School (for a minute!) and Farewell to Carlsbad

School started just a couple of days after we got back from our trip. We decided to have the kids start because we weren't 100% sure when we'd be leaving New Mexico, and I didn't want them to be out. In Carlsbad there is a whole school dedicated to kindergarten. All kindergartners from the whole city go there. Savannah and Ally got the same class, and they were so excited! Kinda sad that it was for such a short time, though.

We were still showing our house (it had been up for about two weeks), so every morning I told the kids they had to have their beds made in case someone wanted to come look at our house. Skyler's idea of making his bed included lining all the stuffed animals up in a row along the edges!

Kylee and Ally started school on Wednesday because it was the first day for all kids who were the first grade in their school (so grades K, 1, 6, 7, 9). Skyler didn't have to start until Thursday. Kylee and Ally purposely wore matching shirts for their first day, which I thought was so cute!

Ally and Savannah are pros at riding the bus since they already did it last year for pre-K. They are just the best little friends. We're going to miss Savannah a LOT!

Skyler started on Thursday, and after he got home in the afternoon Anabelle (our friend next door) had made this cute chalk board sign so that I could take his picture with it.

One day while the kids were at school I was working on something in the office and I heard the microwave beep. I ran out and found Colby like this. "I cook chicken nuggets. I have ranch." Crazy kid! I've helped him do it before so he knows what button to push, but I never thought he would take it upon himself to make himself some lunch!

After he finished his nuggets he came back to the office where he'd been looking at books. He brought his blankie and just laid down on the floor and fell asleep. He's so sweet!

During the second week of school something happened and the power was out at Ally's school. Apparently it wasn't supposed to come back on all day, so around 9:30 they called us to come pick up the kids. I took Ally and Colby to Wendy's since she was missing out on school.

We and a bunch of our friends joined the Elks this summer so that we could swim in the pool there. After school started they were only open on Saturdays until Labor Day, so we made sure to go and make the most of our last days of swimming.

We were only in Carlsbad for 15 months, but we had such a great time. We made so many amazing friends and it really felt like home. I was also surprisingly impressed with the school system. You always hear that New Mexico doesn't have good schools, but I feel like Carlsbad, at least, is an exception. My kids had amazing teachers and the schools were really good. We loved our ward, we loved our neighbors, we loved our neighborhood. Deciding to leave was sooooo hard, but ultimately it came down to family. Especially with losing Tiff so suddenly, it really sunk in that life is short and you never know what will happen, so when we got the opportunity to be closer to home and family, despite how much we love and will miss our friends in Carlsbad, we had to take it.

Our house went under contract after about 3 weeks of being on the market and we were scheduled to close on our house in Idaho before Labor Day. School in Idaho was starting on Aug. 24, so we decided it made the most sense for the kids and I to leave once our house in Idaho was ready to that they could get into school at the start instead of 5-6 weeks in. Andy would stay in New Mexico to work until the end of September and then join us. The night before the kids and I left we went down to play at the park by the river one last time, and walk along the path there. This river really is a gem in the middle of the desert. It's so pretty! I'll really miss my sunshiny weather of the last four years living in FL and NM, but we're on to new adventures, and I trust that they'll also be amazing.

Summer Road Trip Days 16-17: Great Sand Dunes National Park and HOME!

When we arrived at the Sand Dunes it was super windy and there were a million hundred trillion mosquitoes waiting to eat us alive, but we brought bug spray, and the view from our campsite was beautiful! We set up camp, spent over an hour pulling hundreds (or thousands?) of little cactus spines out of poor little Collin after he fell in a prickly pear, ate dinner, and then went to bed.

On Saturday it happened to be Jr. Ranger Day, so they had a bunch of free activities for the kiddos. They got to try on ranger gear...

...complete challenges...

...and ultimately earn a free Jr. Ranger t-shirt. I didn't take as many pictures as I thought I did, I guess, but the kids had a blast!

After completing all the activities we headed out to play in the river by the Sand Dunes. This is what I remember doing as a kid. You can of course hike up the dunes, which we did try, but the sand was sooo hot, so we only made it to the top of a small one, tried sledding with a sled a nice lady let us borrow for a minute, and then went back down. We spent the rest of the day playing in the water.

