Takin' it Easy...

Hello, All!  We took a short break from blogging last week because, well, we didn't really have anything to talk about!  We have been taking it kind of easy the past couple weeks.  To catch you up on what has been going on, I'll just start at where I stopped last.  The weekend of the 14-15th - the weather was really nasty and cold here.  We really didn't want to do anything!  We didn't want to waste our time either, so we decided to visit the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.  We have several museums we are saving for nasty days just like that weekend!  We had a lot of fun!  We spent the day walking around and exploring.  We saw lots of dinosaurs and rocks and minerals from the area.  We also took a walk through time.  Very interesting!

Here are some photos of our adventure...

This is an example of how tall a brachiosorous's leg is (compared to Neal)!!

This past week has been a bit more interesting..  I began volunteering at the base's thrift shop!  Please, try to hold your excitement!  But, I am very excited to finally have something to do during the week - and people to talk to when Neal is at school.  Not only will it help me stay occupied but it's nice to do something for the community too!

On a less positive note, I have run into some bad health lately.  I have decided that this "high desert" climate is not fit for human life.  I'll explain...when we first arrived here, we were told that allergies were so bad here.  I had to keep from laughing at that (my fellow Missourians are the ones who can talk about bad allergies!)  After all, there aren't any trees or grass or flowers here!  Well, this past week I was sadly mistaken.  The allergies started getting to me and this dry weather just made it worse.  Mix that with an anti-histimine and I got a really BAD nosebleed!  Since then, I have had 2 more nosebleeds!  Of the 3, the second was the absolute worst and we were having trouble controlling it.  I even starting feeling pretty lightheaded and woozy.  Yikes!  Definitely keeping an eye on that!

Since then, allergies have cleared up, and so has the bleeding (I hope!).  This made for another low key weekend.  We did manage to make it to the Founder's Day Festival in Old Town!  Founder's Day is the birthday celebration for Albuquerque every year.  This year, Albuquerque turned 306!  The festival had entertainment all day featuring the different influences of the culture here in Albuquerque.  There was everything from a Mariachi band and Flamenco dancers, country western Do-Si-Do dancers, real Native American tribes, western shoot outs, and even Irish folk dancers.  Irish?  Yep!  I was as confused as you are!  Apparently the Irish have a pretty big influence here.  From what I have found, the Irish - along with the rest of America at the time - began moving West in search of a better life.  The Irish in particular enjoyed New Mexico because of the large Catholic influence - mainly because of the Spanish.  Anyway, we had a great day and took it pretty easy the rest of the weekend!

The Mexican dancers and Mariachi band...

Weird big statues representing the different cultures...

The Irish!

The gunslinger shoot out...

A strange monk that was wandering around...

The Parade..

These banners represent the family crests of the city's founders...

And this guy thought he needed to be in the parade as well.... 

As for us right now, I am feeling much better!  Neal is getting ready to start flying in just a few weeks!  He may have a long weekend this weekend so we may do something SUPER fun!  Be sure to check back! :)