Fuzz was such a good sport going with me to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert-- he was pleasantly surprised when the show started to find out that this was more like a rock concert than anything. This video off of youtube was taken forever ago and totally doesn't even give the show justice-- really if you ever get the chance to see them in concert, it's totally worth going to!
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Here's what you get when you combine lot's of creativity, free time, ambition, lights, a house, and good music (Trans-Siberian Orchestra):
Much to be Thankful for. . .
Okay time for lot's of catching up. . . let's start way back-- Thanksgiving.
Here's what the Iverson's were thankful for this year:
The most beautiful Wedding Ever!
Heathcare-- huge! A tremendous benefit the army provides for us.
Answers to so many prayers.
Never ending love we feel each day from our Savior, and Heavenly Father.
Kind friends here in El Paso.
Safety-- living here on the border of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
Gorgeous sunsets-- every one takes our breath away.
Internet-Skype was a huge blessing while Fuzz was in Iraq though we're so thankful to speak in person now;)
Various service opportunites, run's etc. that have blessed our lives to be a part of.
IVERSON-- My new last name;)
New beginnings ;)
Golf-- I'd never learned how to play until this year. Fuzz would die without it.
The list goes on from there-- it'd be impossible for us to name all of the things that we are so grateful for. Our families especially and the relationship that we have with them. It's a blessing to live somewhat close to them, at least within driving distance. We have so much to be grateful for!
We got to go home, back to southern Utah for Thanksgiving. We left Wednesday afternoon and had to drive through snow, in the dark, for about 3 hours. We were going to take my car, but last minute we'd changed our minds and decided to take the truck-- which was the hugest blessing! There were cars sliding off the road, and we were even sliding, until Morgan put the truck in 4wd-- I don't know where we would've ended up without it. We saw snow the rest of the drive home, until about 30 min out of St. George. We pulled up to Fuzz's mom's house at about 3:30 am and she was surprisingly there out in the middle of the cold to greet us-- she had conveniently woken up on her own and went outside to get some wood for the fire, and surprise! There we were, just hopping out of Fuzz's truck, unloading all of our stuff to take inside with us. We had a good lil chat with DeAnn and then got to sleep. We slept for a few hours and then it was morning time;) We had our Thanksgiving feast at Grandma Sorenson's house-- it was amazing! And then we headed over to Hurricane to meet up with my Johnson Grandparents, and the rest of my family for dessert. That's where Tara surprised us with the big news. . . she's pregnant! She and Tiffany are both pregnant right now and due within about a month of each other, Tara-July, Tiffany-June! So FUN! We enjoyed the next couple days with our families, and then headed to Vegas Saturday night for the Transiberian Concert with my family.
Us with Shaye babe-- my lil brother, right before the show.
Mom's picture of us. . . just before it started ;)
It was amazing! Really, one of the neatest concerts I've ever been too-- even Fuzz Loved it! It was an awesome first Thanksgiving together with our families.
The next weekend we drove with our friends the Webbs to Phoenix to visit JJ and his beautiful family. Fuzz and his buddy that went with us had met JJ in Iraq.
This is a picture of another Airforce buddy, Fuzz and JJ.
JJ was in the airforce, and met up with them partway through there deployment. There weren't a lot of Mormon's there, but the three of them would meet up every Sunday and have a special worship time together, even if they just sang hymns the whole time. I was always hearing stories about JJ-- Funny kid. He was such a good friend to Fuzz and Webb, they all were so lucky to have each other there. JJ lives in IL so we've never been able to see him since they've all been back from their deployment, but conveniently for us, JJ's wife has family in Arizona that they were staying with for Thanksgiving for a couple weeks-- so we decided that we'd all go up and spend their last weekend there all together. We all went together with our spouses to the Mesa Temple- I couldn't get over how gorgeous it was. No picture that I'd ever seen had given it justice-- The inside was just as beautiful, or even more, than the outside. It was neat to be there all together- such a special experience for us all.
JJ, Tyler, and Fuzz
Me and Fuzz
That night we went to this incredible light parade that JJ's wife's family goes to each year-- they have a tradition where they set up a stand with soup and all kinds of treats for their family as they enjoy the light parade. Every float/person in the parade is covered in lights, it was amazing!
