We made it to New Mexico! After a brief stint with a sick 3 year old, we landed in Brantley Lake State Park outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico. We spent a great few days there, explored the caves, earned another junior ranger badge and enjoyed the sunrises. We also drove through White Sands National Monument and the kids enjoyed “sanding” (sledding) down the dunes. Who knew that this tucked in, fairly forgotten state could be so beautiful?
Have a great week!
Left the bustle of Houston for some WIDE open spaces farther north in Texas. Great week visiting with friends, exploring museums, getting MAIL, and taking the kids fishing for their very first time. We leave Texas tomorrow and head towards New Mexico. Being back on Mountain Standard Time will be weird!
Cara and Andrew fought over some game they were playing in the car. This resulted in both of them getting scolded by me. Silence for a few moments while both of them pouted.
We then overheard this conversation:
Cara (trying to start up again): And my guy was knocking on the door….
Andrew (super grumpy): No Cara. I don’t want to play anymore.
Cara (all quiet and innocent): Is it because of your attitude?
Sam and I had to suppress a chuckle in the front seat. Where does she learn these things?
This week has been cold! Our only conselation is that it has been cold EVERYWHERE so we hunkered down and had game & movie nights, touched a baby alligator, visited the Houston Temple, and bundled up for cold walks at Brazos Bend State Park in Texas. We also met up with some college friends for Orange Leaf frozen yogurt. Yum!!
Cara has started learning letters other than A-B-C. Those three were the only ones she recognized for months on end, and then I think something clicked and now she knows almost all of them. Its such a relief to have her shouting “Mom!! Look there’s a Tappin’ T!” instead of just A over and over and over again. Naturally, with 2 older siblings this has also led to learning, or attempting to learn how to spell words.
Overhead in the backseat:
Cara: Rachel. This is how you spell Kiki (her stuffed monkey’s name), “E-I-O-H-A”.
Rachel: No. That’s not how you spell it. It’s “K-I-K-I”.
Cara: No! No! No! You spell it “H-I-T-C-A”.
Rachel: Let me get a piece of paper to write that down for you.
What a glorious Christmas week! Full of stories, ornament making, Christmas trees, canoeing, and time with family. Hope you had a great one as well!
We’ve talked quite a bit about compound words during school. How you take two words and smash them together to make a new word. “Star” and “fish” become “starfish”. Cara has even caught on, although sometimes she makes up her own.
After spending an early evening in the French Quarter, New Orleans eating Beignets (ben-ya) and wandering around to see the architecture we were driving home in the car.
Overhead in the backseat:
Cara: Hmmmm…. You take a “been” (left hand out) and a “yah” (right hand out) and smash them together (claps her hands) to get Beignet!
And then we all laughed.
This week was a bit of a whirlwind. Gulf Island Seashore National Park, Fort Picken and Geromino’s “hotel” room, meeting new friends at a random LDS ward and being invited over for dinner, the coolest Airstream food trucks, The National Naval Aviation Museum, New Orleans, seafood, the Tabasco Sauce Factory, and finally on to Houston where we will be spending the holidays.
How was your week?