August in ABQ

Well... we can't quite say that we all stayed in the 505 for August either.  Pretty much the second we got back from Utah, David started gearing up for his EPIC bike ride of the decade (then, later in the month, we took off to San Francisco for our anniversary.)  Bret Fed-Exed his bike, and flew in from Boston.  They drove up to Telluride, Colorado with Whitney, and met Don Hangen and his boys, Thompson and Jacob from our old neighborhood in Stow, MA, and also his brother, Brian, drove down from Salt Lake to meet them.  David really needs to blog about that trip himself.  Suffice it to say - they were gone for 9 days, rode over 200 miles on mountain bikes over some steep mountain passes from Telluride to Moab, were out of cell coverage for most of the time, had no showers, made their own meals, and slept in huts.  Sounds like a dream vacation to me!  I'm just grateful he got to go, that he has friends who love to do the same things he does, and he doesn't expect me to go with him.  He totally deserved it after a month alone while we were in Utah.

Prepping "BOO" and "LIZ" for the trip.

Anyway, the weekend Bret was in ABQ, we had the most insane hail storm I think I've ever been in.  We had so much rain this summer.  It was really nice to get some water and have the day cool off every afternoon with a great storm.

Grace.  In her element.  If the hail didn't hurt so bad, she would have ditched the umbrella.

Poor Kit Cat though.  She gets really scared in storms and hides.  This time, I could NOT find her.  We searched the house for at least an hour, then we headed out into the neighborhood.  I was convinced she had gotten out while we were playing in the storm and then had hidden somewhere outside.  FINALLY, we found her.  Inside the couch.  

More fun pics from monsoon season:

The rainbows here are pretty spectacular.  I've only seen better ones in Hawaii.  

The other cool thing about monsoon season this year, was that the desert just came alive.  There was enough water that the plants finally turned green and tons of wildflowers started growing.  The tumbleweed season next spring is going to be bonkers.

The whole mesa was just covered in these orange flowers, but there were also tons of other kinds too.  

Love monsoon season in ABQ!