Tuesday Funnies...........

OK for more of these happy grandson pictures check out my DIL's blog. I was busy cooking breakfast so she got to post them first!

Grandson was helping me make biscuits. He LOVES raw bread dough of any kind, yeast or biscuit. He had been begging for bites. He had several. I had told him to stay out of my bowl. Again he proceeded to help himself. I thumped him on the arm about as hard as you would thump a sore spot. More like touched him and said. "No!" He froze then started to pucker. Other kids started to laugh. I grabbed the camera. We got several pictures as he held his pose for us. All the while everyone laughing and then mommy and I giving that stuck out lip a kiss.


He did get happy. I did offer him more bread dough. He refused to say thank you. Just gave me a look that made the memories of about 20 years ago come flooding back. I promptly tossed his dough back on the board and it went in the next biscuits. He didn't get offered any more. He did get happy with me shortly and I held him as we stirred the gravy and turned sausage for breakfast.




Now for the other funny of the morning....... and it is only 10 AM!


We have strange cows and I never have a camera when I need one outside! This morning Blossom, (cow) and Grizzle (dog) were exchanging slobbers. They were licking each others tongue. Both seemed to enjoy it. I just shook my head. Then as MN was trying to shoo cows out a goat ran up under Hershey and proceeded to nurse. Cow just stood there.

Grandsons!

As always it is fun when the Grand babies are here. DIL posted on of her son on her blog earlier, but I had to add some to MY blog too. For some reason I have been camera happy today.

How is this for a most dirty face? Doesn't he look grown up!



We are pulling up, just not good..........YET!

Taking a picture without a tongue sticking out isn't easy!

Cabinet shopping! He is eating tomatoes off there.

A truck driver in the making! Not just trucks and trailers, but many trailers!

Monday again? Already!

I guess the statement "Time flies when you are having fun is true." My life is truly blessed so it must be fun! Time for sure is going WAY to fast! I can't believe it is Monday again.

Today is laundry day. I have my second load on and it isn't even 7 am! I cheated and started last night. Today I get grandson. :)

I offered to keep other grandson while mommy gets baby stuff ready. Maybe I will have both of them! DIL's due date is the 15 of Oct. Grandson was born about 10 days early. Midwife says this one is good to go any time. We are specifically asking a couple of prayer request. One that she waits to go into labor until daddy gets home. He is making his last long run before the baby comes. He should be home on or before Wed. Second prayer request is that baby puts his/her arm down. Grandson was born with his little hand against his cheek. In the last midwife visit she said this baby has an arm up near the head. Mommy really would appreciate it if baby decides to put that arm down before delivering.

We are still having parties over here. Not near as many. It seems most days we start the day out with a party as MJ makes bad choices. Not doing chores, or school or what ever. Then once the pattern is established that we WILL party he stops the control or games or what ever and becomes the young man I enjoy being around. First day we partied 3 times. After that we only did it once. Third day of partying I fixed him a bowl of ice cream with chocolate syrup even. I handed it to him and told him how much we all thank HIM for his choices. Girls were asking if he would make more bad choices about supper time so they could have ice cream for supper too. We ate our ice cream without syrup while he kept setting and stirring his and looking at it. Finally he ask what he was suppose to do with it. I replied, "Eat it! You earned it!" He ate it and quickly did his chores, which he hadn't been doing before that "Earned" him ice cream. What I am seeing is he is more engaged with the girls and with me even since I have started this. Less standing on the sidelines watching and more participating in what ever. Even if it is "Work!". He is even playing better with T. They played over the weekend for HOURS without getting cross.

MN and S have been challenging me on school. MN was allowed to go work with her brother on Friday without having her school done. He called to late Thursday night for her to do it. But, she didn't apply herself Sat. to do it. So Sunday she was told she couldn't work for him until all school was done with passing grades. About an hour later her brother called wanting to know if she could help today. I passed the phone to her. She explained she had been goofing off and not getting school done. She would see if she could get it all done before DIL brings grandson today. She didn't sound very positive or excited. He figured she wasn't even going to try. But, she went out there finished her Bible lessons that she was redoing for the THIRD time, since she had failed the Bible Test twice. Then ask to take the test. She made a A on it. So all she lacked was today's school. She is up and working on it. I have a feeling she is going to go work goats today. She is after her brother to give her all his sick goats. She would dr. them and care for them and sell them back to him. Hummmm sounds like ............ HIM! Well she didn't get it done. I even waited for her to finish since her brother ask me too. Made me late picking up grandson at the hwy. She failed a lesson. Oh well so sad, guess she should have applied herself on Sat.

