The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Was AMAZING

Hi Everyone! Happy Tuesday!

A couple weeks ago was the 10-day Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. This is our first year in the city, and I wasn't really sure what to expect.

Our first time out was Wednesday morning, early. I expected the balloons to be cool, but it was so much more than I thought. Pictures don't really do it justice...there are so many balloons that launch over a couple hours and you get to be right there...I mean, you can reach out and touch the balloons. The cold air and the hiss of the fires that go on and off filling the balloons with hot air and the warmth from that fire when you get near, how everyone near claps and cheers when a balloon leaves the ground...t was one of those times I was happy to be alive, to be part of what was happening...where there was just this delight in the world and that's not something I feel very often (aside from in relation to my kids, where that wonder is there every day).

Love these pictures below of my kids, too...some of my favorite ever, with the early morning light and the wonder on their faces...

These three bees were my favorite...they all launched together, too, looked like they were holding hands as they ascended...

And off the subject a little bit...I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but somebody told me once that spots like those in the pictures below are spirits trying to make themselves visible. I'm sure there's a perfectly logical (non-paranormal) technical reason for why these spots appear, but I love it when my pictures have them...like the two in the pictures below...I like to think my brother Luke and our baby Hunter were there with us that morning...

The other time we went was Friday evening, with my parents.

In the mornings they launch the balloons, in the evenings, they have "glows," where the balloons stay on the ground but inflate and light up.

Here's "Spider Pig" ("Spider Ham,") inflated and you can see how the balloons light up (they light on and off with the fire, not constant) as the sky gets dark:

And right in front of us a balloon team came in and unfurled the balloon...we had no idea what it would be as it lay on the ground and then started to inflate...

The next thing we knew, this guy was towering over us:

The bees going up at the glow...

Our two days there were a good introduction. Next year I want to:

• Go again to the Special Shapes launch (which we did on the Wednesday) but get there EARLY...like 5:30 AM-ish to watch the test balloons ascend in the dark and experience more of the morning. A thermos of hot coffee would also be nice
• And I would love to do another evening glow, but we can get there later than we did this time, and it would be nice to pack a picnic, and also to plan to stay for the fireworks...

Bottom line: the Balloon Fiesta is SO COOL. If it's something you've thought about doing, do it. It far exceeded my expectations and I can't wait to go again.

XOXO

Pumpkin Patch

We all went to the pumpkin patch up in Corrales a little while ago. Corrales is a super cute little village just north of ABQ. There were pumpkins (of course) and a petting zoo and a corn maze and a tractor to sit on and a hay ride. It was a beautiful sunny warm afternoon--oh how I love fall.

Everyone had a great time, except for when the cow mooed. Even from a distance the kids were scared...

Bubs with his Grandma...he sure loves his Grandma...

There was also this great sandbox-like thing ringed with hay bales and filled with corn that the kids could have played in for hours. We were picking corn kernels out of stuff for a week. :)

The pumpkins are looking great on our dining room table, and will be so cool to carve at the pumpkin party/carving contest we are going to this weekend.

Hope everyone has a great Tuesday!

Every Morning We Sing a Song...

One of the things I love to do while spending time with the kids in the mornings is to put my iPOD on random and sing and help them dance to whatever songs come up (skipping particular songs if we aren't in the mood.)

But before we do this, we usually ask Siri to "Play '40 Dogs.'" It's a song by an artist called Bob Schneider out of Austin, Texas, where I went to grad school. I saw a lot of live music those couple years I was down there, but Bob Schneider was my favorite. (I've probably seen him live more than any other artist. He's amazing.)

Anyway, I don't know how we got stuck on this song, but some of the phrases in the lyrics...it's just so us:

"There's something right about you and me..."

"We ain't got no time to waste, we got too much life to taste..."

"We can do what we want to do..."

And the chorus:

"We're like Romeo and Juliet, like 40 dogs, cigarettes

--(except instead of cigarettes, I sing: '40 dogs we like to pet')--

We're the good times that haven't happened yet, but will.

