Cookie Day 2009!

Our first Cookie Day in our new house!

I LOVE this tradition & the Italian cookies!

Here's Ron mixing the dough & me starting to knead.

By now we're kinda loopy! Lots of decorating!

Here's some of the cookies done,

and some tins ready to give to neighbors.

Hope they liked them!

Good Friends!

So when you need help, who shows up but good pals!

My pal, Canolli, came to help us move in!! Thank you pal!!!

We took a couple breaks that you'll see below.

First we made a stop at one of our favorite places...the Petroglyph National Monument! Here's Canolli & I in our special place, and Ron & I pointing to some petroglyph...can you tell it was staged? LOL!

Here's another staged one of my pal, but you can see some cool pets! And finally one more pic of pets. I hadn't remembered all the hands!

And to top it off, she took us out for my birthday dinner to the High Noon Saloon!

We ate in the Santos room.

The statues come from different places around the world.

It was a great dinner & a wonderful visit! Thanks again!

We moved in!

Wow! I can't believe I forgot to put in some pics of the move in!

So here's some now!

The neighbors had never seen anything like this:

Kitchen getting unpacked first!

And we finally got to use the potholders I made while we looked for the house!

Boxes, boxes everywhere!

Now just imagine boxes in every room! Ack!

I have SHELVES!

Here's my DH getting the standards ready for all my shelves. He's such a sweetie!

Here you can see some of the shelves up on one wall & standards getting set up for the next wall! It's gonna be so fun to fill up all those shelves so I can see what I have! I think I need more storage boxes! But that will come in time. I also get one more table!!! Everything will be in it's station. Can't wait to show it to you all finished!

Late Wishes!

Here's hoping you all had a Happy Turkey day and are getting ready for this wonderful season.

I'll have to post a bunch more pictures off of Ron's laptop later. My computer is finally up, so I have some of the latest on here. But there's alot more to show. Will do it asa I can. 'Sposed to have snow tomorrow! So off to load up on groceries!

Happy Days!

Put this in our window at the Suites for Halloween, but only got to give some candy bags to our neighbors. Apparently our hotel isn't a "party" place! Well, just wait until we get into our house & get ready for all the holidays in the next year!

Hope you all had a fun one!

BTW, we will be offline most of this next week as we move from here to our new home & all of our stuff gets delivered. So we'll only be available by our cell phone until everything gets delivered & hooked up! But we're so excited we can barely sleep anyway! See you all soon!

SNOW????

So since our closing day was so beautiful, we set out the next day to do some chores. But we got outside & it was snowing! We put off all the chores except for groceries! Our little truck needed to get used to the idea of all this cold stuff!

It's funny 'cuz it only lasted about an hour and then was blue sky again! But I had to throw a small snowball at Ron, and get this picture of our Hawaii license plate with snow accumulating! What a difference a day makes!

Closing

Here's us at our closing which was a blast! Both of our agents came & even gave us gifts! It only took an hour even tho' we had to sign a gazillion papers & people on the mainland talk so fast!!!

Check out our clothes! We both wore special "Harkers"!!!

Colors!

My DH brought me in these leaves. I couldn't believe how many colors there could be in one leaf!!!

They have SEASONS!! Here's Fall!

It's funny how people think that the high desert is all sand & rock. Well, one day we headed up to the Jemez mountains to see some of the foliage & to prove that there really are trees here!

This picture below was of an old adobe building.

Here's a beautiful bunch of cottonwoods in gorgeous fall bloom...as well as my honey checking out the view of the valley down below him.

And here are a couple more views of the gorgeous forests!

I'll have to write more later and show the leaves & then the snow!!!

Petroglyph National Monument

Some peeps have asked how we've been doing. Well, while we were waiting to close, we went to one of my favorite places in NM. It's the Petroglyph National Monument & you can hike for miles & see all the Rock Art that Native Americans did in this area years ago. Some things we have no clue what they pecked, but others are obviously animals, birds, people, etc. I wish I knew what they were trying to say. Here's just a few of the gazillion pics I took:

Indian Pueblo Cultural Center

A trip to ABQ wouldn't be complete for me without a trip to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Ron had never been, so we took a tour yesterday. It had been about 10 years since I'd last been here & some things sure have changed. But the dance remains the same.

This time they had a group that came in from Arizona. You can see the drummers below:

These dances are mountain spirit dances for healing. The dancers are painted in black & white symbols with large jingle bells, ribbons & feathers as part of their outfits. But the main thing that amazed me were the incredible headdresses! Wooden with some mirrors & paint...and they'd dance with these heavy things on their head, even bowing clear to the ground! Just amazing!

Below is a closer picture of one of the headdresses!

Balloon Fiesta

The Balloon Fiesta! Wow! We were several miles away from the field but were still able to see so many hot air balloons! Sometimes the wind caught 'em & flew 'em toward the city! Some even landed in very odd places. Like this one below:

Somehow it landed in a field near an industrial area near our suites!

But it eventually got some fuel goin' to it & started back up all safe & sound.

Up, up and away!!!

Rio Grande Arts & Crafts Festival

So, while we're waiting for all the paperwork & inspections to get finished, we decided to see a few things that were happening around here. One was the Rio Grande Arts & Crafts Festival that was held in this tent. It's a 3 story high tent! It had lots of painters, potters, glass workers, stone carvers, wood carvers & even one person with an Oshibana booth! They came from so many states! Lots of pretty stuff inside, so we got lots of ideas. And even tried some free range goat cheese that was so yummy! Gonna love this place!

We got an offer accepted! Woo Hoo!

Yea! We made an offer, they countered & we accepted! So we're believing all the paperwork will go thru' smoothly & we'll be in our new home by the end of October! Happy Halloween & Samhain! Woo hoo! You can see a pic above, but the whole back yard needs to be done! So we will be busy campers! Gardens, fruit trees, grape vines, herbs, tomatoes, arugula...here we come...oh, yeah, & some flowers, trees & bulbs! Yahoo!

Hi, Everyone! It's true! We finally arrived in New Mexico! But we've been so busy trying to find a home, and dealing with a nasty tooth infection for poor DH, that I haven't had time to blog one bit! So decided before we go meet a realtor today, I'd at least post one picture. This is up in the Rio Grande Gorge. Beautiful country! The Rio Grande is really blue up there & the land is full of farming & horses and mountains. Did you all know there are more mountains in NM than in Colorado? Anyway, we're off again today to look at more houses! Wish us luck!

Sparks fly from her fingertips!

Raven hair & ruby lips, sparks fly from her finger tips
Echoed voices in the night, she's a restless spirit on an endless flight...
...She got the moon in her eye!

Recognize that old Eagles song? For our last BBQ in our yard... I just had to try for this pic!!!

Can you name this plant?

Wonder who can recognize this plant & where it is? :)

Can you name this trail?

There are a few pals on Kaua'i who I think could name this trail! :)

Rescue Kaua'i Style

You might not know it, but these rescue units were up in the mountains of Koke'e for a rescue on a trail. I just had to show how they are so prepared for any kind of help. Note the surfboard on top!!!