Sam's Visit 2010

It's been a very busy summer.  Sam flew in alone from PA on July 9th.  Chris and I were both very anxious about him flying alone, but financially it was the best option, and he did great. 

His first week here I was on vacation from work.  We had tons of fun together.  We went to the Museum of Natural History and Science and saw huge dinosaur bone displayes.  Many of the bone displays were from the area.

We spent one day at Cliff's Amusement Park.  I chose to surprise him. I packed a lunch and towels, snuck them into the car before Sam woke that morning.  We had breakfast while he quizzed me about our "Surprise" trip.  On the drive over, Sam read, so he didn't even see the rollercoasters when we pulled in.  He had no idea where we were until we walked in the main gates and straight on to the rollercoaster.  We both had a ball, but for the motion sickness I suffered due to the "Tilt-a-Whirl".  We road on two different rollercoasters, the log flume, each of the water tube slides, bumper cars, and spent a couple hours in the splash pool park gaining the sumburn of our lives.  Sam even went on the big scarey rollercoaster all by himself.

We all went out to the movies and saw "Despicable Me", had our family portraits taken, and visited my friend Jessica's art studio where Sam got to experiement with a couple of different mediums.  We went shopping for books, and in the end, Sam flew home with several new reads.

Sam and I made soap.  He picked out the scent and colors and designed some really cool looking bars.  Sam also created a t-shirt for himself with a hand drawn design on both the front and back.

Sam spent his 2nd and 3rd weeks here attending day camp at the Albuquerque Zoo and Aquarium respectively.  He had a great time and learned a lot at each.  At aquarium camp, Sam's group put on a puppet show.  I tried to record it, but light and sound were an issue.  He made a brilliant jellyfish puppet and had the clever idea of taping it to his hat.  Unfortunately, he was shorter than the scenery while on his knees performing his multiple rolls, and no one really enjoyed it until the show was over. 

Josh and Molly came for a weekend visit. It was great spending time with them and sharing photos.  We made an unexpected trip to Santa Fe, had a lovely lunch and visited the plaza.   We visited the capital building and saw some of the amazing art on display there.  Sam got a private tour of the govenor's offices. 

Sam, John and I went for a motorcycle ride one afternoon.  Sam had grown so much, and I've had so few opportunities to ride this year that we decided to put Sam on with John this time.  It was a great ride, complete with a biker joint burger!

Sam flew home August 3rd.  It was really hard to put him on the plane and watch him fly away alone, but like Sam said..."It's no big deal, Mom."

Ready & WAITING...

We've completed almost all of the garden projects.  We've replaced the fence and given it a very proper gate.  We've installed the new compost bin, added soil to the gardens, fertilized, and even rigged dividers out of left over fence for the potato boxes.  Green Bin Farm is ready and waiting for the seedlings which are quickly taking over their starter boxes.  Now if Mother Nature would stop screwing around and get down to business, we could plant.  I'm grateful we held off planting as we had hail and snow off and on all day yesterday, but the zucchini threatens to flower already.  We have had to transplant seedlings to larger pots.  John and I have agreed Mother's Day Weekend should be safe enough for planting.  We will be setting up our irrigation when we plant.  The only remaining garden project will be building trellis(s), trelli...trelliesses... whatever... to withstand the pressures of high wind and 5 foot fully loaded heirloom tomato plants.  We've tried tomato gates and posts.  This year we're trying architecture.

Outside the garden, we are realizing it's time to address stucco maintenance.  Stucco is odd.  Siding be damned... let's wrap a house in chicken wire and mud it up with a plaster mud like mixture that bugs like to burrow in and cats like to scratch on.  That'll last!  It's actually really cool - our house is very insulted from the elements and you don't need to paint it really - only repair it from time to time.  But that repair thing is what scares us.  Stucco chips off.  We see a lot of chips/chunks.  We're afraid once we start scraping off the loose stuff we'll discover it's all loose stuff.  Barring Fear's hostile takeover, we'll be on the roof once the weather stabilizes to stucco-ing conditions.

We seem to have a nasty case of Spring Fever this year.  We spent much of April trying new things to keep us entertained.

