Albuquerque - Day One (Subtitled: Why you should never teach children about time zones)

In our first 24 hours in Albuquerque we have had 60 mph winds, snow, pouring rain, hail, sleet, and sun. Not necessarily in that order. It was more like wind, pouring rain, snow, rain, sleet, clouds, drizzle, sun, clouds, rain, sun, clouds, rain, hail, sun. Needless to say the weather is a bit kooky around here.

This morning I woke up at 4:59 a.m. to find Hannah staring me in the face. As soon as I opened my eyes she said "It's almost 7 a.m. on my body time." Damn time zones. And damn her for knowing how to add two to the time on the clock. I couldn't fall back asleep so at 5:30 a.m. Hannah, Jake and I headed down to the pool which opened at 5 a.m. and let Lincoln get some more sleep. We had a nice morning down there and after we all got showered and dressed we headed out to Denny's for breakfast with Mom, Dad, Aunt Sandy and Uncle John. After breakfast we set out on a quest to find swim goggles (for Hannah) and a swim ring (for Jake) since I had forgotten to pack both. We went to Walgreen's, Wal-mart, K-Mart, Sports Authority, and another Walgreen's before, at the very last minute, we spotted a Toys R Us hiding behind the big Dillard's across the street from the hotel. Score! We made out with all sorts of pool loot and the kids are back down there swimming again. The indoor waterslide gets turned on in an hour so they're excited about that. My cousin's two daughters are here as well and they're 8 and 10 years old so I'm sure Hannah will have a blast with them. My other cousins are bringing a bunch of other kids today as well so by the end of tonight there will be a whole pool full of kids in all age ranges.

We also made a stop in Old Town today which was a lot of fun. Hannah and Jake fought it at first because they wanted to be back in the pool but I think they both really enjoyed themselves even though we were only shopping. They found a lot of fun trinkets and both spent some of their allowance money. I also bought Hannah a yellow kerchief-style dress that is very similar to one that I got in Old Town here in Albuquerque when I was the same age as her. When Mom and Dad get back to Seattle they'll have to send me the picture of me in my yellow dress and I'll post both of them here. For now, here is Hannah in her dress. We got it a little big so that she can wear it this summer (minus the clunky black shoes).