I can tell you where we're gonna be

When the whole world falls to the sea:

We'll be livin' ever after, happily."

Here's a link, if you want to watch/listen [to Bob Schneider, not us. :)]

Happy Friday! Thanks for spending some time here this week! :)

XOXO

Best Five Dollars Ever Spent

I'm not above spending money on my children, but isn't it so true that the amount of money spent in no way correlates to the enjoyment you get from an object?

Case in point, last weekend, my husband and I were driving by a garage sale, stopped and bought this old swing for five bucks. It's faded and weathered and definitly looks used...it's not going to win any beauty contests. But we took it home to my brother's and hung it on his porch, and I can't even begin to tell you how much fun our kids had in it. No object has made them happier.

It's going to go in the apple tree in our backyard...is going to bring hours of delight.

Happy Labor Day weekend to everyone!!! We're going car camping with five-month-olds (and the swing)...wish us luck!

XOXO

Good to Do the Things That Bring You Pleasure...

So even though we're probably moving (although not sure when or where...I'm doing pretty well overall with that uncertainty), I've decided we should make a little bit of effort to make things nice in our yard. So easy with infant twins and not knowing what the future holds just to blow it off. But my mother-in-law is here this week, and this morning she helped me weed, and I planted some flowers for our back patio, swept the winter leaves and dirt up, washed the cushions and generally made it so we can be outside and enjoy it. And I'm so glad I did. We may be here all summer, and there's no reason to deprive ourselves of outdoor pleasures, right?

By the way, my husband's job hunt is going well...he's on his second and third interviews, respectively, for jobs in L.A. and Virginia (the Virginia job involves a likely transfer at some point to Seattle).

And also, I have become obsessed with Instagram:

Hope everyone's having a lovely day. :)

XOXO

Nursery Tour

Hi Everyone! 

I've been meaning to do a nursery tour forever...and today is finally the day!

My husband and I were both hugely involved in decorating this room, and because we both had things we wanted, we didn't end up with a particular theme...instead a mish-mash of things he wanted, things I wanted, budget items, small splurges, sentimental things, things we made, gifts, etc. Here is the finished room, which I love:

This used to be my husband's office, and the gray on the walls is his color, which he was adamant about not changing. I actually like the gray, although when we move I think I'd like to do a lighter, more pastel shade of it. We've just got one crib for now (from Target), a dresser with changing pad (dresser: American Furniture Warehouse; pad and cover: Land of Nod), and a rocker (vintage, from my mother-in-law):

We got tons of quilts/blankets as gifts and are using them all...you really can't have too many! The ones below: polka dots: a gift from a college friend (Nordstrom); multicolored paisley (on crib) and the animals (lower left of picture): hand-made by my BFF's mom (from fabric my fabulously stylish BFF picked out); patchwork quilts on the floor for tummy time: hand-made by my mom (with a little help from me). The white rug on the floor is from American Furniture Warehouse:

These giraffe mobiles were a gift from my aunt and uncle back east...so cute! (From Amazon.) And my husband wanted an alien in the room, and I found kind of a girly patchworky one on Etsy, so we were both happy:

The paisley curtains my mom and I made from fabric from Hobby Lobby...they were super easy. The dotted changing pad cover is something I splurged on. And this bunny is from a dear friend of my mom's...she's English and I so admired her style all the time I was growing up:

My husband and I changed out the plain silver knobs on the dresser...replaced them with some Anthropologie knobs that I'd used on cupboards in my bedroom in Santa Barbara and have been waiting for a chance to use ever since. The silver trash can fit our aesthetic much better than the diaper pails we saw (at least the reasonably priced ones). It works great as far as containing odor, by the way (from Bed, Bath and Beyond).