The kids were gathering up logs and building mud walls to divert the river into this little "swimming pool" thing, and during the course of the day quite a few other kids came and helped work on it. It was quite the undertaking!

I again didn't take as many pictures as I normally do, mostly because sand/mud/water and cameras don't really mix very well! After the Sand Dunes the Sugiyamas left to go home, and my family was going to go hike Zapata Falls, which is another place I remember loving as a youth. However, when we got to the Zapata parking lot the clouds were black and it was quite the downpour, so we had to give up on that. Instead we headed back to camp and played UNO in the tent for a while.

The next morning we packed up camp and headed home. When I first planned this trip the idea was that we would stop by grandma Timmins' farm on the way home and maybe eat lunch with her. Sadly, after 85 years living in the same area, in June she moved to Idaho Falls to live with Uncle Donald, so when we went through she wasn't there anymore. I took a picture as we passed the La Jara area. I have such great memories of visiting the cousins in the San Luis Valley every summer, it's kind of sad that most everyone is gone now! It's really a beautiful place.

We arrived home that afternoon and were glad to be back sleeping in our own beds. Although this trip had quite a few mishaps and things didn't always go according to plan, I love being able to spend time together as a family doing new things and seeing new places. Now it was time to start packing for our move to Idaho!

Summer Road Trip Day 15: Royal Gorge, Colorado

Many moons ago (maybe a year or two?) Skyler found a pamphlet for the Royal Gorge Railroad in Colorado while we were visiting somewhere else. Ever since then he has wanted to go, so we added it to our loop this year. 

We had seats inside the train, but they also had an open-air car where you could stand outside and ride for as long as you wanted. The little kids spent the ENTIRE ride outside.

The train goes through a pretty narrow canyon, and it had some pretty scenery.

This is what Colby looked like pretty much the whole time. He LOVES trains, and he just hung on the railing and watched the river go by. We saw a ton of rafters, and the kids want to try that someday now, too!

We also had tickets to go to the Royal Gorge Bridge Park after we rode the train. It's the highest suspension bridge in North America (or something like that). Skyler could probably tell ya, as this was also his idea. While we were on the train we went under the bridge, and it is definitely REALLY high! It looked so tiny up there!

When we got to the bridge park the first thing we did is walk across the bridge. It was a bit more wobbly than I was expecting (even though I know it's called 'suspension' bridge), and also it was sooooo high. I'm not going to lie, I was a smidge nervous!

The spaces between some of the slats on the ground were HUGE! We could see the teeny tiny train tracks way down below. The kids were hoping the train would go under while we were up there, but unfortunately it did not.

Colby was not at all nervous. He kept looking down the cracks shouting "I see choo choo tracks! I see choo choo tracks!"

The middle of the bridge had this nice sign letting you know when it was built.

As we walked along the bridge there were flags for all 50 states, so of course we had to find the New Mexico one and take a picture.

On the other side of the bridge they had a playground and some other things to do. As we were approaching the playground we noticed that there were a bunch of these mountain sheep just chilling in the little kid area. They had some rangers there to make sure people didn't get too close.

The kids always love carousels, so we rode this one a couple of times.

There were a TON of these mountain sheep all over the place!

This little train was available for kids to sit in and ring the bell. Colby sat there ringing the bell yelling "choo choo! Choo chooooooo!" Like he really thought he was going to drive somewhere.

They also have a gondola you can ride back across the gorge, and it was actually even higher up than the bridge. These kids are not scared of heights at all! (Side note: They also have a zipline you can ride that goes across the gorge, and it's like 1200 feet high. It costs extra though, and you have to weigh at least 100 lbs. Ally wanted to try it SO BAD. She was super disappointed that she is too small.)

This is the view of the bridge from the gondola. I asked Skyler if the day was all he hoped and dreamed for since he's the one who had been wanting to go here for so long. He said, "Yes!" so I guess it was a success! After we finished at the bridge park we drove through the rest of the canyon and headed to meet the Sugiyamas at the Sand Dunes.