We attended First Friday Fractals at the Museum of Science in Albuquerque.  It was a beautiful presentation in their planetarium of fractal art with locally composed and produced music.  The lecture included some information about fractals but mostly just visual displays and explorations.  We've since downloaded free software from the Internet to build our own fractal images.  You can check out information about fractals and get the software yourself at http://fractalfoundation.org/.  You can play with that software for HOURS and never get bored.

John and I went to a small Día de los Muertos art exhibit / sale in Albuquerque.  If you ever have a chance, check this art form out.  Very interesting.  The celebration of the dead is so vibrant, the colors used are so vivid, and the carnival atmosphere so upbeat you can't help but look differently at death.  It is definately worth the experience.  Images online just don't do it justice.

We recently had Showtime free preview, so we filled up our DVR with anything and everything that seemed remotely interesting.  This behavior usually yields some very weird results.  If you've never seen "The Amateurs" or "Lars and the Real Girl" give them a go.  I laughed through "The Amateurs" until I hurt.  I honestly couldn't believe I'd never heard of it or seen it before.  I think I might have lived in this town at some point, or read about it in the Bethel Citizen.

"Lars and the Real Girl" was an incredible look into mental illness and how far we'll go for the people we love.  Very moving.  If you didn't watch it because it's got a sex doll in it... get over it - she's dressed, chaste and an amazing woman.  Oh, and NO, this isn't "Mannequin 8".

April's Curse

There is something about us... something that just calls to us, lures us into purchasing vehicles in April. Last April John bought his truck, and I bought my dual sport. This year "we" bought this guy - 2005 Suzuki GS500f. The concept is we will share it until John either fixes up the RZ or buys another street bike. Although it's a little rough, and could use some parts, it's in decent shape and only has 3500 miles on it. It was a good deal. I look forward to getting it on the road, as does John!

I suggested to John that we could actually go for a ride on it together. He looked at me like I was growing a second head. "Do you really want to ride b*tch again?!? I wouldn't want to after being what you've been through." John references the TWO years I rode on the back of his dualsport (Mom, dual sports DO NOT offer ANY form of comfort to riders, PERIOD. It's not foam you sit on, it's frame. Ask Bob.) I just like excuses to hold my man.

Life in general...

As the weather improves, it seems like we have more and more to do, but nothing ground shaking to report, so here's just a couple general tidbits from our home & lives.

Audrey the Aloe

Audrey is our aloe plant. I inherited Audrey from Jane (who owned the house before us). At the time Audrey was a sad, olive colored, wilted looking thing with just three leaves, about 4 inches tall. Jane told me she didn't figure it would live, but it was mine if I could make it survive. Survive it did. Audrey grew to about 30 inches tall before it suddenly chose to bloom. It's got two current babies, and one earlier offspring that is already approaching 10 inches. Audrey didn't really get his name until it got big enough to stab me everytime I walked by him (as John was kind enough to demonstrate for you), reminding me of "Audrey 2" from Little Shop of Horrors. He is a most impressive plant. We are a little concerned about how much larger he could get. Most websites report them reaching 2 feet in diameter. We aren't far from that. I'm hoping his size isn't his doom, but if it is, we are due to harvest a whole lot of aloe juice.

Monster Burger

We don't eat out very often. Our dining options here are limited to chain burger joints, chain pizza joints, chain taco joints, and a few independent restaurants that are never open when we do want to go out. So, when the burger cravings come, we only have a couple of choices; risk e coli poisoning, or make it ourselves. Hence, we re-wrote the definition of burger and the Monster Burger was born. Monster Burger is a hollowed-out loaf of toasted Artesian garlic bread heavily painted with English BrewPub Mustard, a monster patty of grilled Moraccan seasoned ground bison, thick slices of tomatoes, romain lettuce, and almost too many sandwich-stacker-style dill pickles. Ta-Da! Dinner for two. I like to dip mine in lavendar gorgonzola mayonaise. If you haven't re-defined "burger" yet, I highly recommend it! Light the grill and get to it.

Bad John!

On Sunday, March 28th, John was arrested and dragged through a Las Vegas police department...

April Fools!

On Sunday, March 28th, John WAS arrested and dragged through a Las Vegas police department by Officer Morin in the television pilot filming of "The Odds" starring Donald Faison. IF "The Odds" gets picked up as a series, you might actually catch of glimpse of me roughly leading John, handcuffed, through a police department scene.

You just never know.