There were about 80 entries-- so much time and effort was put forth into this parade-- it was neat to be able to actually be there and see first hand their creativity.
The next week's adventure came as sort of a surprise. My friend Cassie lives here in El Paso with her husband-- Cassie and I use to be in the same ward back in Utah. And now, she was due to have her very first baby. Her family wasn't able to be there the week the baby was born-- as she was born about a week later than they'd anticipated, so we got to be there at the hospital with her to make sure that she'd be okay that night. She even let me stay in her room while she delivered her baby! I thought it would make me even more nervous about ever having one of my own-- but if anything it made me just so much more excited to someday be a mother. It was the neatest thing ever-- the baby was inside her one second, and then crying the next second on her lap with toes, fingers, ears and eyes-- It was a miracle-- I can't think of a better way to describe the experience. Little Jessica was gorgeous. I couldn't stop staring at her watching her take in her first moments of life. We've gone back several times to visit and she continues to grow even more beautiful every time we see her. Cassie is one of the most courageous people I know. I was so impressed with how she handled everything at the hospital, and with suddenly being a new mom-- truly one of my greatest hero's.
We had a Christmas get-together with some of our closest buddies the other night. Right before people started coming over we received our wedding DVD's from our friend Alan in New York. Definately one of the most brilliant people I know. He'd put together the most incredible wedding video I'd ever seen as a gift to us. It had me in tears from the first 5 seconds clear to the end. He included every detail of the day and included excerpts from what our parents had thought of that day-- they had secretly all gotten together behind our backs and recorded their thoughts of the temple ceremony as we were there, and what they thought about us, and that special day. It was one of the neatest gifts I've ever seen-- what a labor of love! It will be something we'll forever cherish.
We'd popped in the DVD while our friends were there-- they hadn't been able to come to our wedding so we thought it would be neat for them to see what it was like. Everyone loved it.
We ate tons of junk food and then Fuzz performed-- for the first time ever-- Silent Night. He had been practicing with me all the week before, and then that night played it for our friends.
This is his last run through before his show-- you can tell how serious he was taking it-- haha.
It was so funny to see him so nervous-- but he didn't let his nerves get in the way and affect his performance. It was so much fun, Webb pulled out our other guitar and asked Fuzz to teach him how to play it too.
Then we all played it together-- they did Amazing!
So this weekend started off with an early morning 8k race at Fort Bliss. We ran with our buddy Rios ;) we all have different paces so all finished at different times, but had a great time:)
That night we went to our friend Kevin's 25th birthday party-- it was an 80's party. Even though Fuzz and I were both born in the 80's we had no idea what we were going to wear-- this is what we came up with ;)
Well today is our 6 month anniversary! Woohoo! And to celebrate, we get to pack and get ready to wake up at 3:30 in the morning to drive home for Christmas! We really can't wait to spend the holiday with our families. This time we'll be able to stay home for 10 whole days!
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Here's what the Iverson's were thankful for this year:
The most beautiful Wedding Ever!
Heathcare-- huge! A tremendous benefit the army provides for us.
Answers to so many prayers.
Never ending love we feel each day from our Savior, and Heavenly Father.
Kind friends here in El Paso.
Safety-- living here on the border of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
Gorgeous sunsets-- every one takes our breath away.
Internet-Skype was a huge blessing while Fuzz was in Iraq though we're so thankful to speak in person now;)
Various service opportunites, run's etc. that have blessed our lives to be a part of.
IVERSON-- My new last name;)
New beginnings ;)
Golf-- I'd never learned how to play until this year. Fuzz would die without it.
The list goes on from there-- it'd be impossible for us to name all of the things that we are so grateful for. Our families especially and the relationship that we have with them. It's a blessing to live somewhat close to them, at least within driving distance. We have so much to be grateful for!
