Funny Faces

Avery is learning to kiss. She is also learning to drink out of a straw. This is her "fishy face." It's SO cute!!

I like to play the airplane game with her. I used to play this with my mom too. The mom lays on her back and plants her feet firmly on the standing child's belly. Then you hold onto the child's hands and lift them up with your legs slightly bent and then you can hold their arms while you create turbulence and take off and land while simultaneously getting an ab work out. Double win. AND you get to look at their silly silly faces. Triple win? But be careful.

I was having a grand ole' time with Avery doing this the other day and then about 4 minutes into it, she totally up chucked some curdled milk. On my face. It was gross. I gagged. Avery laughed. Story over. Warning issued.

**Side note - while writing this post, I decided to google/use thesaurus.com to look up other synonyms for barf. This is what they had on there and I was dying laughing at some of them. Technicolor yawn?!?! Chunder was another favorite. Bahahahahaha. I almost peed a little.

Main Entry: puke  [pyook]
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: vomit
Synonyms: barf , be sick, bring up, chunder, cough up, do the technicolor yawn, gag, get sick, heave, hurl, regurgitate, retch, spew, spit up, throw up, toss one's cookies, upchuck

In fact, it kind of looks like this picture is pre-barf. But it wasn't. The puking was a different day. I feel like this post has suddenly turned into a vomit thesaurus. Sorry. Back to pictures of sweet Avery.

Look at all those teeth! They are adorable! I'm just glad that for some reason, not on purpose, you can't see my HORRIBLE chipping pedicure from the wedding I was in 3 weeks ago. It's the little things :)

Anyone else play the airplane game with their parents or children? How about the last time someone did a technicolor yawn on you?

The Mountain Town of Cloudcroft, NM - Part II

After the self guided tour of the museum, we asked the front desk person for a lunch recommendation. He pointed us (literally - "go down that there bend") to a place called the Cross-Eyed Moose Cafe (I got the picture from yelp.com). See the rusted out flat metal moose in the front? He had Mardi Gras beads on. It was funny. I laughed.

While we don't know for sure, our group pretty much reached the consensus that there was ONE server and ONE cook. When we got to the restaurant, we were the second table seated. When we left, the place was FULL! You could tell that this was definitely a local place. We were all ready for drink refills and it was obvious to the casual observer that the server was struggling with all the tables. One of the other customers who had come in after us (she was in her 60s+ and her husband was on an oxygen tank) was probably a regular/local and started refilling everybody's drinks to help out. She was so sweet. Things like that make me want to live in a small town where everyone knows your name.

We didn't mind the slowness of the service because we had good company and everyone was so nice. The food was good too. I somehow convinced almost everyone in our party to get a pattymelt. I'm pretty sure they are my FAVORITE kind of burger. About half of our group also got sides of avocado. Which are NOT my favorite. Ugh. But everyone else was super excited about it. I think they are like pickles. You are either a pickle person, or you are not. Same with avocados. Troy is SO excited about Subway promoting their new avocado turkey club sandwich. Just because of the avocado. And the bacon. Yuck.

Moving on. Here is a picture of Avery enjoying (?) the giant stuffed moose on the wall. I'm pretty sure her whole hand fit inside the nostril. Not that I checked. On purpose. The picture also shows her top teeth.

Not to be confused with "Moose," our stuffed deer.

This is Nate, also enjoying the moose in the restaurant. They were having a stare-down. For inquiring minds, the moose won ;)

And this is me, enjoying baby Zack snuggle time :) SQUEEEEEEZE! His mom and dad needed to eat so I snuggled and smelled him. Really. And look at that mouth! So sweet. I stole some kisses. Love him.

