HIKING AT FOURTH OF JULY CANYON

There are few things out there that rejuvenate me like a long hike. Since we've known we were going to leave Albuquerque, we've been trying to make the best of our time here by getting out of the house often. We have a long list of things we want to do before moving day, but I'm sure we won't get to them all. One of our favorite things to do as a family is go hiking, especially since Noble was born, so that part of the list has become priority. It's the one place that the three year old doesn't have to be entertained 90% of the time, but still gets out enough energy to not fight her nap - and the baby just passes out in the Ergo. When it was just Ev, getting outside for a hike was simple once we got a routine down. Hiking with two has become a bit more complicated, especially since Ev doesn't fit in a carrier anymore. She really is an expert hiker for a three year old, but we have to put a lot of thought into which trails she'll enjoy and be prepared to turn around early. Though some days I feel like a herd dog biting at the ankles of a sheep, we still make an effort to go often. Cultivating a love of nature in my kids is one of the most important aspects of being a parent for me. I've been reading Last Child in the Woods over the last month or so. Louv urges people to consider time in nature for children as essential for their health as good food, loving parents, and a full night of sleep. Time outside shouldn't be a extracurricular activity or something reserved for vacation - it should be an integral part of their day.

On this day, my mom was here visiting and we all woke up ready to get out of the house. Alex had a long weekend and we had originally wanted to go camping, but just couldn't get all of our t's crossed and i's dotted in time, so we settled for a hike somewhere we'd never been before. Fourth of July Canyon is known for its Fall colors due to the Maple trees growing in the area (uncommon for New Mexico). The drive out there was intense, ending with 7 miles on a winding dirt road, so we were glad to have four wheel drive. We did the easy one mile trail where Ev was glad to run wild, blow dandelion fluff, and talk about dinosaur tracks (and how it looked like they were chasing the horse tracks + that we needed to save the horses), then we started on the 6.5 mile loop. We made it a mile or two and decided to turn back, but I definitely want to see the rest. As I looked through the pictures of her blowing the dandelions, I realized I had taken similar pictures almost exactly a year ago in Brooklyn. Watching her grow is such a beautiful thing.

If you're local and looking for a similar hike a bit closer to home, we found a new favorite at the base of the Sandias. We were only able to hike the Sulphur Springs trail, but rumor has it there's a creek on the neighboring trail.

MOTHER'S DAY HIKE

 

 

 

I'm a pretty easy woman to please when it comes to holidays. Even being four weeks postpartum, all I wanted to do was get out of the house. I had been talking about hiking basically since an hour after Noble was born and though I wasn't medically cleared yet, I felt good enough and wanted to get some exercise, so I did. The differences between the first and second baby are comical. I'm pretty sure I hadn't even gotten up enough energy to do the dishes four weeks after Ev was born. Alex knows me all too well - his gift was bringing the tripod along to get a family picture. . . but we forgot the piece that actually attaches the camera to the tripod, so that was a no go. We did the next best thing and tried to use the camera strap to somehow rig the camera up on the tripod, hence the picture up there with just Evie's arm in it. Then we just decided to use a log, nature's tripod, and that worked out swimmingly. We weren't at all prepared for how cold it would still be up on the peak, but we don't give up easily. We scrounged around in the car for abandoned clothes, Alex gave Ev his flannel shirt that fit her like a dress, and we were on our way. We chose the 10k trailhead up on Sandia Crest because we'd been here before (on our third anniversary actually) and didn't want to push our luck driving around looking for a new spot on our first hike with two kids. Once we got moving, it wasn't quite as cold, but we still pretty much had all the trails to ourselves. Alex has been on this 'prepping' kick lately, so we basically have stockpiles of MREs around the house. He grabbed one of those for all of us to share and Evie didn't stop shouting the entire time, 'This is the best picnic EVER!' It reminded me so much of something my Dad would have done. Everything he did was magic when I was a little girl. I'm always astounded at the beauty and flourishing wildlife that is just a short drive from a barren desert. New Mexico is a quirky place - it really never stops surprising me.