We got to go home, back to southern Utah for Thanksgiving. We left Wednesday afternoon and had to drive through snow, in the dark, for about 3 hours. We were going to take my car, but last minute we'd changed our minds and decided to take the truck-- which was the hugest blessing! There were cars sliding off the road, and we were even sliding, until Morgan put the truck in 4wd-- I don't know where we would've ended up without it. We saw snow the rest of the drive home, until about 30 min out of St. George. We pulled up to Fuzz's mom's house at about 3:30 am and she was surprisingly there out in the middle of the cold to greet us-- she had conveniently woken up on her own and went outside to get some wood for the fire, and surprise! There we were, just hopping out of Fuzz's truck, unloading all of our stuff to take inside with us. We had a good lil chat with DeAnn and then got to sleep. We slept for a few hours and then it was morning time;) We had our Thanksgiving feast at Grandma Sorenson's house-- it was amazing! And then we headed over to Hurricane to meet up with my Johnson Grandparents, and the rest of my family for dessert. That's where Tara surprised us with the big news. . . she's pregnant! She and Tiffany are both pregnant right now and due within about a month of each other, Tara-July, Tiffany-June! So FUN! We enjoyed the next couple days with our families, and then headed to Vegas Saturday night for the Transiberian Concert with my family.
Us with Shaye babe-- my lil brother, right before the show.
Mom's picture of us. . . just before it started ;)
It was amazing! Really, one of the neatest concerts I've ever been too-- even Fuzz Loved it! It was an awesome first Thanksgiving together with our families.
The next weekend we drove with our friends the Webbs to Phoenix to visit JJ and his beautiful family. Fuzz and his buddy that went with us had met JJ in Iraq.
This is a picture of another Airforce buddy, Fuzz and JJ.
JJ was in the airforce, and met up with them partway through there deployment. There weren't a lot of Mormon's there, but the three of them would meet up every Sunday and have a special worship time together, even if they just sang hymns the whole time. I was always hearing stories about JJ-- Funny kid. He was such a good friend to Fuzz and Webb, they all were so lucky to have each other there. JJ lives in IL so we've never been able to see him since they've all been back from their deployment, but conveniently for us, JJ's wife has family in Arizona that they were staying with for Thanksgiving for a couple weeks-- so we decided that we'd all go up and spend their last weekend there all together. We all went together with our spouses to the Mesa Temple- I couldn't get over how gorgeous it was. No picture that I'd ever seen had given it justice-- The inside was just as beautiful, or even more, than the outside. It was neat to be there all together- such a special experience for us all.
JJ, Tyler, and Fuzz
Me and Fuzz
That night we went to this incredible light parade that JJ's wife's family goes to each year-- they have a tradition where they set up a stand with soup and all kinds of treats for their family as they enjoy the light parade. Every float/person in the parade is covered in lights, it was amazing!
There were about 80 entries-- so much time and effort was put forth into this parade-- it was neat to be able to actually be there and see first hand their creativity.
The next week's adventure came as sort of a surprise. My friend Cassie lives here in El Paso with her husband-- Cassie and I use to be in the same ward back in Utah. And now, she was due to have her very first baby. Her family wasn't able to be there the week the baby was born-- as she was born about a week later than they'd anticipated, so we got to be there at the hospital with her to make sure that she'd be okay that night. She even let me stay in her room while she delivered her baby! I thought it would make me even more nervous about ever having one of my own-- but if anything it made me just so much more excited to someday be a mother. It was the neatest thing ever-- the baby was inside her one second, and then crying the next second on her lap with toes, fingers, ears and eyes-- It was a miracle-- I can't think of a better way to describe the experience. Little Jessica was gorgeous. I couldn't stop staring at her watching her take in her first moments of life. We've gone back several times to visit and she continues to grow even more beautiful every time we see her. Cassie is one of the most courageous people I know. I was so impressed with how she handled everything at the hospital, and with suddenly being a new mom-- truly one of my greatest hero's.
We had a Christmas get-together with some of our closest buddies the other night. Right before people started coming over we received our wedding DVD's from our friend Alan in New York. Definately one of the most brilliant people I know. He'd put together the most incredible wedding video I'd ever seen as a gift to us. It had me in tears from the first 5 seconds clear to the end. He included every detail of the day and included excerpts from what our parents had thought of that day-- they had secretly all gotten together behind our backs and recorded their thoughts of the temple ceremony as we were there, and what they thought about us, and that special day. It was one of the neatest gifts I've ever seen-- what a labor of love! It will be something we'll forever cherish.
