The visit, days 1 & 2

Well, I'm back. My kids are gone. I'm missing them. And, conversely, it is also a little nice to be back to my own routine.

Tuesday, they arrived a little after noon. We had lunch and spent the afternoon just visiting, getting caught up and laying back. We did go to the store for a handful of things for some of the dinners we wanted to have, and some limes to make margaritas. Scott was a bartender during the last couple years he was in college, and he makes good drinks. We enjoyed those, had dinner, and hung out for the evening.


Wednesday morning, we went to the Hubbard Museum of the American West to see the exhibit of Ancient New Mexico. The exhibit had a lot of history of the indigenous peoples of this area.







We spent a couple hours seeing everything we could, from this wonderful model of a pueblo .....










to photos of the petroglyphs often found in area where they lived ....







and saw breathtaking rugs, most of them Navajo .....









where I found Kylee enjoying them ....








and I got one of those beautiful smiles!











The exterior of the museum has magnificent bronze sculptures of horses ....







all around the grounds ....









And my little family did their own horsing around ....










but they can be (relatively) normal, too ....


We did a little shopping at the gift shop of the museum. Of course!






After the museum we went to lunch at one of my favorite places, Magic Forest, and had a wonderful lunch. Then we stopped at a store that sells Painted Ponies. Kylee has been wanting one specific one, and we hoped they had it. They did not, but we found another that she liked, so I got it for her birthday which is in three weeks.

We rushed home because my friend Jeannie was coming to do an art project with us. One of Jeannie's art forms is painting on rocks (usually, bugs, butterflies, snakes, toads) or flagstone pieces (petroglyphs, horses, etc), and I chose to do that since it fit with the trip to the museum. We had such fun! We had not expected Scott to join us, but he did! Each of us completed at least one project. I just now realized that I didn't take pictures of all the works, but Connie took this one of Kylee and me holding ours with Jeannie alongside. Kylee's butterfly on slate was really good! I'm very impressed with her patience, even making some of the fine markings with a toothpick. Connie did a carpet bug on a rock, and it was so pretty! I know .... "bug" and "pretty" in the same sentence is odd, isn't it? LOL! Scott and I did two each. Scott did a flagstone with the petroglyph human figures and some tiny antelope, and a second one with a petroglyph mountain lion. I did the one in this picture, a flute player or Kokopelli and three antelope, and a second flagstone with a larger antelope and a symbol that we aren't sure of the meaning. All our pieces were nice, and we had a good time.

I'm going to stop now and write up the last two days in a post tomorrow. I'm tired and there is still a lot to tell about. So .... tune in tomorrow, same time same place!!