Love, love, love this vintage rocking chair that my mother-in-law refinished for us. And the leather footstool was a steal at Ross. Great for putting my feet up while rocking, or sitting on while selecting clothes out of the dresser:

Here's a detail view of the pillow in the rocker. When we originally put the room together, it felt too masculine to me, so I tried to add some girly touches like this. This is also something I had in Santa Barbara that I've been trying to find a home for ever since I left (from Land of Nod, although purchased years ago):

A few additional details that I love:

Above the rocking chair we have zoo pictures I got from Etsy:

And my BFF gave us this fabulous nightlight:

My husband has a thing about Ugly Dolls. Actually, it's really cute...when we were dating and in Seattle, we went for a walk in the Arboretum one day and passed by an open house and went inside...in one of the kid's rooms there was an Ugly Doll and my husband said, "If we ever have kids, we need one of those." So the Ugly Doll collection (each given to us as a gift) is kind of sentimental:

My husband's also all about the kids being smart, so he really wanted a periodic table in the nursery (this one's a gift from a woman I work with; from Land of Nod). I added the flower (which I used to wear around my neck some nights going out in San Francisco), again trying to keep the room from becoming too masculine. :)

So that's it! Hope you've enjoyed a peek into our happy little nursery! :)

Happy weekend, and thanks for stopping by.

XOXO

Let's Talk About Happy Things, Shall We?

Good Lord, it's been depressing around here this week. Thanks, everyone, so much for all your comments and support over the past couple days. Let's balance things out today by talking about little bits of happiness, shall we?

• Yes, I'm already dreaming about the nursery. I love the mix of prints in the picture above. I have these big dreams of sewing all sorts of stuff for the babies' room, but I'm famous for having homemaking dreams that never quite make it to reality. It's so hard to find the time...
• My blood draw yesterday shows my hormones looking good...am continuing the weaning-from-the-meds process...
• Do any of you get Vogue delivered? Have you seen the September issue? I'm not supposed to lift anything over 10 pounds, and I think this might qualify. Insomnia's going to be a little more fun around here for the next night or two...
• I've been trying to get out for a walk in the early mornings this week, and the weather's been perfect...cool and lovely...and I live in an old historic downtown neighborhood that's got lots of interesting things to see...I never walk around my neighborhood...I'm always out to the wilderness for a hike but that's not really in the cards right now...the alternative has been really nice...
• I just agreed to send out 25 pages to my writing group in a few weeks. Which is great, because it guarantees I'll actually get something done
• My husband loves me :)
• I'm playing hooky from work tomorrow to meet up with a college friend who's here from California...staying in Denver...we're going to meet near Vail, which is halfway, and I can't wait. My freelance/telecommuting job is awesome, because I can say, "I'm tied up on Thursday," and that gets planned around, no questions asked

Hope everyone's having a great week!

XOXO

Image Credit: On to Baby via Diaper Style Memories.

Baby's/Babies' First Camping Trip :)

Hi Everyone!

Today I thought I'd share a few pictures from my camping trip this past weekend!

My brother and I met in Seargent, CO, which is off Highway 50 at the Western base of Monarch Pass. This is a great halfway meeting point for the two of us. We went up a dirt road towards Marshall Pass and found this great campsite in the National Forest. There was no one around, which was great, and a stream right across the road for our dogs (left, and the road was essentially untraveled, so no problem letting the dogs run loose).

Usually when I meet my brother to camp we hike and/or hit the hot springs during the day/evening, but right now I'm not allowed to do either of those things, so my brother brought his dirt bike and went riding (right) while I took a super easy walk, read and napped.

So my preferred mode of camping is backpacking, but I'm no snob about car camping (I'm always just happy to get out in the wilderness!), and camping with my brother's pop-up camper (top picture, in the background)) is the best thing ever when you're pregnant (and I imagine it's going to be awesome with babies/young children, too.) By the way, that's our new family-sized Jeep in the foreground (last time I was pregnant my husband had us trade in my 2-door for a 4-door.)

