Lia 14

Is "ganache covers a multitude of sins" a good family motto?  Because. . . yeah.  

Mem turns 10

There was cake

There were friends

there were presents

Era's end?

All in a week he finished his Eagle project, turned 18 and graduated from high school.  And sometimes even smiled about it.  

Grand

We took a four day weekend and drove--just Ben and I-- out to the Grand Canyon.  I've never seen it before.  Day one was windy and cool and we hiked a few miles on the rim.  Day two it rained, snowed, wind, cleared up long enough for us to attend a ranger talk and have a fancy dinner.  Day 3 we had lots of glorious sunshine so we hiked down to the ooh ah point and back and hiked along the rim at sunset.  Really pretty.  Saw lots of moose very near our hotel room and lots of greedy little chipmunks.    I think I'm grateful that the weather was terrible for the one day because it made the village very uncrowded and the views when the weather did clear were still amazing.

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if you look closely you can see the hikers coming down the switchbacks.  About this point of the hike back out I was ready to give up

I'm pointing to the ooh ahh point.  Hiking all the way out there might not have been my best idea ever

pretty rocks

sunset brings out the colors

Spring '14

view from my balcony

D had a robot baby for a weekend

D's teacher cadet class

Lilacs!  such a pretty smell

mormon prom

I don't always love living in Albuquerque.  But, then I go out on the balcony and enjoy a beautiful sunset and I feel grateful to live here.  Also, the yard is finally coming back from being dead.  We had really pretty bulbs this year, the lilac bush bloomed and even some of the ground cover came back.

Rube Goldberg

Sometime in the spring, Ben was again asked to mentor a team for the Rube Goldberg contest.   The point is to teach the Junior physics students some real-world applications of basic machines and energy.  My role was to buy lunch.  Yay!

Team name:  Kosy Kones, from the movie 'Cars'.  Noah might have been a small influence in choosing the theme and name

Since their Physics teacher is recently engaged their challenge was to pair and little bride and groom doll at the end of the machine, having moved the groom at least 10 feet.  These girls were creative and proactive problem solvers and did a great job, their machine worked great--except the one time they had to demo for the judges!  More real world stuff!

Babygirl goes to prom

Why are you taking pictures, mom?   

Kara helped with the hair, loaned the dress, and was just generally an awesome friend

D and Brandon