Memorial Day

I received an email from the Rio Grande Scenic Railroad in Southern Colorado a week or so ago. Apparently, they were running a promotion for their opening day weekend (this weekend). All seats on all trains on Memorial Day weekend would be $18.78 in remembrance of the year the route was begun. This is a big discount from the $50+ the seats usually run.

Well, as we're supposedly in saving mode right now, I read the email and promptly ignored it. But I didn't delete it. More telling still, I kept coming back to it. Finally, after a few days, I decided to mention it to QT to see what he thought about it. Surprisingly, QT liked the idea. He even booked our hotel room himself!

That morning, I'd taken the kiddos to the park so, by afternoon, I was scrambling to get ready for our last minute trip. We ended up leaving the house at 6. Because of traffic, we didn't make it into Pueblo until many hours later and didn't get to sleep until sometime after that. Still, the next morning, we were up bright and early for the last leg of our trip into La Veta.

The train trip itself was fun enough, I suppose. Pumpkin and QT loved it. Of course. There isn't much to do in Alamosa, which was our destination that day. We just had a quick lunch at a pretty lousy Mexican restaurant then we reboarded the train for the return trip. We picked up extra passengers for the return trip so it was a bit noisier than the way over but still not too bad. All in all, a very nice and relaxing way to travel. I'm looking forward to our next scenic train ride.

Mother's Day Redo

The day before Mother's Day, I came down with strep throat. I guess I'd had it for a few days because I felt completely awful by the time I landed at the Urgent Care Clinic. Needless to say, my Mother's Day this year was remarkable mostly in how lousy I felt...and, of course, in the lovely card and gift Pumpkin made for me at school...and the beautiful flowers my goddaughter Lis sent me. At least, QT was able to postpone his departure until Monday so that he could go shopping for groceries and get the house in order for me before he left.

To make up for it, we decided to have a Mother's Day Redo the following weekend. Before we could get to that point; however, QT first had to go out of town on business for almost the entire week leaving me home alone with the kiddos. And, to liven things up even more, Pumpkin also came down with strep throat the day after QT left...though, in light of symptoms that I only came to understand afterward, I have to say that he'd probably had it at least as long as I'd had it only with less severe symptoms thank goodness.

For our redo, Pumpkin wanted to take me out for some ice cream and glow-in-the-dark mini-golf. As usual, QT did his best to ruin our morning by getting all grouchy on us, and I contemplated just leaving him behind, but in the end, I didn't say anything. Well, I didn't say anything about wanting to leave him behind. I had plenty to say about his grouchiness. Believe me.

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I forgot to mention that Pumpkin performed in his school play last month! They did Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Pumpkin's class sang (and kinda sorta danced) in the opening numbers. It was really cute though Pumpkin appeared to be starstruck by the older kids that appeared on stage with them, haha. I will try to post a video clip, but I have the same problem I had with his last school video. That is, our Video Camera does not transfer videos easily onto the computer. I'll give it a try sometime when Giggles isn't yelling for me from her room. In the meantime, here's a picture of Pumpkin all duded up for his big number. Plus, a few more pics too just for fun. :)

Going in Reverse

Hooray, Giggles is sitting!!

She'd started sitting up a few days earlier but still needed to lean on something in order to stay upright. (see above: kids playing in the crib.) Then, one day (April 23rd to be exact), I sat her up, and she stayed up on her own! QT was out of town when it happened so I sent him this picture (left) taken on my cell phone (my camera was out of reach, and I was afraid to leave Giggles unattended j.i.c.).

That's the big news, but there's more fun stuff to report. A few days before our sledding outing, Giggles had her first baby playdate at home. I invited a couple of friends over who have babies of about the same age as Giggles, and we let the babies "play" together on the mat while us moms hung out and gabbed. Of course, Giggles being Giggles, she immediately started rolling over the other babies, but fortunately, both boys are bigger than Giggles so no one was hurt.



And, the week before our playdate, QT, Giggles, & I accompanied Pumpkin to his school, where I showed Pumpkin's classmates how to make cascarones. Pumpkin was so excited to have all of us at school with him. He helped me write our project on the daily board then stood beside me in front of his class as I explained to them what we were going to be doing. I explained to the kids how we break cascarones back home, a practice which everyone over here always finds unbelievable, haha. The kids thought it was cool, but in the end, we thought it best to have the kids break the cascarones against the wall rather than on each other's heads. Just to be safe. [p.s. Rollie Pollies is the name of his class.]



I have to add that the kids in his class are SOOOO cute! I've always professed not to be "into" kids that much, but I've found that I just love to watch Pumpkin and his little classmates in action. They're just amazing and so intelligent! They're like tiny little adults but with 100x the energy, haha. I will miss this when he gets older, I think.