S on the other hand has LOTS of school to do. Since she kept having me regenerate dates when she failed a test. This is her final week of this semester. Mean mom is holding her to passing grades and her choices on having LOTS of school work. Over all she is doing good with it. She says next semester she isn't going to regenerate dates if she fails something.

When we got home from vacation S had a box from AR. I didn't get it opened and checked until about Tue. It was ALL her grandmothers jewelry. I knew she was to get "some" but this was more than a shoe box of little boxes of old lady jewelry. Think boot box. I "suggested" that she not take all the chains out of the boxes they would tangle. Just look at one box at at time. Did she listen? of course not! Chore time came and she and T had chains draped all over the couch. I was less than happy. Then that night after lights out I could here 'rats' upstairs bumping around. I called her on it. She was "putting" it up. Night before last more "RATS" this time I didn't bother calling her on it. DAD called her on it next morning. Seems she kept turning the light on to do something in the box of jewelry, even woke MJ up to borrow his pliers. So the box of jewelry is now down stairs in my possession. She sulked over that a bit. It really is a waste of her energy to sulk. No one cares or buys into it. What I find interesting is she has made no effort to write her aunt a thank you note or call. This is so unlike S. Usually she wants to call as soon as possible and has a LONG letter ready to mail the next day. I have no clue what her thoughts are. I do know she has made several commits about "Thanks mom for not giving up on me." or "Now I have parents that want more for me." Even when she gets called down and fussed at harshly she soon regains her good spirits and usually thanks us for calling her hand on what ever she was doing. Lots of processing going on in her mind. I also think it interesting she is making no effort to get her drivers license. She doesn't even talk about it. She knows what she has to do. She has to READ THE BOOK! Then we will go fwd with helping her get them. She will tell you she isn't ready. I respect that and don't push it.


I think we are going to do one more "year" of school. Ending about the first of the year. Then I will try to get her in some type of GED program on line. Once that is passed, and yes she will be able to if she applies herself. We will investigate several "higher education" type schools for her and vocations. One area that I think she would do well in is Geriatric Care Management. This is a new field in dealing with the elderly. Pay seems pretty high for it. She does well with older people, never met a stranger, can talk to a rock and isn't easily offended by smells or such. If anyone is in this field please share your input.

OK off to be mom and granola! All have a very blessed day!

Party TIME!

LOL I am still struggling with MJ and his not wanting to work/help. Today he was yet again not doing. This time school. When he admitted he wasn't working instead of getting mad/frustrated I acted like I had won the lotto! Wish I had a camera handy. Oh the look I got. I start dancing around and thanking him and yelling for everyone to come join me in PARTY TIME! I dug into my stash of M&M's and put some on a plate. All the time talking like I have just been given a million dollars. Thanking MJ for choosing not to do his work. Hoping he does it often.

Kids all thought I had lost my mind. Oh the strange looks. They finally got with the program and enjoyed the M&M's and finished it off by telling MJ they hope he makes these choices often.

The whole time we are partying he is standing over there with a priceless look on his face. Even grandson got into the M&M's and DIL. We all thanked MJ!

Home.......

We arrived home late Sunday afternoon. We unpacked what was needed and left the rest. We were pooped! I did take a few pictures the last day. This elk picture was the evening before as we came home from our circle.

Then we took some pictures at Carlsbad at the zoo. They have a really great zoo there. We hunted all week for DH a bear. This was the best we could do. He wanted to see one in the wild. Didn't happen.

Monday was spent with laundry and keeping grandson. While we were gone he got one more new tooth, learned to set up, crawl and is pulling up. He still likes being toted better than being mobile. That will soon change I'm sure.

This morning I got back in the groove of milking. Last night I separated Hershey, and Mocha from their babies. They are my first time mamas. I also separated Daisy. She is my old jersey that I want to sell. They haven't been getting any extra feed so I was pleased when I brought in 3 full gallons of milk.

White Sands

Today we got a lazy start. I really wish the rest of the crowd would be into moving faster. I am ready to stop long before they are since I start long before they do. I also do morning much better than afternoons.

We drove to the top of the mountain. Then we drove down the other side. You drop over 4000 feet in less than 15 miles. You go from pines to very VERY desert conditions. Usually the temperatures go up as you go down. Today it wasn't bad.