During lunch, Jared, another one of Troy's classmates from training, drove up to go on a hike with us. Well, hike is kind of a big exaggeration. We underestimated the trail. Well, we didn't plan properly with the strollers. Zack ended up being carried in his backpack by Kristen, Jared (the other Jared, not the Jared who drove up at lunch) pushed Avery in her non-offroading stroller,and Nate pushed Zack's empty, also non-offroading stroller. Jared and Kristen don't have children yet. So we take advantage of them and free up our arms. Don't worry, they volunteered :) Here is a picture of our very awkward hiking group. As you can see, our shoe attire was about as appropriate as our strollers. It was fine as we only went about 1/2 to 3/4 mile tops. We are planning to go back up there in the next two months a little more prepared for a hike. You know with tennis shoes, baby carriers, hats, and sunscreen.

Natalie and Troy picture in the woods. Before the trail turned into gravel. You can see how we were tricked by the turn of events when the paved path suddenly turned into gravel. We were just far enough away from the car that we were all, oh well, the strollers were coming. There was no turning back.

This is Avery relaxing for the hike. Before it turned into a seizure inducing bumpy ride. She liked it :) I love that her stroller reclines all the way back. It's great for on the go diaper changes. But not sleeping. Because she won't sleep in her stroller. Or anywhere but her bed. Doesn't she look so long here? Baby girl is growing up...

Studs.

I love love love this picture. You can tell these are genuine smiles from the girls.

This is Troy and me standing at the one of the lookouts. It's called "Devil's Elbow." That name is not creepy at all.

Avery was relaxed. I took this because LOOK AT THOSE CHUBBY LEGS! YUM!

I love this picture. It's all the boys at the bottom of Devil's Elbow. They left us girls at the top with the strollers (they really just couldn't go any farther) for about 20 minutes to go down there. Unfortunately, it was long enough for Karen to burn her shoulders :( While down there, they found the collapsed "S curve" for trains. It was the first one ever built and then collapsed in 1960. But of course I don't have any pictures of it because they didn't take the camera. Instead, I have the Superhero picture of the boys. Which is cute :) Me likey.

This is Jared (the one who drove up at lunch) attempting to climb the ravine back up to the platform.

I didn't get a picture of it, but there was a whole section of the trail that had the big steps similar to this:

Going down wasn't so bad. Especially since her Guardian Angel (haha) was pushing her. The way back up...not so awesome. After a few minutes of struggling, Jared and Troy wound up carrying her Princess style up the stairs in her stroller. Jared had the top and Troy held the bottom so Avery was completely supine. It kind of looked like this. Unfortunately, again, I didn't get a picture. Probably because I was too busy huffing and puffing up the stairs. I am so out of shape. Must. Work. Out. More.

We walked past this on the way back up the trail. I think someone was trying to make a gargoyle. Or a totem pole. But it just wound up looking like an unfinished Garfield.

We all got back in our cars to drive back to Holloman. We took a detour. To a place called the Old Apple Barn (image from yelp.com). It was a fun little gift shop. We bought some fudge. Yum. They also sold things like pie, apple jelly, and random little tchotchkes. We probably played in there for almost an hour.

Avery is very curious. And smart :) She does not like to miss ANYTHING. Unfortunately, that means that she won't nap anywhere except in her bed, in the dark, with no stimuli whatsoever. We left at 9am and then started to drive back around 430pm. Meaning no nap all day. At least she's not crabby. But then on the way home, this happens. Haha.

Overall, a very busy, but super fun day. I hope you enjoyed it (well looking at pictures) too! Anyone been to a weirdly named local restaurant? Or been ill-prepared for a hike?

The Mountain Town of Cloudcroft, NM - Part I

We were invited by some friends to go with them up to Cloudcroft, New Mexico this past weekend. I didn't take much convincing. Especially after they told us that this is a mountain town and elevation is 8000+ feet**. Which means the temperature is 20 degrees cooler there than down here in Hades, Alamogordo. I was totally in.

