Notice I plan to skip any discussion of the absolute nightmare of packing, cleaning, loading, and hauling our stuff out of our third floor apartment, into the on-site garage we rented, from the garage into the moving truck, and out of our moving truck into our darling home in Houston. You don't want to read about that, and blogs are only for good news, right? At least we didn't drive the truck.
Ok, so back to Albuquerque. We decided that would be a good stopping point on our journey to Houston and since we ended up cancelling our scheduled family vacation for the fall because of our move we decided to make a trip out of it.
First, a plug for hotels.com: We found a totally great 4-star boutique hotel in Albuquerque that had a real crib for Cate. Boy is the real crib a game changer! So many hotels have switched to Pack-n-Plays, but from now on the real crib is an official Major Family Requirement for travel. We should have taken a picture of it, but we didn't. Here, however, is a picture of one of the darling alcoves that dotted the lobby:
Well, shoot. That didn't work and we didn't take any photos ourselves. If you're headed to Albuquerque, check it out: www.hotelandaluz.com.
So it took about 12 hours to get to Albuquerque from Salt Lake and Cate was such a trooper in the car. She was her usual mellow self, spent a lot of time sleeping, and basically only fussed when she was hungry or needed a change. Once we got to Albuquerque we did all sorts of fun things:
The Hot Air Balloon Museum
Albuquerque is the undisputed hot air balloon capitol of the world, and being from a world capitol myself, I appreciate this. About 800,000 people go to Albuquerque each year in October to see more than 500 balloons participate in the Balloon Fiesta. I just love hot air balloons and hope we can go back some October, but for now the museum was great fun. We're faking hot air ballooning in the above photo. (Does anyone else think hot air balloons are kind of like sea horses and dragonflies--almost too whimsical and fantastic to be real?)
The Zoo
You, Reader, know that animals are really not my thing, but something about having a baby makes you feel like you should go to the zoo (NB: the Houston Zoo is free the first Tuesday of every month an in effort to be a Good Mom I've already got it on the calendar through the end of the year). Here are a few photos from the zoo, but to get the full effect you really need to imagine the 100+ degree weather and the smell. Don't forget to imagine that while you look at these:
You, Reader, know that animals are really not my thing, but something about having a baby makes you feel like you should go to the zoo (NB: the Houston Zoo is free the first Tuesday of every month an in effort to be a Good Mom I've already got it on the calendar through the end of the year). Here are a few photos from the zoo, but to get the full effect you really need to imagine the 100+ degree weather and the smell. Don't forget to imagine that while you look at these:
The baby elephant is smaller than Zuri, the baby elephant at Hogle Zoo in SLC, so seeing it was a bonus. When I saw Zuri earlier this summer I sort of wished I hadn't been so lazy and had gone to see her when she was first born. It's not like elephants are born in captivity every day, ya know? Or out of captivity for that matter, I guess. Did you know elephants are pregnant for two years? Sheesh.The Aquarium
This was attached to the zoo and we spent about 5 minutes there. Not to be an aquarium snob, but something about being from the Monterey Bay makes all other aquariums seem totally not worth the time. Half our time there was spent taking this less than mediocre photo of Miss C:
Let's be honest: could she look more ridiculous? You can tell I'm not a real blogger because real bloggers only post great pictures of their kids. The Botanical Garden
Also attached to the zoo and the aquarium. Highlight was the butterfly exhibit, but to be honest there weren't quite enough butterflies to enchant Cate as we'd hoped (good news: there is a butterfly exhibit here in Houston that is apparently packed with 'em so we'll have another shot at butterfly induced enchantment).
Spa Day/Daddy-Daughter Date
I spent one glorious morning at the spa while Sam and Cate had a Daddy-Daughter date at the hotel. I'm pretty sure they watched X-Men or Star Trek. Meanwhile, I was being pampered at Betty's Blissful Day Spa. Perfect!
Santa Fe
We took the train to Santa Fe for a day and wandered the shops, checked out the street vendors (bedazzled portraits of Michael Jackson for $400, anyone? How about Princess Di for $550?), and ate Mexican food. The highlights of Santa Fe were the Georgia O’Keefe museum and the Chuck Jones gallery. The Chuck Jones gallery also had some cool Dr. Seuss originals. Bugs Bunny and The Cat in the Hat in the same day as that big orange poppy: what more could you want?!
From Albuquerque, it was on to Dallas for one night and then we made the final four-hour drive from Dallas to Houston. Just like that, we were here in the Bayou City! Cate started crawling the day we got here and hasn't stopped since.
Because this post is sorely lacking in photos of Cate, which I know is what you, Reader, came for, here's a video of her. I can't figure out how to flip this so that it's going the right way so if you, Reader, know how please let me know. Shockingly, Microsoft Help was no help. Anyway, here she is:
