First Stop- Albuquerque

On the way to William's sister's wedding in Phoenix, we stopped in Albuquerque to visit my parents. My brother and his wife flew in from Seattle while we were there, so we had a sort of mini family reunion.

It was a great visit! Very relaxing, considering how short a time we were there. Sunday, William and I had some time to ourselves and went and wandered around our old haunts. Since it was just going to be the two of us, Dad let us borrow his convertible.

Nob Hill, where we met at work;
While at UNM, we conveniently visited the Center of the Universe...
Zimmerman library, also at UNM, my alma mater:




and it wouldn't have been complete without a trip to the Frontier for a plate of Huevos Rancheros with fresh tortillas!
We finished the night by going back to my parents and Dad & I had fun photographing my quilt,while William and Coleen warped the loom she got for her birthday. (While going through Lawrence, KS we stopped at the Yarn Barn and bought a Kromski Fiddle rigid heddle loom).She warped and finished her project all in one night.
Monday, we ran a couple of errands(including a second trip to Frontier) after we went to visit my parents new church building, which is quite beautiful,
with a stunning view of the Sandia mountains.Then went back to their house and had a birthday party complete with a spumoni cake
Since we were all together we celebrated Coleen's and Cat's birthdays together.
Coleen had a lot of fun with the treasure hunt my parents concocted.
Tuesday morning on our way out of town, we stopped and had breakfast at Weck's (another favorite from when we lived there) and saw this hot air balloon take off in the field next door.

Spring and back again

Well, we've been back for two weeks and I am finally beginning to set a routine again.

We had a fantastic trip to Albuquerque and Arizona. It was really great to see our families though the time we got to spend with them was way too brief!

Here's a few shots from the trip. I will be (ahem!) trying to post bits and pieces from the trip every day this week. Maybe when I'm done with it, I will finally have something to show in the sewing realm. Very overwhelmed with just starting a project. Seems to always happen after a big project...

It really felt like we travelled to spring and back again.

This first picture is in Lawrence, KS. We woke up to two inches on the ground and more coming. Trying to wait out the storm didn't work either. We finally continued on south to Oklahoma and by the time we crossed the border, the snow had stopped the sky had turned blue and there was green in the fields.


In Albuquerque, the skies were blue, you could go outside without a coat and daffodils were blooming.


The desert around Phoenix was green.

We were a couple of weeks early for the cactus to be
blooming, but the wildflowers were splendid

In the city, the bouganviella was blooming and so were the orange trees. That is just a heavenly scent in the evenings. Unfortunately, I couldn't bring that home with me.

We did come back home to snow. In fact, we just missed being caught in another storm on the way home. It was a little disheartening, but the weather for the past week has been warmer and the snow is melted. Spring has followed us home.