More Beauty

I couldn't fit all of the balloon pictures that I wanted to on one blog, so here are some more. The alien over the balloon is just for Donele. And if you notice one of the balloon baskets has a black banner hanging over the edge...yea, it was a marriage proposal. Cool huh..
Enjoy Again

6:00a.m on a Saturday--what were we thinking????

So for all of the week of getting up between 5:30 and 6:00 you would wonder what would make us sacrifice a Saturday sleep in chance--these beautiful hot air balloons. There is an event here called "The Old Timers Balloon Festival". There are an average of 40-50 hot air balloons that come to Roswell. And on a Saturday and Sunday morning they launch their balloons. We very much enjoy seeing them all because they are all soooo cool. We went in 2008 and one of the pilots came looking for volunteers to help them get their balloon launched and in return he took us all up with him. Not all at the same time, but it was still a super-fun experience. By the time we got there this morning though, all the balloon teams already had their volunteers so we missed out on that chance again. Oh well, it was still really fun to go and watch them. We like it because we can walk around very close to where they set up--like feel the heat from the burner close. It is fun to watch the process of them filling and launching the balloons. So, here are some of the pictures that we took. If you want more, let me know and I will e-mail some more to you. Enjoy.

Quincenara

So, a week ago and yes, I am slow, one of Nikole's friends named China had her Quincenara (keen-sen-yara). It is like the Mexican/Catholic celebration of a girls 15th birthday. It is the way they celebrate the transformation from young girl to womanhood. It was a good experience for us to all have. It gave us another look into a different culture and its traditions. The first part of the ceremony takes place in a church and the girl has a court that preceedes her. Typically it is 7 girls and 7 boys (plus her equals 15). She is escorted in and presented to the congregation. There are presentations of gifts--a kneeling pillow to remind her to pray always for guidance--a tiara to remind her that she is a princess in the sight of her Lord--a necklace, bracelet, and earrings to symbolize womanhood--and a last doll to symbolize the last gift of childhood. There were some other things, but I can't remember what all they were for. The birthday girl also wears in flats, and someone (usually the father) will change her flats for heels---leaving behind the childhood and going into adulthood.
After the religous part of the Quince' there is a migration to a different building where the "celebration" part of it takes place. Here there is a meal served and a cake cut. There is also a dance if the family so chooses.
The whole thing very closely resembled a wedding/type event without the groom. Like I said, it was a fun experience for us to have. Anyway, here are some pictures of it.

The After Photos - Part 1

Here are some photos of the work we have done to our house. We will post more as we get those areas cleaned and get images.

This is the entry way - changed the color to a light gray but it looks more blue.














We don't have a before of this one. But it was painted the same as the entry (both before and after) and the cabinet at the end was re-stained. The old stain looked similar to the door on the left in the entry.








This is a close up of the cabinet. Trying to show the trim.

The Gardens

Here are the pictures of the Botanical Gardens. We spent most of our time in the Japanese Gardens. There was also an awesome zen garden. Gave us some ideas for our back yard...Enjoy...I had to throw in the picture of Nikole because it is just so darn beautiful!!

ITS OFFICIAL

Philip, Nikole, Meganne and I took our last Sierra Middle School field trip on Wednesday. We went with Meganne's M.E.S.A group--the whole club, not just her windmill team. There were about 33 kids that went and the 3 advisors. We went to the Albuquerque zoo, the M.E.S.A group then went to the aquarium and Nikole, Philip and I went to the Botanical Gardens. The zoo was really fun because the weather was cool enough that the animals were active. Polar bears playing with big blue balls, elephants rolling tires...actually, I have got to tell you about the polar bears. One of them was playing with the ball the majority of the time. He would be on a rock and put the ball in the water then attempt to belly plop onto the ball. It would go shooting up and the bear would go down into the water. Funny funny. Then he decided he needed to get the ball to the top of the exhibit so he rolled it up the little ramp, waterfall thing they have. When he got it to the top he was joined by the other bear. Then he worked the ball up the wall and pushed it off to the outside of the exhibit. He stood there looking over the wall and then the other one went and looked over the wall as well as if to say "huh, guess I shouldn't have done that" to which the other one replies "ya think"!! It was hilarious!!!
Anyway, here are some pictures taken by our future zoologist/wildlife photograper (Nikole). After we were done there, we went to this HUGE pizza/arcade place called IT'Z. It was an awesome place. Anyway, it was a good ending of an era...onto high school :)

FINALLY!!!

For those out there wanting to see pictures of the house--too bad--just kidding. These are some that we took before we moved in. I will get after pictures on soon. We have since changed the dark brown entry way to a slate blue. The pantry is not pink anymore. We did it a dark brown and dark tan color. We haven't really done much to the kitchen (replaced the cooktop) or the living room or the "bonus" room. We are in the process of getting some grass in our back yard. The renters grew a really good crop of weeds and goatheads--I hate goatheads!!! We basically doubled our square footage from our previous place so furniture is a bit scarce, but we are slowly getting there. Updates to come.....
Sorry it took so long--I was STRONGLY encouraged to keep up the blog, so I will try and do better.