We'd popped in the DVD while our friends were there-- they hadn't been able to come to our wedding so we thought it would be neat for them to see what it was like. Everyone loved it.
We ate tons of junk food and then Fuzz performed-- for the first time ever-- Silent Night. He had been practicing with me all the week before, and then that night played it for our friends.
This is his last run through before his show-- you can tell how serious he was taking it-- haha.
It was so funny to see him so nervous-- but he didn't let his nerves get in the way and affect his performance. It was so much fun, Webb pulled out our other guitar and asked Fuzz to teach him how to play it too.
Then we all played it together-- they did Amazing!
So this weekend started off with an early morning 8k race at Fort Bliss. We ran with our buddy Rios ;) we all have different paces so all finished at different times, but had a great time:)
That night we went to our friend Kevin's 25th birthday party-- it was an 80's party. Even though Fuzz and I were both born in the 80's we had no idea what we were going to wear-- this is what we came up with ;)
Well today is our 6 month anniversary! Woohoo! And to celebrate, we get to pack and get ready to wake up at 3:30 in the morning to drive home for Christmas! We really can't wait to spend the holiday with our families. This time we'll be able to stay home for 10 whole days!
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Happy Halloween!
It wouldn't be Halloween without carved pumpkins. . . Fuzz thought he'd be creative and make a castle . . . it was funny when we had some of our friends come over and compliment him on his "temple" ;)
And we just had to roast our pumpkin seeds yummm!
We were Napoleon Dynamite and Deb his girly-friend.
We went to a couple Halloween parties with our friends, and the infamous trunk-or-treat in the church parking lot. There were a TON of kids there, we were out of candy in like 5 min! And we thought we had brought plenty. On our way from one event to the other we were right behind a car collision and went to go and make sure everyone was okay. I didn't even realize we had our costumes on until we were leaving, and they complimented us on them. I'm sure it was quite the site, seeing us all in our costumes on the side of the road with the wrecked cars. Luckily everyone was okay.
So we've finally started climbing again! YAY!!! We went with our friends, the Webbs, and their dog Lila-- I'm totally allergic to her, but she's adorable and so I can ever resist playing with her. We all had so much fun!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Pumpkin Time of Year
So I've been trying to keep busy with projects -having so much more free time on my hands than I'm use to. We got this couch for free but it was like a blue faded plaid, so I decided I'd recover it. I ran out of fabric half way through and had to wait till the fabric went half off again-- so that I could finally finish haha-- so here it is! That black pillow was another project-- I've learned that for the most part, learning to do projects like this can really save a ton of money!
This is an awesome picture of Fuzz ;) We bought some ear candling candles a while ago and finally put them to use. I had never done this before, it was odd-- but actually really cool. The candles are hollowed and you just light the candle and it creates like a vacuum effect and cleans out your ear canals by sucking out the wax into the hollow candle-- you can see it when you're finished and I took pictures, but it kinda looks gross-- so I didn't post them. But you can do it at home and see for yourselves ;)
We went with some of our friends to a corn maze pumpkin fest-- it was so much fun! It was kind or more aimed towards entertaining the children, which we were the only ones of our friends without any, but it was fun to be with everyone else and watch their kids have so much fun.
Here Fuzz is sling-shooting baby pumpkins aiming at the target, scarecrows, and donkeys that were down there. The guys we were with kept over shooting and launching the pumpkins over the target-- the kid that worked there was loosing his patience with them as he continued to say, "Yea-- it's not suppose to go over. Stop doing that." But everyone was just acting like big kids, just with a lot more strength!
Here's Fuzz with his buddy Harp, keepin an eye on the kids.
