Can It Be?!

 

 Ugh, I accidentally published this before putting any words in!  Doh.

Sorry it's taken so long for an update.  For those of you who don't know...not sure what 2 people in the world that might be...but we've moved from Livermore to Albuquerque, NM!

We left the end of September, caravan style!  The truck was loaded up with mattresses, our table, the vacuum, a rug.  The van and trailer was packed full of everything else we needed.


We had to make a pit-stop in Barstow, CA again.  In fact, we found the same park we went to when we were going from NC to CA!  We ran around the skate park...

...our climbing skills have improved...

...took photos with tanks...

"Hey, what's in here?"

...played on a caboose...

Then we were on our way.  We stopped at Kaibab Lake near Williams, AZ to camp for the night.  Brook got up the next morning and spent it capturing grasshoppers and finding flowers for her grasshoppers.  She even enlisted another camper or two to help her.

We then dropped by the Meteor Crater--"The best preserved meteorite crater on Earth!"
Here you can see it on Google Maps.
Yup, that's a crater behind them.

It was a pretty neat museum, too.

This was located at the bottom of the crater--can you see the astronaut in the bottom right corner??  That's the size of a 6' man.  We had to strain our eyes to see it from the observation area.

Sigh.  This photo represents a lot.
It was before we even saw the crater, before we even saw the museum.
It was the first thing Sam saw--I thought he was running to this thing to jump up and take a peek, not try to CLIMB OVER IT. 
Note:  On the other side was a good 30' drop.
As I snapped this photo I realized he was NOT going for a quick peek, dropped my camera and screamed at him to stop.  There was a woman sitting directly to the right who jumped up and grabbed him down.  I was bawling and shaking and he was just pissed that I dragged him down.
I was so scared and mad and upset, I had to take a breather away from him, fearing I'd say something I'd regret.  A half hour after perusing the gift shop, I went back out to where he and Russ were sitting and we had a bit of a chat. 
Oy vey.

My headless children.

This pretty much sums up what trying to go to a museum is like...

Time to be done and get back on the road.

After a 2 day, 17+ hour road trip, we were finally at our hotel!!  Thank heavens it was quite comfy and had a fantastic pool.

Still, after living in a hotel for a week, we were SO ready to get a place to live!!  We were hoping to get something near the mountain, but the problem with Albuquerque-ians is that they are quite laid back.  In fact, so laid back that no one returns phone calls or emails.Quite frustrating when one is house hunting.
We did have one place in our back pocket--a co-worker of Corinne's was getting ready to rent out his house.  It's relatively close to work for Russ, and pretty close to fun stuff for us.  Nice neighborhood...and when we went to look at it, we were sold and were able to move in within a day or two.

Living room, looking through kitchen to family room/dining room.

Other side of living room.

Front yard.

Hallway going from living room to extra bedroom (to the left), main bathroom (to the right), and master bedroom (straight ahead).

Master bedroom (with Sam passed out in exhaustion).

Other side of Master.

Around the corner of Master. 
To the right there is the master bath, straight through is the family room/dining room.

Master bath.

Family room/dining room.
To right is kitchen (obviously), to left is Brook's room, behind me is sliding glass doors to backyard and the french doors to master bedroom.

Brook's room.

Kitchen, from family room/dining room. 
Just to the left is the laundry area and then the garage.

So far we are in love with this place and will be sad if we have to leave in 5 months.
Hopefully will get more posted soon!  I have lots to catch up on...