It's a Beautiful Morning

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Saturday at the Balloon Fiesta

The morning starts early when you're headed to the Balloon Fiesta. We set the alarm for 5 am and upon waking warmed up the yummy breakfast burritos we had prepared the night before. We rode a bus down to the field and got there while it was still dark.

Gordon being a jungle gym for the girls.

From 2008_10_11

I don't know why, or what reasoning is behind this, but several of the balloonists were turning on their burners.

From 2008_10_11

To our disappointment, this is the only balloon we saw this morning. It was deemed too windy and it was never erected, and none of the rest of the balloons filled up at all.

From 2008_10_11

The fun wasn't over though! Creamland Dairy put out their set up tarp and let us play for a good while with it! People were just holding the edges and the wind was playing with it, making it swell up and down like waves. Did you ever play with a parachute in elementary school? It was like that only bigger, Much Much bigger!

From 2008_10_11

Thankyou Creamland Dairy! You saved the day!
We rode the bus home feeling like it was a really fun morning, even without the balloons!

Friday Morning

Gordon left for work and I was settling down for a lazy morning since there was no school for Columbus day. Then he called me, with exciting news. Because of the direction of the wind 20+ balloons were setting up to take off from the field next to his building. He we adamant that I should rush out the door so we could all enjoy it together. I was reluctant for a few minutes to put my book down. (I'm reading the Twilight series currently). But I relented and we got there in time to watch, and help, a couple balloons set up and take off.

My view driving to Gordon's office.

From 2008_10_10

Gordon and Lily

From 2008_10_10

Me and my girls

From 2008_10_10

The flame thrower they say could heat a three bedroom house in one and a half minutes.

From 2008_10_10

Gordon being a helper

From 2008_10_10

Take off!

From 2008_10_10

Fun With Friends

I had a sighting of what I thought couldn't be, but looked a lot like an old friend from Georgia. We haven't lived there for four years now, so I didn't trust my memory completely. So I didn't stop or ask the man his name, afraid it would be some random stranger. What I did do was go home and Google them. Since the husband has such a unique name it wasn't hard to locate them via the web and I contacted them through their blog. I came to find out it was him! I should have interrupted him! We all thought it was crazy to find each other again. They don't actually live here, he was here on business, but they came just a couple of weeks later as a family for the Balloon Fiesta, so we were able to play a couple of times.

Here we are at Explora, our children's museum.

Kelly, her three boys and two of my girls. This is an exhibit were they have a camera that you can make puppet style movies with, then play them back.

From 2008_10_09

Here are the giant Lincoln Logs

From 2008_10_09

Eli being cute

From 2008_10_09

My budding musician

From 2008_10_09

giant bubbles!

From 2008_10_09

Sorry I'm slow

I've been busy and I'll try to prove it with posting a little about it. First though, just a couple pictures for your pleasure.

From 2008_10_09

We don't torture our kids on purpose, sometimes it just happens. Eve had been riding her bike around in the garage then left it too close to the door. When Gordon came home and opened the garage door it carried the bike with it. She was upset we made her wait until after I took a picture before bringing it down to safety.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

How Cool! A Frog!

From 2008_10_05

I caught in my front yard last night! I haven't been able to figure out which kind it is yet. I've been looking at a identification chart online, but they all look so similar to each other. So I've e-mailed a picture to a professor here at UNM and hopefully he gets back to me. I'm just keeping him in a bin with some water and some bloodworms (food left-over from our last African frog that died.) I'll probably let him go today, but it's so fun to have a frog. If I find out that he's not poisonous, I might keep him as a pet.

edited to add: letters from UNM professors

Thanks for sending the image. I think it is a spadefoot toad, but I'm not certain. The defining character for that is hard, dark colored "spur" on the bottom of each hind foot. Do you know if those spurs were present? The young of this species are common this time of year as they have recently metamorphosed from tadpoles that developed in temporary ponds of water left from the summer rains.

If it isn't a spadefoot toad it might be a Canyon Treefrog, but those aren't common in the NE Heights and the eyes don't look quite right for that species. There are a couple of other possibilities.

From the picture, the frog looks like the New Mexico
spadefoot (Spea multiplicata). As Howard indicated in his
email, it should have a black, wedge-shaped "spur" on the
bottom of each foot. There is another very similar toad
that is common in our area: the Plains spadefoot (Spea
bombifrons). What sets it apart from the New Mexico
spadefoot is a bony "bump" on the top of the head, right
between the eyes. I do not see that clearly in the picture
and am therefore inclined to call the toad in the picture
a New Mexico spadefoot. Both species have been known to
hybridize where they occur together, so it is possible
that this one is a mix!

This is a good find because I have heard that these toads
are not as abundant in Albuquerque as they used to be,
especially near the Rio Grande.

BTW, I did let him go, we kept him for a day then let him out in our front yard where I found him.

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Why We Got Up Early Friday Morning!

The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta has started! To kick it off balloons were put off at schools all over the city. There were four balloons at the school we went to. It was nice to be there with a smaller crowd, you could get up close and ask questions. We met some of our friends there and had a great time.

Set up:

From 2008_10_03

Collect cards:

From 2008_10_03

Start to fill:

From 2008_10_03

Stand Up:

From 2008_10_03

Lift off:

From 2008_10_03

Brace yourselves for more Balloon Fiesta fun! We'll be participating a couple times this week. It's so fun, we'll be seeing balloons in the sky every morning, weather permitting. Hooray!