::indian market::

A couple of saturdays ago, Santa Fe hosted their famous yearly event, the Indian Art Market.
People have been telling us about it for months, so we really wanted to go and check it out. And a friend I met at Max's karate class was selling her jewelry there (it was awesome, by the way) and a mom of one of our patients was also exhibiting her jewelry there.
I snagged a picture of her.

Her jewelry was so dang pretty. I wished I could buy all of it.

Anyway, this is a huge weekend event and I'm told that people come from all over for it. And it seemed that way. We got downtown around 8AM, and it was already packed. There were people everywhere, and the amount of turquoise people were wearing would've sunk a tanker.
It was hot and Max was really wimpy walking around in the crowds and the sun. So we went quickly to find our friends and then we planned to leave.
But then we saw the honey stand.

Oooooooooooooooh, says Max.
There were a billion different honey flavors. And the honey guy let us taste as many types as we wanted.

He'd put a little bit on the end of a sample stick and we would suck it off.
Max was enjoying it until he got a taste of the really really dark (almost black) honey. It was so strong and bitter. I don't even know what to compare it to. I've never tasted anything quite like it. After that Max was done sampling. He's a little wimpy.
But Kris and I weren't done. We tried raspberry/strawberry, orange blossom, desert wildflowers, mountain wildflowers, etc. etc. I don't even know what else.
Then we had to choose just three flavors. It was a tough one. But we chose the wildflowers (desert & mountain--hoping maybe eating the local honey would help with allergies, we'll see) and then we chose the orange blossom flavor. Mmmmmmm, it's good.


Aren't the bottles of honey gorgeous? I just want to put them on the windowsill and look at them and never eat them. Luckily they're too tasty to really tempt me to do that.

So after that we left. We had a small dose of Indian Market and enjoyed in that way. There was so much to look at though, we could've been there hours if we could've fought the crowds.
Oh, but before we left I ran into a booth that Lechelle and I had found earlier when she was in town. It was these amazing carved gourds. You would love them Mom!
I don't know if you can see any detail in this picture, but these people had carved tiny awesome patterns onto these gourds, mostly animals. I loved the hummingbirds and butterflies. If only I had the most money ever I would've bought them all.


So there's your little taste of the craziness of the Santa Fe touristy art scene. It's pretty fun if you can handle the pressure!

::friends::

We feel really lucky to have moved into this area. The ward has a bunch of people our age and in similar situations. We've met a lot of fun and interesting people, and there are even a few kids Max's age, including his current crush.

She's there on the right. When we get together with them they just giggle and giggle and giggle.
We're looking forward to a lot of fun get togethers with church friends, and that's nice!!

::only in NM::

Watch out for cows being abducted by aliens. It seems to be a serious problem out here. Yikes.

::mmmmm, apples::

We have at least three apple trees in our little yard.

(check it out all you skeptics, we've got grass and trees! So much grass in fact that it needs to get cut, yikes.)
The apples on the little trees are starting to look pretty legit as we head towards fall. They're really pretty.

I love how they're starting to blush red and how they peek through the leaves.

Anyway, I just found out the other night when we were hanging out in the garden, that one particular member of our family has already been partaking of the apply goodness--liberally.

Sultan picked and ate about five apples in the hour we were outside. It was cracking me up.
Kris says he's been doing it for a while. I was glad to know that, otherwise I might've made him sleep outside that night.
But oh well, at least he's keeping busy. It must be like heaven for him--free food falling from the sky!

Silly dog.
I can't wait to make a crisp out of the apples soon.

::reporting in::

Max's first week of school went pretty well.
He only lost his lunchbox once, and we found it.
He only got lost and separated from his class twice during the week, but he used his head and asked for help and found his way back both times.
He only lost his water bottle once--but at the end of the day we found it.
Turns out by luck of the draw he got a teacher with a super good reputation and she seems great. It makes me happy that he got a good one.
He only stayed home from school one day (today) because he had a fever and was freezing this morning when it just wasn't that cold. (He's fine now).
He did ok with the school dress code, which is mostly made up of plain colored polos. He complained about the collars every day, but he looked cute anyway. I got him some good colors.

