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Journal Key:

Green = Steve | George = navy | Janet = Purple | Evelyn = Black

8/6/09-8/10/09 (Thursday-Monday) Our trip to New Mexico!

Cara is by now a seasoned traveler. She is quite used to airports and seems to really relish the "part where we take our shoes off." She looks forward to it; she likes putting her things into a bin and pushing them along. In one airport this time, the person running the x-ray machine took Cara's sandals out to look at them; they were the light-up princess ones, so they have electronics in them! Thursday was our first big travel day; we went in our car, on the airport monorail, on an elevator, on escalators, on moving sidewalks, on two different airplanes, on an inter-terminal train in Houston, and finally into our rental car in El Paso. Monday was similarly exciting. Walking in the airports was something of a challenge; I discovered that I needed to walk behind Cara to keep her moving. There were a lot of things she wanted to stare at.

We spent our first two days with Steve's grandparents in Las Cruces. Cara was shy at first, but once she'd had something to eat she was perfectly happy and friendly. It was great to see her finally getting to know her "New Mexico grandparents"! She loved being with them; she willingly gave hugs goodnight and played with them. We stayed in a guest apartment down the hall from their apartment, and soon Cara knew her way around and went running ahead of us. The doors to all of the buildings in the complex had automatic openers for the handicapped, and Grandpop taught Cara to push the buttons to open them. That was her job for our whole stay.

We went to see a cool little museum nearby that focused on petrified wood and other minerals. Cara had fun running around and looking at everything; the tough part was that she's used to museums where she's allowed to touch everything! She really liked a lot of the rocks we saw, though. She also got to open the door for everyone.

For lunch we went to a very beautiful Mexican restaurant, where there were birds in giant cages and huge tanks of fish. Cara's favorite decoration was the small fountain. She ordered a taco and proceeded to eat a lot of tortilla chips. Grandpop warned her to stop and not spoil her lunch, but she ate her taco and then more chips. The best treat was that we got sopapillas for dessert. At first, Cara wanted nothing to do with them, even though they were dipped in honey. Someone gave her a tiny taste of a part of one. She liked it, and then she needed her own. Then some more. Then some more.

The pool at their complex had a nice big shallow end, and there was also a big bin of pool toys available. Cara, of course, went and got out noodles in all of the different colors they had; soon we had out seven or eight. There were also dumbbells for in the water, made of buoyant foam. Cara enjoyed using them as splashers, hitting the water. I had brought our little pool toys, but they were soon forgotten. Actually, they were literally forgotten. We didn't see them when we cleaned up, so we guess they floated into a filter or something. I totally forgot about them, so we're down a turtle and penguin. Cara hasn't found out yet. We do have other ones, which I hope will do.

Cara did a lot of drawing, this trip. She had a nice pad of paper that Grandpapa bought her in Florida, and she ended up carrying it around like a toy for some of the time. She snuggled with it. Of course she had us draw things for her, but she also drew on her own. She made her first mermaids; they were the picture she gave to her great grandma as a goodbye present.

After lunch on Saturday, we said goodbye to Grandmom and Grandpop and drove up to Albuquerque. We went to Eugene and Sheri's house, where Cara got to play with her cousin Evie. The two girls disappeared into Evie's room for a long time. They have very different interests, but they had a great time. We all went out back, too, where they had a kiddie pool that had a deep part and a shallow part, with a little slide in between. Cara, of course, loved it. Evie wore her hair in one long ponytail. The next day, Cara tried her first ponytail.

At dinner, Cara got to meet Caroline, Marco, and their boys, Sean and Nick. There was a fountain, and the four kids spent most of their time throwing pennies into it, looking for more pennies, running around it, and generally being very excited. Evie had ridden to the restaurant in our car, and Sean rode back with us. He spent the whole time talking about Indiana Jones. Cara occasionally contributed: "My daddy drew these ballerinas."

We went and stayed at Caroline's house, where Cara slept in the top bunk while the boys shared the larger lower one. Caroline read to all of them, which was very reassuring because she teaches first grade and is therefore a professional. Cara had some trouble because those boys sleep in the real dark, so we ended up leaving their door open and a light on in the bathroom.

On Sunday, Marco set up their giant water slide in the back yard. This is immediately the first thing Cara will say, when asked what her favorite part of the trip was. We could barely get her out of it; she stayed in after all the other kids had gotten out, and when we did drag her out she shivered for five minutes. Once she was warm, she got back in. Then again.

Monday morning, before we headed to the airport, we went to the Albuquerque aquarium, which was a neat place. It was right next to the botanical gardens, which had a lot for kids. There was a section where we "shrank" and a lot of garden things, like vegetables, a walk-through pumpkin, and a watering can, were huge. There was a maze and a slide. There were also a lot of model trains and an old-fashioned farm. It was very cool, but it did get hot.

We landed after one in the morning, and we were all in bed a little before three. We all slept a little on the plane, especially Cara (who later claimed to have been awake most of the way), and Cara also slept in the car. Steve carried her up to her room, where she woke up enough to want her pajamas on and then to need stories read to her. Which her father did. At two thirty in the morning.

8/11/09 (Tuesday)

We all slept past nine today, very happily. We're exhausted, but we're really glad we made that trip. Cara loved meeting her great grandparents and she definitely enjoyed having cousins to play with. Steve and I were glad to see everyone again, too; it'd been about seven years. It's great that Cara can finally put faces to all of the names we talk about. I know she'll miss everyone.

This was the only foreseeable day for this to happen, so poor Steve had to drag all of my books into my classroom for me. Cara came too and helpfully drew on my white board and on some paper, too. She helped us by stacking the empty boxes and all of the lids on the cart for no good reason, and then I gave her a real job; she pushed the cart all the way around the room and stacked the boxes neatly in the place in which I actually keep them, which was really a helpful thing to do.

After that, well, we all basically collapsed for a while.

8/12/09 (Wednesday)

Clearly we are still recovering from the trip; Cara slept until I finally woke her at about 8:20 this morning. She got to go back to preschool, and she wore the Albuquerque shirt we got her. It glows in the dark. In the car, Cara was clearly thinking about this. "If people are too loud," she said, "and the teacher turns out the lights . . . people might see my shirt!" Unfortunately, this did not come to pass today; I checked with Miss Jane afterwards.

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