IRONY + THE LONG WAY HOME

When I set out to (re)name this little space, we were in the beginning stages of moving to Brooklyn. I knew the kind of 'feel' I wanted the name to have, the image I wanted it to portray, how it would sound when I said it, that it would represent our family values in some way - it would say in a subtle way, 'This is who we are!' I even knew it should be four words because I'm a symmetry freak. It took me months of pondering to arrive at The Long Way Home. I was on a wandering walk through our old neighborhood, pushing Ev along in front of me when I asked her if she wanted to take the long way home - and it stuck. I came up with several others that escape me now, but finally decided, much like naming my children, that this space couldn't be anything but The Long Way Home. Little did I know how ironic this name would come to be.

It's painfully obvious even to this day, but I loved living in Brooklyn. I loved our quiet little apartment on our quiet little street. I love that it always looked thrown together no matter where you put anything. I loved that our mattress was on the floor right next to Evie's and we used to fall asleep holding hands under my pillow. I loved the old hardwood floors that used to frustrate her to no end as she'd try to stack block upon block and they would fall no matter how careful she was. So she'd gather them all up and stake her claim on a different, hopefully flatter piece of floor with a determined and slightly concerned look on her face. I loved our insanely pricey rent that felt like a bargain compared to the rest of the city, mostly because we had a real kitchen. I loved listening to the city come alive each morning and watching our brick wall view turn a golden hue that only fellow Brooklyn-dwellers have seen. I loved using the word 'bodega.' I loved the corner cafe with $20 sandwiches and cereal bowls of coffee. I loved our tiny mailbox and our obnoxious door buzzer. I loved the bagels. Oh, how I loved the bagels. I loved being able to buy a slice of pizza for a dollar. I loved the way the guys at our favorite pizza place said mozzarella. I loved that our church was held in a school auditorium. I loved that we gathered in people's impossibly small apartments during the week. I loved the Manhattan view we'd get on our grocery shopping nights leaving Fairway. I loved and hated Fairway. I loved that everyone had a love/hate relationship with the city. I loved our watermelon picnics. I loved that the playground was never empty the entire time we lived there. There was always someone there for Ev to play with.

I loved the subway smell. I loved the R train, the consistently late R train. I admired that about her, I accepted it because I'm consistently late anywhere I go. I loved that we lived at the end of the line and knew we were home when we heard, 'This is the last stop on this train. Please leave the train. Thank you for riding with MTA New York City transit.' I even sort of loved feeling like steamed broccoli in the Summer heat. I loved our secret Staten Island beach spots with oily water and sand full of trash. I loved the handfuls of sea glass we'd walk away with. I loved walking miles to get anywhere. I loved the street sweeping day, car moving scramble that happened each week. I loved the sidewalk horses that Evie went nuts over. I loved New Yorkers and their constant use of the F word. I loved how people really lived in the Spring, Summer, and Fall because the Winters were so unbearable. I loved that you could go for a simple walk and never be bored. I loved how beauty could find you in the most unexpected places. I loved our view of the Verrazano and watching boats pass by on the Hudson. I loved how people celebrated their New York-iversary. I loved that people complained so much about living there, but refused to live anywhere else. As Anne Lamott says, '. . . [I loved] the feel of being part of a healthy mob, part of a pulse, part of a collective heartbeat. . . [I loved] what it felt like to be part of a huge struggle, where people were winning and losing and triumphing and being humiliated and for once it wasn't you.' I love how living there was kind of like childbirth - after a while you forget how hard it was. I loved it all. I would be a lifer. Sometimes I lay in bed and imagine walking along those Bay Ridge streets with my two kids. It's hard for me to comprehend that a place that is so much a part of me, will never be a part of both of my kids. I sometimes forget Noble wasn't there with us.

As much as I loved Brooklyn, there is a bit of my soul that is nourished by New Mexico. I love the sunsets, each one different from the all the rest, but beautiful in a way you'll never forget. I love the adobe houses with turquoise trim. I love that you get to experience all four seasons, but you really only have to experience snow when you feel like driving up the mountain. I love the freakishly bipolar Spring weather. I love the Cottonwoods. I love that the days are so consistently beautiful that you wake up never thinking about what the weather will be like. I love the Christmas luminarias. I love the old man at the farmer's market that never stops shouting, 'Fresh tortillas!' in his Spanish accent. I love that you can tell what neighborhood you're in by how many Subarus are around. I love their strange exclamations like 'Eeee!' and 'Ah-la!' I love when someone calls Evie 'mija.' I love the trees outside our window that Noble strains his neck to watch from the rocking chair. I love the bike lanes and trails scattered all over the city. I love the love that the lifers have for this city and the effort they put in to keep it quirky. I love living three blocks from the zoo and that it's basically become our backyard. I love that we're surrounded by so much beauty and mountains are always in our background. We'd never make it through our 'places to see' list if we lived here for a lifetime. I love that feeling I get when we're coming home from the East and we spot the mountain silhoettes off in the distance. I love that you can wear whatever you want here and no one will look twice. I love that you can practically wear sandals year round and most people do. I love the frequent Indian Summers in the middle of Winter. I love that it's never hard to find something interesting to do here. I even kind of love the lack of a good Chinese food place. I love that the vast majority of people embrace local, organic food. I love the ridiculous amount of breweries and that you can buy craft beer almost anywhere. I love that both of my babies' birth certificates say 'Albuquerque, New Mexico,' a place where people are advocating for a mother's right to birth the way she wants. I love that that this place will always be a part of them no matter where we go - it called us back twice after all. There must be something special here for them. Even though there is so much to love about each place we've lived, we've known that they all wouldn't be forever.

