Albuquerque Turkeys

The boys and I recently spent two weeks in Albuquerque. Lucas had the time of his life! See, he's kind of spoiled when he visits... He's got these aunts, you see, that love him and spoil him to no end. Lisa takes him on adventures all over the land (and this time was extra-special b/c she didn't have to go to work since she's getting ready to move to Hawaii). They went to the zoo four times and the aquarium once. (That equals one animal adventure every 2.8 days).
Carrie and Maddie have him over for sleepovers and play and read with him for hours on end. We lucked out that Maddie got out of school while we were there so she got to come on some fun adventures with us. Carrie and Maddie even brought over a Zumba DVD one night and Lucas thought that was pretty rad. I'm pretty amazing, too, you know.
Rob and Andi have these cool kids who come up to play or let us come down to play with them. Lucas had a lot of fun playing with the kids and with all their cool animal toys!
Tina was getting ready to head to Africa while we were in town. Lucas was uber-excited to talk to her about all the animals she might see. He is happily awaiting photographic evidence of her trip. She's there now and having a great time.
Then there's Grandma and Grandpa who bend over backwards to make us happy. It's fun to see my dad playing farm with Lucas or holding Evan while he watches the news. Grandma put Lucas in great swim lessons while we were in town. Lucas learned a lot from Mr. Gerald during his short 20 minute lessons, and we are trying to practice more now that we're back to our pool. My poor mom works so hard while we're in town. I hope she's taking lots of naps now that we're gone.
I took Lucas and Maddie to paint at Art Attack and to the tram/ski lift, got to see some good friends from UNM, and had an allergic reaction to a facial. Then all my skin fell off because it's so dry there. Thanks, Albuquerque. Your sunsets are pretty great, though.

Without further ado, I present the Albuquerque Turkeys:

A few extras:
We almost missed our flight out of Austin. I must have read the monitor wrong and headed to the wrong gate. I discovered my mistake and decided to take the kids to the bathroom before going to the right gate. Luckily the bathroom was right across from the gate. I looked over and saw that the gate was empty. We ditched the bathroom idea and instead were the last to board the flight to Dallas, where we sat for two hours while they worked on our plane.

While we were in town we got to experience the disgusting smoke from the AZ fires that ominously rolls into town before sunset each night. Thanks, Arizona. Really, it's been horribly devastating. As of today it's 18% contained.

Evan learned to walk while we were gone. He's totally walking all over the place now like a champ.

We planted the garden in the back. Lucas kept saying, "I hope the seeds are having a good time!" Even after a week he was still thinking about those little seeds. And apparently they did have a good time, because by the time we left there were plants sprouting up.

Ben stayed busy while were were gone. He was working late hours at work, then even later hours at home because he hearts me. I'll post a pic of his project soon.