Let's see if I can remember what we've done this week... On Wednesday we loaded everybody up and drove down to Old Town. Did you know that Albuquerque was founded (or established or whatever they call it!) over 300 years ago?! Wild, hu?! Sometime we'll go and take the tours in Old Town and learn all about it, but it was WAY too cold to do it on Wednesday! We did look for a restaurant that Brother VanDeventer said he used to go to when he came to Albuquerque on business years ago. We found La Hacienda and walked up to the door, only to find a sign saying that they were closed for renovations. It did, however, say that they had another location on the south plaza, so we wandered over there and found Casa De Fiesta. WOWZERS. It was fantastic! I got a chimichanga and James ordered some mexican steak thing. The kids split the tostada plate. Everything--including the salsa--was soooooo good. But it was a bit beyond my limits in the spice department. Still, it was too good to not eat, so I just suffered through it. James's must have been pretty spicy, too, because his nose was almost as drippy as mine! My Dad would have LOVED the food, but his head would have been all red with little beads of sweat dripping down his cheeks. Ha! I love it when he eats Mexican food! Anyway, it was delicioso! ;-)

This was really cool. The kids could move the little "plates" to direct the waterflow in different directions and create little streams, then float their balls down them.

The kids loved the "walking sticks." Neat-o, hu?! Of all things, SAM wouldn't hold it!

There was a large fan in front of the airplane and you could control the amount of air, simulating your speed in a real airplane. Once you had that part figured out you could lift off and try to fly the thing. James enjoyed it. :-)

Joe did, too, but he took it quite seriously!

Ha! This was great! You were supposed to try to put all of the nails into the holes, but air was blowing up through the holes and the more of them you filled the harder the air would push until it would send several nails would go flying out. Ha! Joe didn't get the concept very well and I just kept pushing him. "Come on, Joe--get 'em all in! You can do it!!!" The harder he tried, the more nails he lost. Ha! Ha! It was great. :-)



This was hilarious, too. I don't think it would actually classify as a "hall of mirrors" in the sense I've always thought of it. (I've always wanted to go through a mirror maze--that would be so cool!) This was just a small square room with mirrored walls. No matter--Katie and Sam BOTH walked right into a wall before they made it back out! Ha!

The bubble pond!

One of the many music rooms. There were sooooo many cool things in this area, but most of them would have been boring pictures.

Out on the deck they had these great slats that the kids could build with. I'd love to have some of our own so they could construct their own forts in the back yard. :-)

See James standing over there in front of that giant orange thing? That is called a Whisper Disc. There was another one right behind where I was standing when I took the picture. He could whisper into his disc and I could here him wa-a-a-a-a-ay over where I was! Wow! How cool is that?!

We didn't get a chance to try this and I'm not sure anybody would have had the guts to do it anyway. This bike was up on the 2nd floor. You got strapped into it, then peddled out on a wire across the big open spaces underneath you, then back again. Ha! I DON'T THINK SO!


By the time we were done at the musuem I was sooooo tired! We went back to the motel and the kids and I all crashed. I think I slept for almost 2 hours!!! Joe was very feverish the other night and did a whole lot of extra sleeping and Katie has been a little raspy and had a cough for the past few days. I wondered if my extreme need for sleep was my body fighting off any of the same stuff. ??? Anyway, it helped and I felt great afterwards.

That night we had a Pizza Party, complete with Totino's (they actually fit in our new toaster oven--without having to cut or break them!), Coke, popcorn, and Lucy. That's right, we bought our own collections of I Love Lucy and Wanted: Dead or Alive. We never have cable, so when we travel we enjoy watching HGTV and Animal Planet. This motel has neither. We have found a few things on the Discovery Channel but for the most part it's just the usual cable trash, so we thought it worthwhile to invest in a few oldies but goodies. It gives us something else to do while we're sitting around, wondering what to do with ourselves! Anyway, it was great to have a Pizza Party again. :-)

Thursday. Hhmmm. Maybe that WAS Thursday! I don't know anymore! Maybe it's Wednesday that I can't remember. I know that yesterday James did some running around town, looking for a Christian book store. (Can you believe there is no Mardel OR Family Christian Store in a city this size?! CRAZY!!!) The kids and I stayed "home" and had devotions, then a real, full session of school. ~sigh~ That was great! We had sandwhiches for lunch, just like the good old days. :-)

In the afternoon James came home and we all loaded up and went to visit Sister Grimes. We had a nice time with her and her daughter, Pat. Afterwards we went to Hobby Lobby, then headed up to the east mountains again, our new home. We didn't drive up to the house to pester the poor man who still calls it home, we just drove around to check out some more things in the area. Went to the bank and had me added to the account (we couldn't to it the first time because I have this little problem remembering the last four digits of my social security number), then went into the cute little grocery stores up there, just to see what they offer and how bad the prices are. They actually have lots to offer and most of the prices were pretty good, too. And the stores were cute! Almost as cute as the 84 year old owner, "Charlie," as he introduced himself. :-)