SOLO ROADTRIP WITH A TODDLER

one: melissa & doug reusable sticker pads • two: m & d latches board • three & four: color wonder paper and markers (we have this travel tote, but I really think a clip board would be a better option)

• five: water wow painting pads • six: fisher-price travel doodler • seven: finger puppets • eight & nine: lots and lots of stickers & a pad of paper • ten: a play and travel tray

Whew.

So there are approximately five million and one things to read out there to prepare for a road trip with a toddler, and plenty of them have tips that were helpful while we went on this grand adventure where vacation and the depths of parenting meet, but I found it nearly impossible to find anything geared toward a parent traveling alone with a child, in a car (not on a plane), for days (not a three or four hour trip). There are two groups of women I consider the strongest women - military women and New York City moms, and while it's been comically trying at times, I'm proud to have been in those two categories in my lifetime. There's something about the lack of public bathrooms, physical impossibility of carrying your stroller, child, and all other normal items down four flights of subway stairs, and the overall chaos of city life that can't help but challenge you and refine you into a stronger woman and mother. As far as military women go, we've moved four times this year and while that isn't the norm, plenty of military spouses have similar tales to tell. When I told my family about my plan to head to Missouri, the response I got was, 'Wait a second. You're going to drive 1,000 miles, alone, 20 weeks pregnant, with a two year old, in the middle of Winter, to go live in a hotel for three months?' And I just nodded and went on my merry way because I don't think twice about these sorts of things anymore or I start to panic. When you have no choices, you learn not think about something too long and you just buckle up and go. You realize quickly that you can make it through pretty much anything. Two days in the car with a screaming two year old? Buy some earplugs and drive through it. You'll get there eventually and everyone will recover. Luckily, my kid has been training for this her entire life, since this is her eighth road trip in her almost three years of life. She's a road trip pro, but I feel like I've become quite the 'pack up and go' pro too. Though she's probably a bit more agreeable in the car than most kids, I was still a little intimidated at the thought of driving solo and entertaining her sans iPad, since I'm usually the one entertaining her from the passenger seat while Alex is at the wheel. We made it through and dare I say, we actually enjoyed ourselves a little.
Here are some tips for a solo road trip with your kid:

- plan out your stops: After one too many times of listening to a baby screaming in the backseat while we frantically looked for a good place to stop, we started planning our stops ahead of time. It's amazing how much more peaceful a road trip can be when you know exactly where you're going. There are plenty of options when you're traveling in warm weather, but it's much more limited in the Winter. I mapped out the Chic-fil-a's along the way, so that I could have decent food to eat and she could have a place to burn off some energy. I also mapped out all the Starbucks along the way, so I knew where the point of no return (no coffee) was in places like Oklahoma, where you can go stretches of 100 miles without seeing a gas station, much less a coffee shop. I went so far as to write down the mile markers for every rest stop and welcome center on our route in case I was caught in a panic and needed to know how far away the next one was. In the warm weather months, it's smart to find a few parks along the way. Sometimes it can be a bit challenging to find parks in a place you aren't familiar with, but the easiest way I've found is to look on town and city websites for the place you plan on stopping or to simply pull up Google maps and zoom in at the streets around the interstate, looking for green spots, then googling the name to be sure it's a legitimate park. Bubbles and a soccer ball are good things to stash away if you have to stop at a place that doesn't have a playground, so they have something to do besides walk in circles.