My week was good. I was glad to have work to do at the office, or else the days would've seemed long and the house would've seemed empty. I would've enjoyed it for a while, then it would've just been boring. I got a lot of work done while he was at school though, so that was great. It's been so fun to work where Kris is, we like seeing each other more than just for an hour at night.

So that's my report. I have lots of stuff to post. Now, just to find the energy to do it.

::first day of school::

If you ask this guy where he's from he'll tell you "Rhode Island."
His big old front tooth is starting to come in.
He was super excited for school this morning.
I'm excited for him to go too, but sad that the day has to be so long. I just hope he has a great time.
We got to meet his teacher briefly when we dropped him off. She seemed very excited to meet the kids and knew all their names.

Lunchbox.

I'll miss him when he's gone, and everybody's going to miss him at the office too. But that's all I'm going to say about that because I don't want to make myself sad.
Good luck at school sweet little boy!!

::happy one month to us::

I can't believe I haven't posted for 10 DAYS! Sad and shameful.
It's been busy and crazy around here. Work work and more work and then lots of visitors!!
Kelly & Lechelle were here for a long weekend and then a day and a half later my mom and Murphy came to see us for a long weekend. It was the first time I'd been able to see Murphy since before he left on his mission. We had so much fun hanging out and we were so busy that I didn't even have a chance to take any pictures. I still have a bunch of fun photos from our mini trip to Taos with Kelly & Lechelle. We'll see if I can ever do anything with those.

Anyway, the point of this post is that as of thursday we've owned a dental office for a full month! And really it's been going great. We love the office and the staff and we've really been enjoying the clientele.

It's been truly a family business this month, since Max has gotten to come into work every time I have, and that's been a lot. Kris is loving it.

(Max making a friend in the waiting room)

Happy one month dental office anniversary to us!

::storytelling and a rainbow::

On saturday night we took Kelly, Lechelle and Boston to hear this great storyteller that we heard when we were out here last year.
On the way out there a big rain shower came in, and we weren't sure whether the storytelling was going to be on or not.
But the rain ended, and then there was the best thing ever. A full double rainbow!!

It was AMAZING looking. None of us had ever seen a rainbow so complete or so vivid. You could even see the full shadow rainbow.
The biggest bummer was that I didn't have my big camera, but my phone did it's very best. I still couldn't fit the whole thing in the picture though, no matter how hard I tried.


Max was all for going to find the pot of gold, but we made him listen to the storyteller instead, which he really enjoyed.

The coolest thing was that once we were seated to listen to the stories, the rainbow went right over the guy's head, perfectly centered like best kind of stage backdrop. Santa Fe is beautiful.


And it lasted for at least 40 minutes. Part of it kind of faded away, but the left leg got more and more vivid until it disappeared.
Amazing, right? Wish you all could've been there!

::cousins::

We have Kelly, Lechelle and Boston visiting us for the weekend and we're having a blast. Max is enjoying his little cousin when he's not busy trying to tear Kelly's attention away from his baby.


Boston thinks Max is super cool, and I was excited when Max wanted to hold him.
He's a good big cousin.

We're really enjoying their visit so far. It's so nice to get to spend time with the new cute babies in the family! And the big people in the family too of course.


Two boys "taking a nap" and snuggling this morning. Fun times!

::first tuesday::

We live in a very small community outside of town.
We have very small cute little shopping center here. The couple of times that I've been out there it's seemed like a bit of a ghost town. In fact, the other afternoon when Max and I went there to get an ice cream cone from the little sandwich shop, we were the only people in sight.
I don't want them to close down though, that would be a bummer, since we're a good 10 or 15 minutes outside of town.