Doesn't Fuzz's haircut look great!!! haha So the other day we had to stop in the middle of what we were doing to go get Fuzz a haircut because the new unit that he's in is a lot more strict, and he's having to get his hair cut just about every week or two. Every time he goes and gets his hair cut here, and when he was in New York too, he complains that they do a terrible job, and it drives him crazy! He's very particular about his hair, and likes for it to look nice, so it's so frustrating when he looks in the mirror and sees obvious mistakes when he just paid to get his hair done. So. . . all this hair cutting kind of adds up after a while, and I was telling him to think about how much he spends a year getting terrible haircuts. And then to think about over the course of his life how much he'll spend. My mom has always cut our hair, and when we wanted something wild and crazy then we went out to the salon-- but that was very seldom. I try to think about how much she might have spent had she taken all six of us in and paid good money every time we needed a haircut. Wow-- that would have been a ton of money! So I came up with this brilliant idea. . . I suggested that he let me just try. . . and if he hated it he could just buzz his head like half the other guys in the army do every day anyways. And he gets terrible haircuts most the time anyways from the salon's here, so I kinda felt like he didn't have much to lose letting me try it out. One random night after this conversation, he comes to me and says, "Okay I'm ready to let you cut my hair, right now." I was kinda caught off guard-- and so nervous because I'd never done a fade before-- but he was incredibly patient with me as I took like over an hour to make sure ever strand of hair was just the perfect length. And can you believe, he actually liked it. Even if he were to tell me he didn't-- I have eyes and I've seen his previous haircuts from the places that he gets it cut here-- and it looked dang good! Okay now that I've said this, I'm probably going to be jinxed and never be able to do this again ;) like when I learned to parallel park, and had never practiced before I was in the car with my driving instructor, so I just pretended like I knew what I was doing and I did it -- like perfect-- and have never been able to do it again, not even on my driving test. Hopefully this haircutting thing will be different.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta!
This past weekend we had the opportunity to go up to the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque! My dad had some work that he needed to do in Santa Fe-- so it worked out perfect for us to all meet up there together! (Santa Fe is about 45 min out of Albuquerque)
Because the Balloon Fiesta brings so much traffic into the city and surrounding areas, it was difficult for us to find a room anywhere that wasn't outrageously priced. After calling hotel after hotel checking availability I decided that my best bet at that point would be to take my chances on Hotwire.com. I'd never done this before, but have heard pretty good reviews from anyone I've ever asked about it, and now I'm a believer too! The thing about Hotwire.com is that you can get a way sweet deal on a hotel in a general area. . . but the catch is that you don't know which hotel it is until after you book/pay for it online. So you could be getting a Motel 6 for all you know- I was way worried when I started looking at the hotels in the area that we were looking into because there were quite a few ghetto looking ones and then further down the way there were a few pretty nice ones. We wanted to stay at the Holiday Inn because we've had good experiences there-- but it was insanely overpriced. I ended up booking a room with Hotwire.com-- and then crossed my fingers hoping it was half decent. And guess what?!!! It was the Holiday Inn room that I'd called to check on before, with even bigger beds then what they told me they had available, and $60.00 cheaper! No big deal--- haha. So there's my quick shout-out to Hotwire.com. Go Hotwire!
So we were off to a great start. . . our sweet room/deal was totally an omen that the rest of the weekend was just goin to be awesome! The drive was fab-- a hundred-thousand-billion-trillion times better than the last drive up there when we drove through that terrible storm and the road was covered in what we thought at the time were frogs-- like millions, everywhere-- totally covering the road, we later found out were just enormous locusts-- like 4 inches + long--- yea there were none of those this drive, and just the tiniest sprinkle of rain, we hardly even noticed it.
We made it to Santa Fe just before 10 so we were able to spend a few hours with the Sevy clan before we went to bed. We got to wake up bright and early so that we could head into Albuquerque to see this:
The Balloons were gorgeous! There were so many of them-- all so unique~
This one was having some complications but we were lucky to be able to be so close to it! Those baskets that they stand in are so tiny-- I was sure they would be so much bigger than they were, but they're really only made to hold just a few people-- I think 4 would about fill it up.
It's the best feeling in the world to be with your family-- and there's nothing like getting a hug from your mom and dad when you've been away from them for a little while-- and a hug from Kenna too! Aren't they beautiful?! I had just made that headband for Ken the other day, and I was so glad it looked so great on her!
Here is the view of the Balloons from the base of the mountain, where the temple is. My parents and Ken hadn't ever seen it before, but they loved it!
