June in ABQ!

Summer, especially the part we spent in NM, is now a blur.  However, we did have tons of fun here before heading to Denver and Salt Lake.

The last few summers, June in ABQ has been H-O-T.  Monsoon season doesn't come until July, so June is just super dry and searing hot with no relief until the sun goes down. We weren't quite as hot as last summer, but still, we craved pool time, air conditioning, and frozen treats.  I think we kept Sonic in business with our happy hour slushy fixes.  Lucky for us, many good friends who have pools in their subdivisions invited us for swimming on lots of afternoons.  We went to the city pool once, but those city pools are so crazy over-crowded.  You have to get there 15 minutes before it opens to wait in line.  Otherwise, they fill up and you have to wait until people leave to get in.

The girls also spent some time in camps.  Our good friends, The Ponds, have a teen-age daughter who does art and cheer camps.  Grace and Harriet both did the art camp and Harriet did the cheer camp.  I love that she teaches them true principles of art - texture, line, shading, media, etc.  It's not just a craft camp where they dump paint on each other for a couple of hours.  They actually learn how to look at things and how to transfer what they see onto paper or canvas.

Her cheer camp was pretty darn good as well.  Harriet wants to be a cheerleader lately, and has signed up for the elementary school cheer team this year.  So, she decided at the last minute that cheer camp would be a good prep.  She's so shy in public and around big groups of people, but she is slowly coming out of her shell.  I hate to say it, but cheer just might be the thing that brings her all the way out.  She loved the camp, but was a little sad that she was behind on gymnastics skills.  Hopefully, she won't be too far behind the other girls at school.  First day is today!

We took advantage of all the local things we could while we were here.  The museum had a couple of really amazing events.  I can't believe how much we get out of our museum membership.  It is worth its weight in gold.  The girls got to meet the Italian astronaut, Luca Parmitano, who had nearly drowned last year on a spacewalk outside the ISS.  He was amazing to listen to; so inspiring, just as an astronaut should be.  But, he was also very sweet with the kids and let them get their full fix of all things astronaut that day.  I could have listened to him talk all day.

Later in the month, the museum held a big party for members.  They had a delicious dinner, tons of fun and games inside for the kids, and tours of the collections.

This might have been one of the neatest things I have ever done - tour the fossil collection.  We went on the last tour of the night.  It was pretty late, but the lead paleontologist was our guide and he was in no hurry.  He carefully lead us through each part of the storage facility and fossil prep rooms.  He told fantastic stories of digging up fossils, getting huge bones to the museum, and showed the kids pretty much anything they wanted to see.

He let them all sit on this giant vertebrae from a seismosaurus.  The seismosaurus skeleton stands in their exhibit upstairs, but this one section of vertebrae weighed so much (now I forget - it was in the thousands of pounds) that the building engineers said that if they put it on display with the rest of the skeleton that it would fracture the building.  So, it rests at ground level in the collections.  He told a story about how he put this fossil on a freight ship to Japan for an exhibit.  He insured it for like 3 million dollars for the trip.  He joked that he hoped the ship would sink because the 3 million would do more for the museum than the fossil.  Ha!

We took a couple more trips to the museum, just for fun.  Grace and I went, just the two of us, while Hattie was in cheer camp.

The big middle set of bones up there is the replica of the real one the girls got to sit on in the collections.  It was great to have some one-on-one time with Grace.  I miss hanging out with that kid. 

Then we went back with friends.  Grace invited Dallin Meredith to go with her as a good-bye outing.  They had the best time.  They are both such little geeky nerds together.

Hattie took her BFF Gilli.  These two are hilarious together.

It was so hard to see her lose her best friend here.  She has said good-bye to too many friends in the last short years.  Ugh.  So many of our friends moved away this summer.  We are still trying to figure out who we are supposed to hang out with now.  

Dallin and Grace spent the rest of the day setting up their kindles to text each other, but it just isn't the same.  

Grace got invited to Dallin's surprise going away skating party by his friend Nico.  Grace and Nico (on the right), apparently hit it off pretty solid at Dallin's birthday party.  Hopefully, they can form a friendship, especially now that Dallin is gone.  He's a year ahead in school though, so it still won't be easy.

And, Hattie has been DYING to go ice skating ever since Grace got to go with Dallin on his birthday (and then again at his surprise going away party.)  Harriet had never been ice skating and was feeling much injustice.  It was fun for me for about 5 minutes, until my skates started digging into my ankles.  I tried new skates, but nothing fit right.  Pure torture.  But, Harriet did have a grand time and so did Grace.  I was surprised that they could both skate without falling too much.  Still, I don't think we are signing up for figure skating in the Olympics anytime soon.  

And... we headed out to Galloping Grace once for good measure.  I think I am to the point that I can no longer say that I volunteer there.  It has been a year since I did anything for them.  We have really gone separate ways.  But, the kids still adore the animals, and I still adore Max and Michelle, so we do show up now and again.

ahhh... we have missed you, Freckles!

bunnies, chickens, goats, pigs, oh my!  The girls spent a full hour playing with the chickens.  Who knew chickens could be so much fun?  I used to want to have our own for the fresh eggs.  But, I'm over it.  That's a lot of work for fresh eggs.  

Wow, that was a lot to squeeze into one month, but we couldn't miss out on our favorite things to do in NM.  Stay tuned for the GIANT trip posts.