We made it out to White Sands about 11:30 and it was 69 degrees. That is amazing! They have had LOTS of rain. The area you drive in had large water puddles that looked like shallow lakes. The sand it's self was wonderful to walk on. If you walked careful you didn't break through, it was like walking in the wet sand at the beach instead of the dry. Kids had a blast sliding. I didn't take many pictures. The sun was so bright that I couldn't see using my LED on my camera to take pictures.

Want to guess who this is?

Yep DH! I didn't get my picture taken :) I did it TWICE!

This is the kids playing. I am on a taller dune taking pictures.

It is hard to imagine all that sand!

After we played a while we went back to town ate lunch and went to the Space Museum. We checked out the outside stuff then went down to the IMAX and watched a movie on Sharks. Kids loved it. It was ok.

After that we drove back up the hill/mountain to Cloudcroft in the rain. It had rained so hard in place that the water was running across the road. We drove around some and came back to camp. It is after 8 TX time and everyone is already quite. They are drawing and coloring as we wind down. I don't think bed is far off for any of us.

http://newmexicoseptember2009.shutterfly.com/366

Day Five.......... Taos~Red River

Day Five:

View of our camp.

We got up early and drove up to Angel Fire. On the way we managed to see 2 elk in the forest. Then more near Angel Fire. The fog was heavy around Angel Fire. I have never been up in that area that there wasn't some fog. This time it was so heavy you couldn't see far. As we drove on up higher heading for Taos the fog was below us. The area around Angel Fire looked like a shimmering lake instead of clouds.

Taos is not on my favorites list. I don't like driving there and really have not found anything that interesting about the town. I do love the Rio Grande Gorge and the Pueblo of Taos. We decided on doing the Gorge first. We didn't tell the kids where we were going. Just started talking about how the early settlers moved across this land. How easy it would be to cross this area except.......... and drove upon the gorge.

S did not like the bridge.

She said bridges like this have always bothered her. She didn't enjoy the walk across at all.

The other kids loved it. They have been there before. On the way back to Taos we saw a herd of big horn sheep. Why they were down on the flats instead of in the mountains I don't know.

We went back to Taos to the Pueblo. This “town” has been lived in for over 1000 years. I isn't the oldest pueblo in NM, or the “New World” for that matter but it is old. We took the tour then checked out many of the shops. Some of the vendors were very friendly and shared more knowledge about culture and their craft. More than once different people mentioned how well behaved the kids were. I think the fact they were interested in the stuff and not horse playing around was impressive to people.

After that we headed north. We stopped at the Red River Fish Hatchery. It was a self-guided tour. Much different than the Federal facility we had visited the day before. We didn't take the time to fish there. THEY didn't take the time to fish.

We wanted to get to Red River so the kids could ride the ski lift. It is over 2 miles long! We arrived there to find that they had the cables off working on it. So we came on around through Eagles Nest and back to Angel Fire. Then down our little road back to camp.

It was again raining when we got here. We divided up and some napped and some played chess for a while. Once the rain stopped the great fishermen took off for the river. I made coffee and enjoyed the afternoon. They decided to go up the road about ½ mile to a pond to fish. I took extra coffee, my camera and a chair and when with them.

It was pretty. I took some more pictures and just vegged and watched the kids fish. Dh caught one fish.

Then it started to sprinkle, but only on half the pond. It looked so neat with half the pond being rained on and the other half the water smooth.

Slowly the shower overtook the whole pond. I retreated to the shelter of the lone table. While the die hard fishermen kept fishing. Finally MN caught a fish too. She was quite excited.

After two of the girls froze out DH and the other two gave up fishing. Think being damp from head to foot with a temp in the 50s and a breeze off and on. DH did keep those two fish.
While I got supper out, S went and took a hot shower and the other three went to watch DH clean fish. We had home made pizzas for supper. Again I love my $3 pizza maker. I sat out all the toppings and each person built their on pizza on a tortilla. Then we scooted it off the plate onto the stone. In just a couple of minutes they had a thin crust crisp pizza to their liking. Kids were all in their night clothes before supper WITHOUT being ask to change even! After supper clean up they all retreated to their beds without us even suggesting it.

Internet again!

After three days without again I have service. I did miss blogging, but it was worth it to stay where we did. I cheated and blogged each day on Open Office to copy and past. Today I will upload pictures both to blogger and to the shutterfly pages and post.