Temple grounds are always a great place for group pictures;) here's us with mom, and then she changes into Ken. . .
We decided to check out the Old Historic Albuquerque-- and so did everybody else in town jk but really, there were a million people there! It took us at least a half an hour-- no exaggeration-- to find a parking spot because that place was packed! Here's Fuzz at the front entrance of the old town square.
There were vendors everywhere selling all of their authentic Native American jewelry-- it was gorgeous!
The whole square was so beautiful!
hola mi amigos! I think this would be a great hat to keep the sun off your face-- and probably the whole rest of your body too!
This was probably one of my most favorite parts of the trip! We got to meet some of the actual Navajo code talkers and hear them personally tell us about their experience and show us pictures of them when they were like 17 or 18 in the military. They told us about lying about there age just so that they could join the army. They were the nicest, neatest people. It was such an honor to be able to meet such brave man, who've done so much for our country.
If you look closely on this gentleman's hat you'll see the purple heart medallion! It's not everyday you meet somebody wearing one of those!
In band, because I was a percussionist we had to learn all kinds of different instruments, like the marimba, xylophone, bells, vibes. . . etc. But we never saw anything quite like this! This was like a Hispanic version of the marimba made out of different materials- The sound was incredible! These guys were so talented, it was so fun to watch them, and you could tell that they were enjoying it just as much as we were!
Here was a young Mariachi band performing there in the center of the square! They were high school and middle school students from that area-- we had so much fun listening to them. There was one song in particular that was such a crowd-pleaser. The talent from these young kids was just fascinating!
Okay, so that night my dad wanted to take us to one of his favorite restaurants in Santa Fe, The Plaza Restaurant. It was actually closed for renovation, but we were told there was another one in town, and come to find out it was right by our hotel! The food was awesome, but when it came time for our dessert, our waitress asked us if we'd be interested in the apple pie with green chili's and a cheddar crust. We were like, "Whhhaaatt?!" The combination was hard to imagine-- but she said that she'd be happy to bring us a sample piece to try. This was it. Pretty decent sample size! It was ok. . . kinda had a wierd after taste-- it was edible, but I still think I'm goin to stick with just regular apple pie from now on. Fuzz struggled with the flavor-- but he was such a great sport to even try it;)
Okay-- this was super cool! I'd heard this story years ago, it was actually on Unsolved Mysteries once upon a time. This is the Loretto Chapel, with the infamous, miraculous stairway. The story goes, there were some nuns that wanted to make this chapel into a girls catholic school, but desperately needed some stairs to connect the two levels, set up in a way that the stairs could take up the least amount of congregation space as possible, because the chapel was already so small. They took the matter up in prayer, and prayed to Saint Joseph, the carpenter (Jesus' father), for help as they didn't know how they were going to make this work. At the end of that week of prayer there was a man that showed up out of nowhere that nobody had ever seen or heard of before, that was ironically a carpenter-- who had come to build this stairway for them. He was mysterious to them because he didn't tell them where he'd come from or how he'd even known about their desire for help. He had 3 simple tools and spent the next 6 months in hard labor working on the stairway. There were no support beams used for the entire stairway~ scientist, architects and engineers are still to this day baffled at this remarkable structure that is impossible for them to even replicate as to them it makes no logical sense and defys the laws of architecture! So cool! It was made over a hundred years ago, and still stands, though they did add railings onto it because people were afraid that they would fall down the stairs without something to hold onto.
This is a picture of the stairway without railings as it was originally made. Yea, I can see why those nuns struggled with the thought of walking down without anything to hold onto. As you can see, there is not even a center beam!
The wood was so beautiful!
This stained glass was amazing!
Here was another church just up the block from the Loretto Chapel.
This church, as it reads in the picture above, is the oldest church structure in the USA. I think it was interesting that the Indians from Mexico built the walls and alter under the direction of Franciscan Padres. I'm pretty sure that this wasn't the religion of these Indians, and it just reminded me of the pioneers that came across the United States, that tried time and time again to build a temple to worship in and kept getting kicked out until they arrived in the Utah valley and spent the next 40 years building the Salt Lake City temple. It truly was a labor of love. And there were so many people that sacrificed so much to build that temple, loading the granite from the mountains and transporting it to what is now temple square. I'm sure a lot of those people had to sacrifice time from work, so that they could help work on the temple. I'm so grateful for the sacrifices that they made, and for their desire to build this temple themselves, with their own hands, as a place that that they could be free to worship.
