off in the lake, cooking a delicious dinner outside, playing in the campground park, having smores for dessert, seeing our first rattlesnake (it was injured and lying in the middle of the campground road; later put out of its misery by the ranger), throwing rocks off a cliff into the lake far below, and playing in the camper and VW van. Sasha shed tears when we had to leave our little campsite on Sunday morning--she had grown quite attached to it.

Utah Road Trip (Part 3)

The 4 days of our vacation we meandered through southern Utah hitting 2 of the national parks we had not been to before: Capitol Reef and Grand Staircase Escalante. We did a lot of hiking those days and enjoyed dining at Hell's Backbone Grill in Boulder, Utah (one of the destination restaurants in the West I've read about over and over in magazines). All 3 meals we ate there were so delicious and Sasha and Jack were entertained there by the little footpaths and pond on site. The low point of the whole trip was when Sasha lost her balance on a hike and fell into a cactus. She had at least 50 needles in her hand. Poor little hiker! The photo of Phil with her at the waterfall is 5 minutes post-cactus encounter. Since we were so close to it on the way home we made sure to hit Four Corners on the last day. Overall, it was one of our best vacations yet and it made me even more excited to do more road trips in the future.