Ella enjoyed a Painting with a Twist painting party with seven of her closest friendsfor her 12th birthday. She poured through galleries and galleries of painting options until she settled on the sunrise scene of the giant oak tree. After painting, eating cake, and otherwise goofing off, Ella and a few friends even got to wander around the mall together, a true rite of passage for a middle schooler.
The day after her party, Ella officially turned 12. Only one more year until she’s a teenager!!
February in Charlotte means sometimes snow and freezing temps and sometimes short sleeves and skirts on the tennis court. We had it all, and even a visit from some Florida relations who ventured north to see some snow (we had to chase some down in the mountains).
enjoying our new racquet club. | happy half birthday to jack! | back to soccer | they call her dabs at eyc because she always comes to the sunday evening meetings in her panthers gear. | boone! | we had to head to a ski resort to find some snow we could play in with jacob, noah, and emilee. #emileesfirstsnow | somebody forgot to bring a winter coat. | tubing! | fun with our cousins—and we even got some snow! | linville caverns | my favorite comic series #shegetsus | ella did the 30-hour famine again with eyc.
Aunt Chrissy and Uncle Chris brought their crew up from Florida in February, hoping to see some snow. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any in Charlotte (it’s hard to predict here) so we all headed to the NC mountains for the weekend. The Blue Ridge Parkway was closed so we couldn’t access any of the free sledding hills, but one of the ski resorts was just fine for a little snow exposure to kick our weekend off (pictures from goofing around in snow piles at the ski resort are on Instagram). This was actually Emilee’s first time seeing snow. The next day was the real deal—not only did it snow for us that day, but we had enjoyed a great morning so snow tubing at Hawksnest. On our way home from tubing, we also fit in a visit to Linville Caverns to which was a pretty interesting tour. I overheard Emilee say, “I can’t believe I’m inside a mountain!”
Hopefully one winter we’ll be able to introduce our other little Florida cousins to snow, too!
I guess it was a quiet month on the Instagram front, but January was a good one nonetheless.
“snow day” | go panthers! such a fun season and they’re going to the superbowl! #keeppounding | two mondays off of school well spent volunteering at Promising Pages. | ella’s officially a certified “safe sitter”! | father-daughter date night to see ‘wicked’. | so proud of jack trying a new sport this year. he had a good season and even got his first black eye from a sport—basketball is rough!
On our way in to Albuquerque we stopped for a short walk in part of the Petroglyph National Forest, home to over 20,000 ancient petroglyphs, or Native American and Spanish rock drawings, carved into volcanic rocks. This national monument is home to the “world’s largest accessible collection of petroglyphs”. We explored the Boca Negra Canyon and had a fun time hunting for the ancient carvings, and then even more fun trying to determine what they were (alligator with a lollipop for one—find it below). We also saw a jackrabbit and roadrunner on our short hike. The trail provided some beautiful views of west Albuquerque and we even got to see a hot air balloon gliding over the city. We ate dinner at a more contemporary taco joint in downtown Albuquerque with yummy salsa and even better margaritas. It snowed again overnight and the next morning, after hitting The Frontier again for breakfast (we didn’t get to try their famous cinnamon rolls when we stopped there for lunch a week earlier) we spent a long travel day to make our way home to Charlotte. Another family adventure in the books—so wonderful to show the kids more of this glorious country and I loved how active we were able to be on this year’s trip (multiple days of hiking, skiing, and snowmobiling). And the q.t. with the fam can not be beat.
Just a slight detour between Santa Fe and Albuquerque took us to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument where sandstone rock formations literally look like teepees. These “hoodoos” as they’re called were created by volcanic eruptions millions of years ago and then wind and water erosion over time since. Hoodoos without a round capstone are eroding more quickly now. This was definitely landscape nothing like anything we’d ever seen. A 2-mile hike took us through the Tent Rocks canyon—and it was a beautiful day for a hike, much warmer than we’d been in Taos!
On our last morning in Taos, before making our drive back to Albuquerque, we visited the Taos Pueblo. A UNESCO World Heritage site, the adobe walls of Taos Pueblo have been continuously inhabited for nearly 1000 years. Native American customs allow no electricity or running water in the main pueblo houses and about 100 people still live in them full-time. Tours are provided at the pueblo by Taos Native American college students currently studying Native American history. Our tour guide was visibly moved in her retelling of Taos history as it related to Spanish explorers and the U.S. government. The church at Taos Pueblo, the Church of San Geronimo, was built in 1850 to replace one destroyed by the U.S. government in 1847 during the Mexican War. We visited the site of the old church, now just a foundation and crumbling walls with a graveyard of crosses and headstones stacked on top of each other, and I couldn’t help but cry as our young tour guide described women and children seeking refuge in the church as U.S. soldiers sent cannon shells inside its walls. Historians tell of 150 Mexican and Indian rebels hiding in the church after leading a rebellion and killing the governor and many other officials. Nonetheless, I could feel the pain on the old site of the church and chose not to photograph the impactful field of stacked crosses in front of the ruins of the church.
Taos Pueblo was pretty quiet on the morning of our visit, we were among just a few visitors. The setting and buildings of the Taos Pueblo were quite stunning, yet the familiar sense of poverty that we’d seen in the many pueblos we had passed through on this trip pervaded. On the flip side, there is also a sense that history, tradition, and community are more important that the materialism that pervades most of American culture. Every pueblo also seemed to have a pack of wild dogs roaming the lands. The dogs mostly ignored people, playing—and sometimes fighting—amongst themselves. But at Taos Pueblo one group of puppies took a liking to Jack and Ella—it was cute until one jumped up and grabbed Ella’s scarf in its mouth (see photos below). After that it felt like time to move on. We drove the Low Road away from Taos towards Santa Fe and then the main highway from Santa Fe to Albuquerque with a few detours along the way.