Today we are in Cloudcroft, and it is living up to the CLOUD part of it's name. We have had a very cool drive down from Las Vegas. It is in the low 50s with hail in piles further up the mountain. We know it is hail because we ask. No pictures to post today. Not much to post when you have been in such beauty and drive across flat lands most of the day. We did see lots of antelope though.



Here is my first day away from the net.


Day Four
Today we drove from the Santa Fe area to my favorite place, North of Las Vegas. We are staying between Angel Fire and Mora on Coyote Creek in a very simple RV park. We are the only campers. There are spaces for about 10 total.
Once camp was set up we decided to go see if the fish hatchery was open. It closed at 3, we go there a little after and the gate was still open, no sign saying closed. So we drove up. We got to take the tour. They only raise Gila Trout there. They are a trout that have been on the endangered specie list for over 30 years, but were removed 2 years ago and are listed as what ever is below endangered. The funny thing is these trout don't even inhabit the streams in this area! They are found in Southwestern NM and Arizona. I guess no one is surprised to know this is a NATIONAL fish hatchery?



After that we drove on over to see if the raspberries were ready to pick. They are open Tuesday through Thursday and Weekends. So picking them will be on the list later this week.
After that we drove toward Ft. Union. We were hoping to see some wildlife. We were blessed in all we saw. We saw a coyote. Then we saw a HUGE herd of buffalo. We didn't count or take pictures of them on the way over, but did on the way back. MJ counted them for me He counted over 100 head!



Notice the funny looking spot on this Buffalo's front leg? Took me forever to realize it is a bird flying in front of him.



A few miles after we saw the buffalo we found a herd of elk at a water hole.



I managed to grab a few shots of them as they took off. On we went toward Ft. Union. We saw antelope on the road between Watrus and Ft. Union. The fort was closed, but we got to drive to the gate. We had friends that use to live next door to the fort. It is their fault that I fell in love with this area. As we drove back we stopped and took pictures of the buffalo. Then found another even larger, and closer herd of elk to photograph.


As we came up the home stretch to home we found this wonderful rainbow.



We got to look at it for miles as we came up the canyon to the camp.



We came back to camp to a light shower. It is 7:00 here and dark. Sleeping is going to be great! The temps are already down around 50, with rain drops sprinkling on the roof. We have the LAST of Miss Ruth's lasagna heating in the oven. It is time for her to come back to TX! We miss her and her good cooking!

More pictures here: http://newmexicoseptember2009.shutterfly.com/285

Morphy Lake

I don't think I like counting the days! Makes me know soon this fun time will be over. It started sprinkling on the camper before the rest of the world woke up. We fixed breakfast and watched the temps hover around 50. It looked like it was raining all over the world.

This is the view out the camper door!





We decided to go to Vegas and get some stuff we needed and see what the weather was out of the mountains. DH could also check the weather on his phone. The rain stopped before we got to Vegas. Still clouds and cool but warmer. Kids and I hit Wal-mart while Dh played with his phone. His assessment was raining everywhere we wanted to be! With a 70% chance in Mora all day. So we did some looking in the Vegas area then rechecked the weather.

We decided maybe the weather had moved off from Morphy Lake, but raspberries were probably still getting wet. So we headed there. It misted on us a few times as we drove there.


We got there and it was heavy clouds with a few claps of thunder off in the distance. We had a late lunch and I grabbed my camera while they grabbed poles and off they went to bother the fish. I walked all the way around the lake taking pictures.







See Chipmunks can't read!




One of the neatest things was a pair of large birds of prey fishing. I don't know what kind they were. They would dive into the water with a huge splash.







Can anyone identify this bird?





DH said he saw one come up with a fish, which is better than DH and the kids did fishing. After my walk around the lake I grabbed a cracker and sat down. Sure enough in a little bit I had a beggar coming closer. I tossed a few crumbs out and closer still. S saw what I was doing and got some crackers too. We both fed them out of our hand.












I think that was a first for her. This is her hand in the picture. We only had two beggars right where we were. They were scattered all around the lake though.





DH decided it was time to head back to camp. Something about the fish not biting I think.
We came back to camp. S and I stayed in camp while the others went up to the ponds and fished until dark. They caught 4 fish. T caught the biggest one. We had a supper of leftovers, ran kids through the shower and headed to bed.





http://newmexicoseptember2009.shutterfly.com/333

Day Three...

