Family Time

We have had the opportunity to hang out with a lot of family lately.  We have a full house the past couple weeks, starting with my dad who arrived from Thailand.  We went to the casino and did a little shopping before Jesse had a soccer game.  

Nicole, Matthew, and Chloe arrived the next day, which happened to be Nicole's birthday!  We celebrated with a nice dinner at Los Poblanos.

Before Rachel joined us, we went to church, watched the World Cup soccer final (go Germany!), went shopping, swimming, and enjoyed some fun in the sun at our park & playground.

After Rachel came and we had the whole gang together, we headed toward the Puye Cliff Dwellings.  I had never been there before, and they are quite remarkable.  We enjoyed a short tour before being scared off by thunder and lightning!   

The next day was the highlight of Nicole & Matt's trip: the Breaking Bad tour. [See what I did there?]  We traveled in the meth lab RV, received some samples of the blue stuff (courtesy of the Candy Lady) and visited a number of the Breaking Bad shooting locations.

We also headed up to Santa Fe and Madrid, stopping at my new favorite gallery.  (An you can definitely tell Jesse was excited to pose for that picture with me!)

On our way back, we went up to Sandia Crest and took a lot of pictures of the great view.

After dinner (and Daddy made a lot of good Thai dinners for us), we watched the Albuquerque Isotopes come from behind to beat the Sacramento River Cats.

We went rock climbing on Nicole, Matthew, and Chloe's last day.  We took (and I am posting) a number of pictures of all of us climbing but really you only need to see one.  I mean -- just look at this little cutie doing the splits, on purpose, while 15 feet off the ground.  That girl is fearless! 

We had a lovely end of the day spending time at Bruce's house.  They treated us to a lovely dinner, great conversation, and amazing views.

We did a little more shopping and gelato-eating before Rachel left.  Daddy stayed on for another week and did a lot of shopping and cooking while Jesse and I went back to work.  Not to worry though, we still did fun things together, including having the boys to go the picturesque driving range, going to another of Jesse's soccer games, and having an amazingly fun time playing pinball at Nelson's house (Daddy plays a mean Medieval Madness game!).

Daddy leaves bright and early tomorrow morning, and Jesse and I will be home alone . . . for a couple days until we see Jesse's family for a Champions' League game!

4th of July Fun

We drove up to Colorado to spend time with Jesse's dad's family for July 4th.  We started in Durango, where we walked around some cute shops and had some dinner at a funky restaurant.

We drove to Pagosa Springs for fireworks (most of these pictures were taken by Lorna's lovely camera).

On Saturday, we decided to go rafting.  At some points, it was very relaxing.

At other points, not so much!  (The water was COLD!)

At the end of our second rafting run, there was a timing snafu that resulted in the 4 of us shivering, in our swimsuits in 60 degree weather with no phones or money, pitifully waiting for quite some time to be rescued! (Only to go back to a no-hot-water-at-home situation!)  Still worth it . . . I think.

Oh, and Jesse and his dad managed to squeeze in watching a couple World Cup games this weekend as well.  (Of course!)