Lots of cows this trip (bottom picture; it's an open range up there). Noisy cows. And my littlest boxer rolled in cow poop the minute we got there...yuck! He and the rest of the dogs slept in the bed of my brother's pickup, instead of in the camper like they usually do.

Gorgeous sunset as seen from our camp (top), and of course a campfire (bottom)...love, love, love having campfires.

We're planning on going back in the fall when the aspen are turning...to a little spot we discovered up the road in this huge aspen grove...should be amazing.

Hope everyone's week is going well.

XOXO

E 1/2 Road Farmer's Market

My mom lives just a little ways away from me (which is sooooo awesome), and she has the most AMAZING organic garden every summer. She's really generous about sharing her flowers and produce; we jokingly call it the "E 1/2 Road Farmer's Market." (The way roads are named around here is crazy...have you ever seen letters with fractions?)

A couple pictures from the garden tour my mom took me on this morning...squash blossoms and ladybug love...

XO

Seattle, Day 6

A cloudy and cool walk on Alki beach, watching the ferries glide by...

Part of the reason we're on vacation is because we vacationed before my last IVF cycle, and I got pregnant, and I think being relaxed from that trip had something to do with it. Hoping to get pregnant again, obviously, and figured another trip couldn't hurt. 

Went all out on the relaxation front yesterday, with a nice little stroll on the beach in the morning, and an afternoon at the Olympus Spa. Love that place and have never seen anything else like it. There are a number of pools kept at different temperatures, a steam room, a sauna, and then a variety of rooms, most of them hot, you can go into and lie down...one with salt under sheets on the floor, one with sand, one with charcoal lining the walls, etc. There are pillows to lay your head on and you go from pool to steam to sauna to rooms...it's heaven. Not to mention the treatments...yesterday I had a body scrub and massage and moisturizing treatment.

I have a friend originally from Belarus here in Seattle, and she took me to this spa the first time...it's a great way to spend an afternoon with a girlfriend, although I went by myself this time and it was good to have some time for me, to get really relaxed and centered. Wow I really needed that indulgence...feel like a new woman. :)

XO

The Annual Father/Daughter Trip: A History

Here's my dad and I on the top of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. A couple years ago we hiked from the South Rim to the canyon floor up the other side and then back. About 50 miles round trip. Absolutely incredible...this is something I'll definitely be doing again.So since 2001 my dad and I have done a trip together almost every year...just the two of us. It's always one of the highlights of my year.

Where we've been:

• 2001: Reno, NV
• 2003: Utah and Arizona and Las Vegas
• 2004: Jeeping in the Colorado mountains (this is the trip where I learned how to take my Wrangler off-road. We did some incredibly hard stuff, and my dad made me drive the whole way. Even though I was scared. Even though HE was scared (there was one portion of the trail with a huge drop-off on his side where he got out and walked)
• 2005: We were supposed to go to Seattle together, but my brother/his son had just died, and I couldn't fathom traveling
• 2006: North Carolina Outer Banks
• 2007: Washington's Olympic National Park, Victoria, BC, San Juan Islands
• 2008: Jackson Hole and Yosemite (it snowed like crazy this trip, even though it was early June)
• 2009: Backpacking in the Grand Canyon
• 2010: Memphis and Mississippi (I was initially sceptical of how much fun we could have there, but this ended up being one of my favorite trips)

And this year, it's four glorious days hiking in Utah, starting tomorrow. I've just had a couple brutal work weeks and I cannot tell you how excited I am to be getting out into the desert with no phone, no computer, no obligations...just a girl and her dad hanging out and having a good time.

Back Tuesday. Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend! :)

XO

Summer Fun List

The Grand Mesa is the country's (or maybe the world's?) biggest flat top mountain, and it's right in my backyard. My parents have a canoe and I bet they can be persuaded to take it out on one of the many lakes up there...

In honor of the official start of summer, ten things I want to do before Labor Day rolls around:

1. Eat a fresh strawberry ice cream cone at Enstrom's (I'll probably have more than one, to be honest) 
2. Watch a drive in movie in Delta (this is apparently one of the last drive in movie theaters in the country)
3. Go swimming in Highline Lake
4. Picnic
5. Play bocce
6. Have a fire and make s'mores
7. Canoe in one of the lakes on the Mesa
8. Sunbathe (I know, I know, it's bad for you, and I won't do it a lot...it just feels soooo good to relax in the sun...)
9. Eat lots of local corn and peaches...in fact, when they're in season, I may eat little else...
10. Ride the rides at Elitches

So glad summer is here! :)

What's on your list? Very curious to hear...

XO

{Image Credit: hojaleaf.}

What I'm Listening to: The Foo Fighters Wasting Light

Love, love, love the Foo Fighters. (And Dave Grohl is my celebrity crush.) Their new album, Wasting Light, is all I've been listening to for the past week or so, and it is AMAZING. Love.

One of my best concert experiences ever was in the fall of 2005. My lovely friend Clayton took me down to LA to see a benefit concert for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and Dave Grohl played an acoustic set. I don't remember the venue, but it was one of those cool old music venues in LA, small and ornate and it was like a Tuesday night or something and the place was PACKED. Halfway through the set someone yelled out "'Skin and Bones'!" and Dave Ghrol said, "How the F@#! do you know about 'Skin and Bones'?" (He'd just written it, it had yet to be released.) And then he proceeded to play it, in all its haunting beauty. He also played 'Friend of a Friend,' which is about Kurt Cobain, also something that had yet to be released, also so sad and so beautiful.

This was in the recent aftermath of my brother being killed. I'll always remember that night as a little pool of light in my (at the time) dark, dark, dark world.

Love the Foo Fighters. Love that music can make me so happy.

XO

Poppies Make Me Happy

My favorite plant that we have in our gardens is the poppy I planted the summer we moved in. I love the color of these flowers, I love the shape, I love the green fuzziness of the pods. I think I feel so attached to poppies partly because when I was a little girl, there was a huge field of them down the meadow from the little log cabin where we lived.

There were one or two poppies in our garden last week, but I looked out the window this morning as I was fixing my herbal tea and they had gone crazy overnight. Yay!

Last year I was traveling to Boston for work a lot, and there was one week where it became apparent that they needed me the following week, too. I flew all the way home to Colorado for a day and then back the next, to see my husband, sure, but also beacuse the poppies were blooming and I didn't want to miss them entirely. Ridiculous, I know, but that's how much I love poppies.

Hope everyone has a great week!

XO

Chickens and Eggs

Happy Monday, Everyone!

My mom gave me eggs over the weekend, something she does on a regular basis. The eggs come from a friend of hers who has chickens. My dad and I were in the friend's neighborhood last summer, and we stopped by. Happy chickens running around a big grassy yard (with some big friendly dogs keeping them company). The eggs are so yummy, and they've got to be so good for you, and I love that the chickens have a good life (I'm a total softie for animals. I really should be a vegetarian.)

I grew up on a farm with chickens...they got shipped overnight as day-old chicks in a big cardboard box, and the post office would call my mom and say, "Can you please come pick up your package? The peeping is driving us CRAZY!" The babies would live in the kitchen, fenced in by walls of cardboard, with orange-red glowing heat lamps to keep them warm, until they were big enough to go to the chicken coop. Nothing's cuter than a fluffy pale yellow chick.

Anyway, I'm really cranky today/woke up on the wrong side of the bed (not sure why...probably has something to do with working a lot over the weekend), and trying to focus on the good things in my life. Eggs from these chickens--and remembering baby chicks--make me happy. 

XO

You Know You Live in a Small Town When...

One of the gophers we saw on Sunday. This little guy let us get up close for a picture...my husband joked this gopher must be on the "Gopher/Human Relations" Committee. "They know that if we think they're cute, we won't kill 'em," he said.