** Side note: Alamogordo is 4000+ feet above sea level. Which I did not know. And then I made brownies out of a box for dessert the other night. And I did not even THINK of following the additional instructions for baking at high altitudes. Lets just say that I was lucky they were edible. Because I was supposed to use 1 less egg and add flour. Oops. I do not win any awards from Betty Crocker this week :(

We went with a group of 6 adults and 2 babies (Avery is almost 14 months and Zack is 15 weeks) for part one of the trip and then another friend joined us up there after lunch (part II of this post). The 8 of us (babies are people too, you know!) left at 9am for the drive up there. It took about 40 minutes and our ears were popping the whole time. We kept feeding the babies or putting pacifiers in their mouths so their ears would pop. It was good. Here is our view from the top!! There was an overlook that we stopped at that was right before we got to the actual town of Cloudcroft.

Isn't it GORGEOUS??



Do you see the white sand? That is the national park about 15 minutes from Alamogordo where you can sled down the dunes and stuff. We will also be going there. Alas, that is not what this post is about. Still gorgeous in pictures though.



All of these trees are part of the Lincoln National Forest. Can you believe all these trees? I just pictured sand, sand, and more sand when Troy said we were going to be in New Mexico for 5 months. I was so surprised!



This is the most artsy picture I have ever taken. Go me. I actually TOOK the photograph in black and white. I'm impressed I could figure out how to change the settings on my camera. And then change them back.



It was an absolutely perfect day. A day the Lord had made. Look at that sky! Did I mention that it was 20 degrees cooler than in Alamogordo?





As for sight seeing, we took the route of "lets drive through town and stop when we see something we want to do" as opposed to "here is our schedule of events." The first place we decided to stop was the Cloudcroft Museum.

There were about 14 buildings that could be toured. I think only 2 of them were actually built there and the others were relocated to that area. Parts of the buildings are original and some of them were restored.

This is in the main building regarding the history of the town. The town was a train stop for logging and resupply. This town was the first in the country to have the "S" shaped track for switch-backing up the mountain.





This is the one room school house. So small. It really shows the basics of school. Too bad the education is not that simple anymore. Ahhhh the good ole' days.



Troy was dying laughing at the list of rules for teachers. It's pretty funny. I want to tag all of my friends (like on Facebook) so that they can read these rules. Hilarious. Especially the rule about hanging out in ice cream shops being scandalous. The first set of rules is from 1872 and the second set is from 1915.





This is the chapel. Some of the windows were original and had this wavy pattern in them. The restored panes were clear. You can actually still get married in there. Adorable. I loved it. So quaint.



This is an original 2 room cottage. There was a large room that was the living room and had the bed in it. There was an additional room off the back that had a twin bed. 14 people used to live there. At once. Talk about love. And camping in your own house. Ps. I hate camping.





This is Kristen looking at a firetruck from pre WWI. I can't remember the year, but the truck carried 150 gallons of water. And it was hand pumped out in the instance of a fire.



This is most of our group. Minus baby Zack and his momma, Karen. Zack needed a snack. We are standing in the post office/train station. One of things I loved about this building was the explanation for mail. There were 2 crates for mail. One for incoming and one for outgoing. The outgoing mail was just all in one bin and you sorted and sifted through it to look for your mail.



This is the actual train car that was on site. It was pretty cool.



This is the inside. The modern amenities and comforts of travel were definitely apparent to me after seeing this. Eeeek.





Kristen is so happy :) Such a good photo bomb. Congrats.



How cute is Avery in her carrier? She just snuggles up to you and peeks out. As long as you keep moving and giving her something else to look at, she's happy. The second you pause for more than about 7 seconds she's screaming and pinching the skin on the back of your arm. Consider that a warning if you ever carry her.



This is Troy pretending to be the train ticket salesman. See the video at the bottom for audio :) He's funny.



In honor of awesome dads wearing babies, here is Nate, carrying a passed out Zack after his snack. SO cute...



Weeew. That's a ton of pictures. Be back tomorrow with pictures from lunch and our "hike." More like a traveling comedy show. Some strollers are just not designed for rugged terrain. And babies are carried like Cleopatra. You'll see.

In the meantime, here's Troy playing train conductor:




And here's the link in case that isn't working:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzTtA_BiYcc&feature=youtu.be

Have a great day!