I love that there were so many churches in both Albuquerque and Santa Fe-- I love knowing that religion was important to these people, and I could see sacrifices in their labor to bring about these magnificent places for them to be able to worship.
That area was filled with ton's of different art pieces. This one had no explanation to go along with it, so we're not really sure what it's depicting. . . I'm sure something profound about planes and countries all over the world. . . but it looked really cool. . . so we took a picture of it ;)
And that's it-- our fabulous weekend in New Mexico with my family! The Balloon Fiesta was amazing-- so neat to see! It was definitely something that we can't wait to come back to again someday!
Because the Balloon Fiesta brings so much traffic into the city and surrounding areas, it was difficult for us to find a room anywhere that wasn't outrageously priced. After calling hotel after hotel checking availability I decided that my best bet at that point would be to take my chances on Hotwire.com. I'd never done this before, but have heard pretty good reviews from anyone I've ever asked about it, and now I'm a believer too! The thing about Hotwire.com is that you can get a way sweet deal on a hotel in a general area. . . but the catch is that you don't know which hotel it is until after you book/pay for it online. So you could be getting a Motel 6 for all you know- I was way worried when I started looking at the hotels in the area that we were looking into because there were quite a few ghetto looking ones and then further down the way there were a few pretty nice ones. We wanted to stay at the Holiday Inn because we've had good experiences there-- but it was insanely overpriced. I ended up booking a room with Hotwire.com-- and then crossed my fingers hoping it was half decent. And guess what?!!! It was the Holiday Inn room that I'd called to check on before, with even bigger beds then what they told me they had available, and $60.00 cheaper! No big deal--- haha. So there's my quick shout-out to Hotwire.com. Go Hotwire!
So we were off to a great start. . . our sweet room/deal was totally an omen that the rest of the weekend was just goin to be awesome! The drive was fab-- a hundred-thousand-billion-trillion times better than the last drive up there when we drove through that terrible storm and the road was covered in what we thought at the time were frogs-- like millions, everywhere-- totally covering the road, we later found out were just enormous locusts-- like 4 inches + long--- yea there were none of those this drive, and just the tiniest sprinkle of rain, we hardly even noticed it.
We made it to Santa Fe just before 10 so we were able to spend a few hours with the Sevy clan before we went to bed. We got to wake up bright and early so that we could head into Albuquerque to see this:
The Balloons were gorgeous! There were so many of them-- all so unique~
This one was having some complications but we were lucky to be able to be so close to it! Those baskets that they stand in are so tiny-- I was sure they would be so much bigger than they were, but they're really only made to hold just a few people-- I think 4 would about fill it up.
It's the best feeling in the world to be with your family-- and there's nothing like getting a hug from your mom and dad when you've been away from them for a little while-- and a hug from Kenna too! Aren't they beautiful?! I had just made that headband for Ken the other day, and I was so glad it looked so great on her!
Here is the view of the Balloons from the base of the mountain, where the temple is. My parents and Ken hadn't ever seen it before, but they loved it!
Temple grounds are always a great place for group pictures;) here's us with mom, and then she changes into Ken. . .
We decided to check out the Old Historic Albuquerque-- and so did everybody else in town jk but really, there were a million people there! It took us at least a half an hour-- no exaggeration-- to find a parking spot because that place was packed! Here's Fuzz at the front entrance of the old town square.
There were vendors everywhere selling all of their authentic Native American jewelry-- it was gorgeous!
The whole square was so beautiful!
hola mi amigos! I think this would be a great hat to keep the sun off your face-- and probably the whole rest of your body too!
This was probably one of my most favorite parts of the trip! We got to meet some of the actual Navajo code talkers and hear them personally tell us about their experience and show us pictures of them when they were like 17 or 18 in the military. They told us about lying about there age just so that they could join the army. They were the nicest, neatest people. It was such an honor to be able to meet such brave man, who've done so much for our country.