You guys are going to think I'm kidding when I tell you this, but I'm not. Often my husband and I will go out for lunch or dinner and then have the following conversation:

Me (or him): "What do you want to do now?"

Him (or me): "I don't know...go visit the gophers?"

There's some undeveloped land a couple miles from our house that's got a gopher colony...they're actually prairie dogs, but we call them gophers because the first time we saw them they were hanging out in a vacant lot next to a convenience store called "Go-pher Foods."

Anyway, an endless source of amusement for us is to drive by and check out what the prairie dogs are doing. We miss the big city, but have certainly found ways to entertain ourselves...

Small towns. Gotta love 'em...

XO

A Little Splurge...

ALL IMAGES: MISSIVE VIA ETSY.

I always get around to writing thank you cards or notes I owe people eventually, but it takes me a while and I think part of that is that for a long time, I haven't had any stationary I like. I've been wanting to get something I'm in love with for a while, but I always seem to talk myself out of it. What I've been wanting is something letterpress printed, which is not the most economical...

But today: new stationary! From this lovely shop on Etsy called Missive...so in love with all the beautiful little things there. Totally made my day to splurge on something beautiful...

An Artsy Weekend...I'm a Happy Girl

So if I still lived in Seattle or San Francisco, or were in Boston, a weekend like this would be easy to put together. But not that much happens in Grand Junction, so having all this stuff in one weekend was such a treat. 

Friday: Went to a poetry reading, a fundraiser for the Western Colorado Writer's Forum. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer writes gorgeous poems, sings with the prettiest voice imaginable and looks like a beauty queen...it was such a pleasure to be in her presence. I took home the book to the left and also learned of her poem-a-day blog, which you can access HERE.

Saturday: On our way to breakfast at the Dream Cafe, I saw a poster for a show that night at the Radio Room. Danielle Ate the Sandwich is a performer I wanted to see in Denver last summer but didn't get to, so how great to see her here, in a small venue. She's as funny as her songs are beautiful...it was the best show I've been to in a long time. Oh, and she plays the ukulele, which made me totally miss making music with my friend Charlie when we both lived at the Cota House in Santa Barbara. Her newest CD, which I took home, is above. Go see if she comes to your town...her website with her tour dates is HERE.

Sunday: I was really excited to see Black Swan, but I figured I’d have to wait for video, because art movies aren’t big here/don’t often make it to this small town (although some do come to the Avalon…so grateful for that). But I got to see it on the big screen! More than anything the movie is just so visually beautiful. The visual of the ballerina literally turning into a black swan was unbelievable and something that will stay in my head for a long time.

I love the arts and don't usually get enough. One of the hardest things about living in a small town. Grateful for weekends like this.

Road Trips. Love Them.

Utah's so beautiful, in a wild, desolate kind of way...

It sucks the reason we’re driving to Las Vegas (my husband’s father’s sick), but oh, do I ever love to go on long drives. I’ve done this particular drive a lot, too, as it’s how I used to get to and from visiting my parents when I lived in Southern California. Out of Colorado on I-70, then hours and hours in the wilds of Utah…there are two 100-mile stretches right off the bat of nothingness, no gas, no towns, no cell phone service. The rock formations and the desert are covered with snow right now and very beautiful. The roads were good and the sun was out. We turned up the stereo and sang along to songs from the 70s and 80s—Funkytown, Eye of the Tiger, I Will Survive. We stopped for sandwiches at the I-15 junction in a place with enormous deer and elk heads (hunting trophies) all over the walls. Poor animals, but the hunting trophy thing is so iconic and Western, it made me smile. And then coming into Vegas they were doing training exercises out of Nellis Air Force Base, we opened the sunroof, got to see fighter planes up close. Don’t know why, but I love watching those planes. My husband and I always have good, deep, big-picture conversations when we’re driving, too.

Good drive. Fun drive.