I only took 18 pictures yesterday! Not because it wasn't beautiful and different, but more of the same, mountains and views.

Yesterday we took the tram up to the top of Sandia Peak, then HIKED to the gift shop. It was a 1.8 mile hike, EACH way. This at an elevation over 10,000 ft. I did laugh at S as she thought her asthma was back. We finally got her to understand it was the thin air and we were all having issues and having to go slow.

Here is the view from the bottom of the tram.

This is the vegetation at the bottom of the tram. They say as you go up it is like going from Mexico to Alaska.

View from the top

I can't get my other picture to copy here so go here: http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/detail.sfly?sid=0Ibt3DRw0bMXcQ&imageIndex=88&fid=728fb2b4df8a9f5af12f12eb75ef82b5

Then look at this picture, this is what 2 years does to kids!

We finished the day off at the zoo. Kids took a ton of pictures, but I only took one.

I LOVE big cats!

Today we travel again. We will be above Mora. I don't think that campground has interent. It does have a creek running through it for dh to fish in. We will pick raspberries and travel to Taos from there. I can't remember if we are to stay three nights there or what. I will post again when we have net.

Day 2

I forgot to post yesterday morning that the Internet didn't work in the RV so I had to take my laptop down to the showers and post from there. It was 56 degrees! They fixed the net so it is working great from here. Where it is nice and warm and snuggly at about 54 this morning.

I forgot also to share I finished my lap loomed throw. I have only been working on it for over 2 years. It is big and warm and I am using it this morning. I think if I do another one I will use only one string of yarn instead of two. It is a bit heavy. I am quite pleased with it.


Highlights of the day!

We went to Old Town for a "Fiesta". It was terribly crowded. I don't think they had near as many vendors as in years past. The Indian jewelry in front of the Palace of the Governor's which is my favorite wasn't near as many. We did look then went over to the Loretto Chapel. http://www.lorettochapel.com/staircase.html I am not sure the kids were as impressed as I always am with it. The history of it is just amazing to me.

After that we went to the "Indian Flea Market". It is neat and has lots of neat junk, er stuff. We didn't buy anything anywhere. We found a place to eat lunch then made yet another wal-mart stop. After that we came back to camp. I napped kids played and DH did something to the excursion. Then we were off to fish again.

We had thunderstorms all around us most of the afternoon while we were in town and then at camp. When we went back to Pecos we discovered this.





See the white? We all agree it wasn't there the day before! We didn't go that direction but turned and went up the canyon. We didn't even go far. I really wanted to go way back up, but dh wanted to fish and it was late. This was the view up the canyon from where we were fishing.





While they fished, and even dh caught ONE fish I took pictures again. I really liked this picture of the leaves of fall.

I also set up a shutterfly album of all the pictures. Both mine and the kids. http://newmexicoseptember2009.shutterfly.com/ It has an album for me and a different one for the kids pictures.

My DD and I had saw an ant hill the day before about 6 inches high. They say that the height of the hill gives you and idea of how much snow you will get. This hill was about a foot tall.

Today when the world wakes up we will be heading down to Sandi Peak. Maybe the zoo and the aquarium there. I guess I should rattle cages since dh wanted to "leave" by 8 our time and it is now 7:24 and no a creature is stirring but me :)

Vacation Day One....

We left the flat land of South eastern NM yesterday morning, none to early. We reached where we are camping about 1 PM our time. After checking in and having a late lunch we headed off to discover................ WALMART! They should really love us. Dh loaded everyone down with fishing stuff......... but me! I have no desire to drown worms or handle bait or fish. I will find stuff I want today I am sure.

After that we took off for the Pecos. We drove up Pecos canyon for about 20 miles. It was beautiful as the pictures show. I did laugh at S as she kept saying, "Wow!" or silence. I think she was impressed. After we went as far as we could they went fishing I went photographing. I caught a LOT more! This isn't all the pictures. I will try to load them on shutterfly. I loaned the kids two of my old cameras. MN decided my catching was a lot more fun than hers. She has a lot of pictures on one of those cameras to upload. We just forgot to bring it in out of the excursion last night. It was funny she would look at what I had taken pictures of and say, "I took one of that too." or "Where did you get that one?" So we may have lots of double pictures from just a little different angle or eye.

S "fishing" but for what and how?

T just full of joy and smiles.

The great fishermen er what ever!

Now to select a new background picture for my blog! Oh the choices and the tough decisions!