There are also the holy grails of road trips with kids that are impossible to find online - rest stops with playgrounds. You people are in luck though (or at least you people who ever travel i-40 through New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma, or i-44 through Missouri) because I kept my eyes peeled and wrote down where they are on this particular route. i-40 Eastbound, there is one just past the New Mexico/Texas line at mile marker 129, while there is one Westbound just before the NM/TX line at mile marker 132. On i-44 in Southern Missouri, there are rest stops with playgrounds on both sides at mile marker 111.

- get and stay organized: Keep things contained - in the front seat and floor board I had a bag for toys, a bag for books and Highlights, a bag for cold snacks, and a bag for dry snacks. At each stop, I would pull out a few activities and snacks from the floorboard and put them in the passenger seat so they were reachable until the next stop to minimize the swerving across two lanes unintentionally while digging for a toy incidents, clean up the chaos that had happened in the backseat while I was driving, and pull up the next stop on the GPS. You always feel like you're in too big of a hurry to get back on the road to clean, but it makes a big difference in your sanity level.

- have a few new things up your sleeve: This is rookie advice, but don't bring all the same toys your kid has been playing with at home and expect them to be entertained for longer than say, five seconds. I'm not a huge proponent of buying my kid a new toy every week, but road trips are the exception. Keep in mind, simple things like stickers, tape, aluminum foil, or pipe cleaners can often keep them entertained far longer than any toy, especially because they're usually off limits at home. If we could have, a huge tote of library books would have been parked right next to Ev's seat so she could reach them all, but since we'll be gone for months that wasn't really an option. See the photo above and links for more road trip friendly toys. Also, don't underestimate the power of the Target dollar section and the like. Even if you don't want a bunch of junk floating around at home, $10 is worth a few hours of entertainment and you can throw it all out when you get home.

- try to keep to your normal schedule: Now some people swear by driving at night while their kid sleeps, but that's usually a recipe for disaster for us, so we try to stick to our normal schedule. We eat breakfast before we hit the road, have a 2-3 hour chunk of driving that needs to be filled with entertainment, stop for lunch and try our best to wear her out, get back on the road and declare it nap time so we can drive 60 miles with a full bladder but refuse to stop because she's sleeping, stop once more when she's finally awake and try to finish out the rest of the driving before dinner time. That kind of schedule limits you to eight hours of driving, nine tops, but we've just accepted that and don't push ourselves any further, which brings me to. . .

- have realistic expectations: Don't expect your toddler to ride six hours straight without protest, stay in the car during gas stops, or any other convenient, but crazy notions you may have. When you find yourself getting frustrated at their requests for something else to play with or the unceasing noise from the back seat, take a deep breathe and remind yourself they're two and this is a hard task for them. Muster up some patience.

- don't rush your stops: . . . or zone out on your phone at rest stops. Run, play games, be silly, be loud, climb in the play place with them and get crazy looks from all the other adults. Your kid will be much more willing to get back in the car if you've connected and played together, even for just a few minutes. There are also tons of ways to connect in the car. I would start a story and ask Ev to continue it, talk to her about what we were seeing outside the windows, ask her to sing me a song, teach her a new song, give her some sea creature stickers and ask her to color them an ocean/home and some food, etc.

- give in a little: We usually don't eat at fast food places period, but we rarely order kids meals or let Ev pick out her food. Road trips are the exception. We hardly let her down from the table to run and play during meal times either, but road trips are the exception on this too. Treat it a little bit like vacation.

- limit the sugar: While I'm all for giving in a little, a sugar hyped kid strapped into a car seat for hours is a force to be reckoned with. Try to pack healthy snacks and let the sugar splurges happen when they have time to run it all off. Be sure to open all packages and put everything into little snack packs that can be handed into the backseat without a worry of a huge mess. There's no reason to be passing a Costco bag of baby carrots back and forth the whole drive. A little basket with a few options for them to choose from that you can pass into the backseat might be fun too.

- save a few fun Pandora stations ahead of time: Good music makes everyone feel better when you're getting antsy in the car. And channel surfing while driving is no fun, so find some before you hit the road. Some of our favorite stations: indie singer-songwriter + classical relaxation are good for nap time, 90s alternative is good once you thumbs down some of the hard rock and thumbs up Matchbox 20 and the like, PG comedy is fun without running the risk of hearing your toddler repeating the F word from the backseat with the today's comedy station (and yes that happened on a past road trip), Ray Lamontagne will always be my perfect station, and Disney is fun for kids. We also have some old tapes in our middle console for backups when my phone doesn't get a good enough signal to use Pandora. Books on tape might be a good option to entertain you during nap time.

