Balloon Fiesta 2011

Just thought I'd share a few photos from the International Balloon Fiesta.

This cracks me up

My boys are pretty excited about Christmas coming so they talked me into getting out the tree and decorations. They did most of the work of decorating, I just had to clean a bit. Then they got to the nativity set. They asked me how things should be arranged. So I told them that baby Jesus goes in the middle with eveyone else grouped around. As you can see, I think Jesus has groupies. Maybe not a bad thought at that.

I got my new favorite pens.

It goes like this. I never win anything, I enter blog contests and they never let me win anything (I'm talking to you PW). It gets depressing after awhile. So when I saw that Nanny Goats in Panties would send me a pen just for asking, my life suddenly became complete. I've promised that the pens will be used for good, not evil.
I'm so happy to get the pens. They write great. I mean they write nicely. I don't write nicely, but they do. You know what I mean.














Here are the pens helping me work.














Here are the pens helping me take notes in class.














Here are the pens doing very complicated algebra.














And here are the pens taking a well deserved break after a long day.

Pictureskew

Such a lovely apple. One of the lovely apples we rescued from the fruit stand in New Mexico. (They were just going to sell it to someone else, I know it!) I took this picture just now because the apple looks just like an apple should look. It's the apple leaf that does it. Just like a painting done by someone other than me. Perfecto.
Anyway, the trip was lovely in other respects as well. Other than the steep dirt road down into the gorge, it was most pleasant. I stopped in Taos and bought yarn. (yes, more yarn) I ate a nice lunch and had interesting conversations with my parents. They are my kind of people, which is good, because I'm related to them.
The Rio Grande Gorge is pretty spectacular, especially because you can't really see it until you are nearly on top of it. Then it goes down down down.
Makes your stomach feel a little strange to look down that far. That's the Rio Grande far below. I wish you could see the scale. Later on that day we went to see where the gorge starts farther upstream. It looks as if the water may have carved this but that isn't true. According to geologists, this is a rift. The river is just flowing at the lowest spot. We live in a rift valley just like the rift vally in Africa. Just not as spread apart as there. But some day in the far far future, there may be an ocean here. I'll let you know. ;) At the start of the gorge it's more tame and not so scary deep. It's picturesque. Or as dad would say, pictureskew.And the apple? It has gone to a better place.

Zip Line

I went to a picnic yesterday, and I played horseshoes, and I ate picnic food, and I got rained on. And I got to ride a zip line. It was the most fun I've had in a coon's age. Don't ask me what that means.