This week the stores all got together and hosted a First Tuesday party, and of course we went.
It was really fun, free and very small.
They gave out teeny hot fudge sundaes. There were dogs in the dog training place doing tricks (though we didn't see any of those.)
There was a marimba band playing on the sidewalk--and they were really good!

I mostly just took that video to test out the video skills on my new phone that I haven't really had a chance to try.
There's a little computer repair shop there, and he brought out all the old PCs that people had dropped off for recycling and let people take them apart. It was pretty cool. Max loved it.



I was really impressed with how much of the computer he got apart. I didn't know he was so good with a screwdriver!!

We finished up with some face painting. This lady said it was her first time ever doing it, and she was really worried and stressed about it and took forever with each kid. As a result the little things she painted were SO pretty. She had butterflies on all the little girls that were so gorgeous I couldn't have painted them if I'd worked on it for a week on a really nice piece of paper. Anyway, she did a very good job.



Max was very proud of his little dragon.
So proud in fact, that he wouldn't let us wash it off at bedtime, and then, he wouldn't let us wash the remnants of it off in the morning either. So he went to play at a friend's house looking like he had some sort of strange skin condition.
That night we compromised by taking a picture before we washed it off in the tub.

He's a cute little stinker.

::last night::

::a cautionary tale::

When trying to make a batch of yummy brownies (that everybody is looking forward to), and when living at very high altitudes....

It's best to follow the high altitude directions on the box. (It also doesn't hurt to remember to add the water that's required.)
At least I remembered to grease the pan so they all came out. Otherwise the pan might've been a casualty.

(He thinks he's pretty funny, doesn't he?)
The dang things smelled so good and brownieish, but once they cooled down they were definitely tooth breakers.
Hopefully I've learned my lesson!

::around the house::

I've been meaning to do this post forever--just a few more glimpses of the house and stuff.
But it's been such a crazy life the last couple of weeks. We're working hard and enjoying it. I don't know if Max is enjoying his hours at work with us, but we're at least glad we're all together! And all the ladies at work are so nice to Max. We've come up with a little system. He does some workbook pages and then he can play his games and stuff. Holding out on the fun stuff until after he's done his work has made the fun stuff a little more attractive I think.

Anyway, around the house:

Here's my bookshelf--organized by color. I think it turned out really fun, though not quite as sophisticated as I've seen others (online) do. It does make my eyes happy to look at it though.

This picture is a couple of weeks old. Max in "his" bathtub. It's nice to have a tub where he can keep his toys without Kris and I tripping on them every time we need to shower.

Here's another older one. Max on the back porch. Well it's not really the back porch I guess. It runs along the side of the house and connects to the garden down where Max is.

This is the sun room/workout room at the very end of the hall. It's nice because it has french doors that open out to a little cement patio and then the desert.
BUT we haven't gotten to use it yet. Things have just been too crazy. Hopefully soon. I know the treadmill has been calling my name.

The view from the windows in Max's room. Pretty green for the desert, don't you think?

Here's a little peek at the guest room and the hideousest curtains ever. Kris is snoozing in there right now because when the movers put our bed together they did a terrible job and it's all squeaky and feels like it's going to fall apart. So we're going to repair it this afternoon.

The cool sink in the hall/guest bathroom. Come visit!

The mirror that goes along with it.

My mom's star fits into the decor well, don't you think? There used to be kind of a nasty bunch of dried chilis hanging from this hook, but luckily the previous renters came back for their mail and also took their chilis. Yay! I like the star much much better.

My sister Charlotte gave me this cute little key rack quite a long time ago. I love it and I show you the picture of it now because it's just so appropriate for our house. Because as I was going around this afternoon taking photos I suddenly heard this weird scrabbling sound. I looked up at the kitchen window and what did I see?

The window was open a crack (ours open sideways here) and this lizard was hanging out between the window and the screen. What a crazy lizard.

So there you go. Maybe I'll blog again before next week--we'll see!