If you look closely on this gentleman's hat you'll see the purple heart medallion! It's not everyday you meet somebody wearing one of those!
In band, because I was a percussionist we had to learn all kinds of different instruments, like the marimba, xylophone, bells, vibes. . . etc. But we never saw anything quite like this! This was like a Hispanic version of the marimba made out of different materials- The sound was incredible! These guys were so talented, it was so fun to watch them, and you could tell that they were enjoying it just as much as we were!
Here was a young Mariachi band performing there in the center of the square! They were high school and middle school students from that area-- we had so much fun listening to them. There was one song in particular that was such a crowd-pleaser. The talent from these young kids was just fascinating!
Okay, so that night my dad wanted to take us to one of his favorite restaurants in Santa Fe, The Plaza Restaurant. It was actually closed for renovation, but we were told there was another one in town, and come to find out it was right by our hotel! The food was awesome, but when it came time for our dessert, our waitress asked us if we'd be interested in the apple pie with green chili's and a cheddar crust. We were like, "Whhhaaatt?!" The combination was hard to imagine-- but she said that she'd be happy to bring us a sample piece to try. This was it. Pretty decent sample size! It was ok. . . kinda had a wierd after taste-- it was edible, but I still think I'm goin to stick with just regular apple pie from now on. Fuzz struggled with the flavor-- but he was such a great sport to even try it;)
Okay-- this was super cool! I'd heard this story years ago, it was actually on Unsolved Mysteries once upon a time. This is the Loretto Chapel, with the infamous, miraculous stairway. The story goes, there were some nuns that wanted to make this chapel into a girls catholic school, but desperately needed some stairs to connect the two levels, set up in a way that the stairs could take up the least amount of congregation space as possible, because the chapel was already so small. They took the matter up in prayer, and prayed to Saint Joseph, the carpenter (Jesus' father), for help as they didn't know how they were going to make this work. At the end of that week of prayer there was a man that showed up out of nowhere that nobody had ever seen or heard of before, that was ironically a carpenter-- who had come to build this stairway for them. He was mysterious to them because he didn't tell them where he'd come from or how he'd even known about their desire for help. He had 3 simple tools and spent the next 6 months in hard labor working on the stairway. There were no support beams used for the entire stairway~ scientist, architects and engineers are still to this day baffled at this remarkable structure that is impossible for them to even replicate as to them it makes no logical sense and defys the laws of architecture! So cool! It was made over a hundred years ago, and still stands, though they did add railings onto it because people were afraid that they would fall down the stairs without something to hold onto.
This is a picture of the stairway without railings as it was originally made. Yea, I can see why those nuns struggled with the thought of walking down without anything to hold onto. As you can see, there is not even a center beam!
The wood was so beautiful!
This stained glass was amazing!
Here was another church just up the block from the Loretto Chapel.
This church, as it reads in the picture above, is the oldest church structure in the USA. I think it was interesting that the Indians from Mexico built the walls and alter under the direction of Franciscan Padres. I'm pretty sure that this wasn't the religion of these Indians, and it just reminded me of the pioneers that came across the United States, that tried time and time again to build a temple to worship in and kept getting kicked out until they arrived in the Utah valley and spent the next 40 years building the Salt Lake City temple. It truly was a labor of love. And there were so many people that sacrificed so much to build that temple, loading the granite from the mountains and transporting it to what is now temple square. I'm sure a lot of those people had to sacrifice time from work, so that they could help work on the temple. I'm so grateful for the sacrifices that they made, and for their desire to build this temple themselves, with their own hands, as a place that that they could be free to worship.
I love that there were so many churches in both Albuquerque and Santa Fe-- I love knowing that religion was important to these people, and I could see sacrifices in their labor to bring about these magnificent places for them to be able to worship.
That area was filled with ton's of different art pieces. This one had no explanation to go along with it, so we're not really sure what it's depicting. . . I'm sure something profound about planes and countries all over the world. . . but it looked really cool. . . so we took a picture of it ;)
And that's it-- our fabulous weekend in New Mexico with my family! The Balloon Fiesta was amazing-- so neat to see! It was definitely something that we can't wait to come back to again someday!
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