My college friend Claire got married in December and had a reception in June in Albuquerque. So the last day of school I picked up the boys and Reed to drive to Albany to stay overnight with Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Greg. At 3:45am we left Reed sleeping in the bed to drive to the Albany airport for a 6am flight to Albuquerque. The boys were champs on the flight, eating everything in sight and reading and watching movies on the iPad.
When we got to the airport I saw this ad from a ways away and to me and Beckett it looked just like Theo. Theo wanted to pose in front of it.
From the airport we went to Petroglyphs National Monument for a short but steep hike to view some of the many petroglyphs in the park. Theo fell near the summit so we were at Walgreen's for first aid supplies within two hours of arrival in Albuquerque.
We stopped at a restaurant that looked good, which happened to be one of Claire's favorites in Albuquerque. The boys sampled a mud pie and loved it so much we had to buy a piece to share. I'm not sure I've ever seen them devour a dessert like that.
The boys' reading really took off on the trip. We had to stop at three separate bookstores to buy new books because they read the books I brought from the library by the second day.
The hotel in Albuquerque had a pool and a hot tub, which was a huge hit.
The first night we went to Claire's home and met her husband, Reggie, and his kids (two of them, Bahee and Ernesto, shown here). The boys learned some physical exercises as well as a lot about Navajo and Native American history from the boys, who have been steeped in the culture. They moved to Albuquerque from the reservation only in the last year.
Claire and Reggie have lots of friends and family in the area, and it seems like everyone had boys! So there were great games of tag and football every chance they had. My boys also enjoyed using the ladder to climb up to the apricot tree to pick and eat apricots.