That's all I've got! If you have anything to add, feel free to comment below. I also thought it might be fun to share your favorite Pandora stations because we all need new music, even when we aren't road tripping!

THOUGHTS ON RAW MILK + DE SMET DAIRY FARM TOUR

A few years ago, I picked up Real Food by Nina Planck. To say that it has changed the way that we eat is an understatement. As I read through each section of the book, I could feel myself getting more anxious with every page. I was overwhelmed at the thought of the complete food overhaul that would need to happen in our home if we were to eat the way she described. Raw milk - where could I find that? It was (and still is) illegal in most states. Organic produce - we can't afford to shop like that! Grass fed, organic, local beef - no one raises beef like that anymore! I finally decided to just take it one step at a time. Raw milk wasn't available in this area until recently, so we opted for pasteurized organic whole milk. I sought out the cheapest place to get organic produce and will continue to sing the praises of Trader Joe's even though nothing they carry is locally sourced. Though I would prefer to buy locally, this was my middle ground for the benefit of my budget and sanity. On our first go around here in Albuquerque, we bought three chickens and let them run freely through our backyard so we could afford organic, free range eggs. I started to seek out more vegetarian meals, so that when we did eat meat, we could afford the good stuff. I started with one step and once that was second nature, we moved onto something else. At least 80% of what we eat is now organic and we actually spend the same, sometimes less on groceries than we did before we started this food overhaul, but I still consider it a work in progress.

One of the biggest things Planck focuses on in Real Food is raw milk. She is a huge proponent of raw milk, but I wasn't completely sold on it just from reading her opinion and research. The history of why milk is pasteurized is an interesting one that makes me confident raw milk shouldn't be illegal, but I was still a bit skeptical. I knew that if I could find a farm that met my expectations as far as cleanliness and how their cows are treated, I would be willing to make the switch. Enter De Smet Dairy. I finally got around to taking a tour of the farm and I'm sold. They're third generation dairy farmers located in Bosque Farms, New Mexico. Their cows are grass fed and allowed to roam freely on pasture, whereas most conventional dairies keep the cows confined indoors and feed them grain. They only milk them once a day, so that the babies get to stay with their mamas for an extended period of time. They're free of all hormones, antibiotics, and GMOs. Basically, the cows get to live a good cow life, which means they make better milk.

When looking for raw milk, the main thing I wanted was organic, so I asked why they weren't certified. De Smet Dairy is not certified organic at this time, but they once were (last year). They had to drop their certification because they expanded their herd and an organic certification requires all animals to have been raised under organic conditions for a year, plus the certification is extremely expensive for a small farm to afford. Though I believe that the benefits of raw milk far outweigh the risks, I'm not here to try to convince you of that. I will encourage you to do your own research and tell you that there's a chance of food borne illness from basically any food you buy at the grocery store. Listeria is found in pasteurized cheeses. E. Coli is found in bagged spinach. Salmonella is found on chicken that comes out of industrial plants even though they essentially bleach it before packaging it. Conventional foods and traditional foods both have risks involved in eating them. Personally, I would rather eat traditional foods from animals who also ate their traditional diets than factory raised animals whose products are sterilized before you can come in contact with them.

Evie was ecstatic the entire time we were at the farm. She is such an observer - she wanted to see everything and every step and know what every machine was used for. When she saw the cows being milked she said, 'I want some! Can I have some milk, pease?' I told her we would buy some when we were all done seeing the farm and when we pulled a jug out of the cooler she exclaimed, 'DIS MILK FROM THOSE COWS OUT THERE?! We're gonna drink it?!' Every time I pour her a glass, she can't stop talking about where it came from. She was equally excited about feeding the beef cows apples and climbing on all the old tractors. Overall, I was really happy with what I saw. The biggest challenge for us in eating local real food is the logistics in picking things up from each separate place. De Smet has partnered with a local farm, Skarsgard, that offers CSA memberships, so we plan on signing up for one in the new year and making the switch to raw milk.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on raw milk and the changes you're trying to make in your families diets in the comments below!

