Play, play, play...

When the Teichert’s play, we play hard! The last two weeks have been incredibly enjoyable as we’ve spent all the time possible with Fred, Dalene, Jeff, Jerry and Shirley.

Just as our tears were drying because Grandma and Grandpa Teichert and Uncle Jeff had to leave and go back to Utah, Grandma and Grandpa Milne paid us a wonderful visit! We got to eat the Duke City Pizza Special at Dion’s (Turkey and Green Chili), visit the children’s museum, have a “pool party” in our back yard, eat ice cream, visit the aquarium and botanical gardens, see the “Glowdeo”, ride a train and see the Mass Ascension at the Balloon Fiesta, eat Pasties, and sing Happy Birthday to Grandpa. Did I mention we just played and played and played?

Boy is it going to be hard to get back to the regular day-to-day… We sure love our family!

El Cerro de Los Lunas and the Village Idiot

I’ve wanted to climb and explore “El Cerro de Los Lunas” (or for you gringo’s like me- that big honking hill/mountain that looms outside of my neighborhood). So last week, Lisa entertained my foolish ambition and let me wander on a mountain in the desert as long as I promised to be home by dinner.

Legend has it, or at least the kind folks at the Los Lunas Parks and Recreation informed me, that a local landowner donated over 1,500+ acres to the village as “a nature preserve” to be enjoyed by all those who wish to enjoy the rugged, desolate, steep, and rocky outcropping. (BTW-New Mexico likes to call cities “villages”- I guess hiking alone in the desert on a mountain makes me the village idiot?)

It probably took me about an hour to hike up crude trails and scramble up lava rock and dry beds to reach the summit; my “map” which was given to me by the Los Lunas Ranger upon request says the peak is 5,827 ft. Admittedly, I “meandered” quite a bit looking for petroglyphs and signs of ancient civilization, and spaceships. Although, I was bummed I didn’t get to see a spaceship I did see two C-130’s from Kirtland AFB fly overhead, which if you haven’t seen them they are huge!

On my descent, I stopped at the Los Lunas High School letters on the southeast side of the mountain and ran into a couple of high school kids ditching school. They were nice, just wanted to hide out for awhile… note to self, if you want to hide-out don’t pick a mountain face visible to the whole Rio Grande Valley…

After wandering for about two hours I found some really amazing petroglyphs which only increased my interest to take on the mountain again sometime soon… Of course, further expeditions will have to wait for another time.

Just so you all know, and in case you were wondering- I made it home in time for dinner.

What an incredible weekend!

We had so much fun having Grandma Dalene, Grandpa Fred and Uncle Jeff come visit us this past week. We played and played and then crashed in front of conference... whew!
We got to go to the aquarium, botanical gardens, natural history museum, El Pinto, Balloon Fiesta, and eat yummy peaches! We can't wait to see them again, but boy are we all tired!

We love you family,

Austin & Allie

Family Fiesta 2009

Boy are we missing our family already! Grandma Dalene, Grandpa Fred and Uncle Jeff came to Albuquerque to play this weekend and we had so much fun. I'll try to post more details but I wanted to quickly get a few pictures of Balloon Fiesta up... truly it was mass happiness! More to come...

Love you family!