HALLOWEEN FESTIVITIES

All has been quiet on the internet front these days, so I thought it time to play a little catch up. Alex asked me why I hadn't been blogging yesterday and I'll offer you all the same truth - life is just not very inspiring these days. In between times are hard for all of us, but it seems it's usually harder on me. Almost every day we find ourselves saying to each other, 'I feel like I don't even know who I am anymore.' We miss Brooklyn. I miss Brooklyn especially. We've been staying with some friends of ours and that's always a bit complicated with different schedules and different styles of parenting, but overall still good - we mostly just miss having a home. I haven't been able to do much of what I normally do to keep myself fulfilled because you don't just pull out your tubs of fabric and sewing machine in someone else's house and go at it. I'm a very messy seamstress. I've taken to teaching myself how to knit to relieve a teensy bit of my itch to make. I feel it's slightly more polite to leave some needles and a skien of yarn laying around rather than a whole craft room. Alex has been job hunting like a pro and still no one has called. He's leaving in December for military training and won't be back until three weeks before my due date, so we were hoping to find a place and settle in a bit before he left but if there's no job, there's no home. I'm freaking out a little bit at the possibility of our second baby entering the world to two parents with no income and no home, but we're at a loss. Who let us become adults? I feel like we're really bad at adult life these days.

Now that the depressing life update is out of the way, I can catch up with a happier topic - Halloween festivities. Though technically the Balloon Fiesta isn't really Halloween related, it's an October tradition.

We woke up bright and early to try to catch the mass ascension, but it ended up being too windy for the balloons to lift off so we watched a lot of them inflate then blow over. It wasn't a total waste though - it was a beautiful morning and we got to sit in the grass with Krispy Kremes in hand and watch the sun come up over the mountains. Before we went, we had talked to Ev about watching them fly, so she kept asking, 'They gonna go up?' When we told her it was too windy she seemed a little disappointed, but was mostly glad to just see hot air balloons up close and eat donuts. The night before, we attempted to watch the balloon glow, but a sandstorm with a tad bit of rain moved in just as we were pulling into a parking spot. It only lasted ten minutes or so, but that was enough to cancel it. They already had the fireworks ready though, so when the storm cleared out they shot them off early. We watched from the car with Ev sitting on the middle console, enjoying a 'picnit dinnah.' I'm pretty sure that was the best night of her life to date. We rolled the windows down and she stuck her head out, screaming and laughing as she watched the sky. Though both events pretty much got canceled, it was still the most memorable Balloon Fiesta we've had.

After spending the morning at the Balloon Fiesta, we decided to drive up to Rio Rancho for our annual pumpkin patch trip. We go to the Galloping Grace Youth Ranch patch every year because well, they don't charge admission, they have a ton of things for kids to do (they had more animals and added a mud pie kitchen this year that Ev spend a good hour in), and all proceeds from pumpkin sales go to a good cause. If you're local, definitely make sure you check them out next year. (We also get our Christmas trees from them each year.)

For Halloween, we were park rangers and Evie was an attempted Smokey the Bear. There are really no Smokey the Bear costumes out there and we already had the bear hat, so I tried to piece one together without spending any money. She carried around a little toy shovel all night and had people drop candy into Alex's hat. We had the whole shenanigan on, frumpy grandpa pants and pine cone belts and all, but as I've said before we have a terrible track record for getting good pictures of our costumes, so top half view is all you get. We had a low key Halloween and just went trick or treating with some friends. Ev led the pack and wasn't one bit shy about yelling 'trick or treat' or grabbing handfuls of candy out of people's bowls. This was the Halloween of no return - Evie now knows that trick or treating = candy. She's been talking about it nonstop since. Luckily she still has no idea how much candy she got, where it is, or that I gave away half of it. On a side note, did you ever take inventory of your candy as a kid? My sister and I would always lay ours out and sort them into piles so we could eat the good stuff first and trade our least favorites. I started to do the same thing with Ev's candy after bedtime last night and Alex informed me that we were the weird minority in that habit - they just reached in their bag and ate all their candy, there was no second grade candy with them.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Halloween! I miss this space and am hoping to get out of this funk soon and get back to writing. What are some of the best costumes you saw? In internet world, Whitney's kid's costumes were too cute. As you can tell from past years, I love coordinated family costumes.

P.S. some balloon fiesta pictures from the last time we were able to catch the mass ascension + our 2011 skeleton costumes • last year's pumpkin patch visit • our last two year's costumes (the Flintstones and astronauts)