Snow (A Random Post...)

This is just a random post...  I was pulling some work photos off of my camera and came across a shot of Carter riding his trike in the snow at the beginning of April:

He looks so serious and that's because he was actually home sick that day.  Being the great parent that I am, I figured it would be prudent to let him have a few minutes of fun while warding off a ferocious fever.  We then spent the rest of the day watching Christmas movies, because that's just what you're supposed to do in April! :)

We all need a sick/snow day here and there, eh?
~kerrie

A Little Summertime Fun!

Sure, it's around 40 degrees outside, raining/snowing, and gloomy, but I've been dreaming about beaches and sunshine! So as I sllllooowwwly catch up the blog, I'll take us all back to a time when it WAS sunny and warm and we could wear shorts! August!

Back in August my company held our summer picnic "On the Patio" at the Isotopes Park (or "The Lab", as we call it). Carter talked about Orbit, the mascot, for weeks afterward, so let's start with a picture of us with my co-worker, Marie (in yellow) and her granddaughter, Destiny (right) [and that's Destiny's friend - can't ever remember her name...]:
Although it was still summer, the winds were fierce up on the third floor of The Lab and there was a little rain in the distance. Check out this pretty rainbow over the Sandia Mountains behind us:

I said wind? Check out Carter's hair (and yes, he's sporting a KC Royals jersey!):
I haven't a clue if the 'Topes won, but I do remember the teams fighting. Carter even said they deserved "time out"...:
And I'll end with a great shot of my boys watching the game:
Ah, summer. Boy how I miss you!

And now, I think I'll go put on a sweater now... it's getting even chillier!
~Kerrie

P.S. Photo credits go to Jennifer - thanks for always letting my show off your photo skills!

Vacuum the Snow?

Longer post coming soon, I promise... With photos!

Woke up this morning to a couple inches of snow at our house... (ugh - it's only December FIFTH people!!! So not ready for this...). After Carter was dressed and ready, I told him to look out the window and see the pretty snow. He looks and says,

"We need to vacuum it!"

I told him that we might as well just wait for the sun to melt it. He thought that would be OK too.

Hope you're staying warm! It's a balmy 18 degrees F here at work and there's a light snow still falling.
~kerrie

Wiggle Worm Fun!

Today was a beautiful day here in Albuquerque and the sun was shining with all of it's might! Since Carter napped right through pool-time hours at the YMCA, I decided it would be just as fun to run around the back yard in the sprinkler. After donning the appropriate swimming gear, Carter was ready to hit the beach, er, astroturf...

I tried to pare these photos down, but I just thought they were ALL too cute. So here's my boy in his wiggle worm fun glory:
(And just look how big my tomato plants are getting in the back corner!)
After seeing this next shot, you'd think he was a little timid. Nah, he'd run up and grab the worm and douse himself silly:
See... (And Matt kept turning the water up and down, up and down to drive him nuts.)
Carter had to get Daddy over to make sure it wasn't "broken"...
Nope, there's the water!
And soon thereafter, the clouds rolled over threatening a monsoon (nope, not this time...shucks! We SOOO need the rain!), so we had to pack it up. Carter got one last round with Mr. Wiggle Worm, this time making sure Daddy was soaked too:

And in case you'd like to see his playing in real time, here are a couple short videos of him running around, screaming like a banshee:








Love that 20 minutes of sprinkler time in the back yard is enough to make Carter a super happy kid! Remember those days? Maybe we should all take tomorrow off and play in the sun, eh?

Have a great week and thanks for reading! Eight posts in one day! It feels great to be caught up!
~kerrie

Oooooklahoma!

Matt and I made our [seemingly] annual trip to Oklahoma to hang out with some friends and family. We left after we both put in a full day of work and after all of my whining at 1:30AM, I made Matt stop at a hotel in Erick, OK, so I could stretch my legs. You see, Carter's so tall, his little legs dangle off the end of the carseat and therefore, I can't recline in the passenger seat. Add to that the fact that he kept waking up because he couldn't flip over due to the seat buckles, well, unhappy campers were what we were!

Despite the loooong car ride (about 13 hours total), we finally made it to the far eastern side of Oklahoma to Becky's (Matt's sister) house. It was 100+ degrees in the shade, so we were more than content to hang out inside and watch the horses and cows - just like Carter and Becky are here:
I've blogged about these crazy "attack" cows before, so you bet I was a little nervous that they were LICKING my car...
Yeah, LICKING my car. Apparently they like the taste of dust. Okay... Let's just move on, shall we?

We traveled a couple hours away to visit Matt's mom, Sally. She fought off a horrible bout of pneumonia earlier this year and has lost a lot of weight. However, I'm happy to report that she's regaining her strength and is still as feisty as ever! Here's a family shot:
From there, we visited Matt's good buddy, Wes, and had lunch with him and his girlfriend, Laurie. Here's a shot at the restaurant:
Couldn't resist stopping in to see another buddy of Matt's, Clay, and his wife, Jill, and their beautiful daughter, Charlotte (just LOOK at those eyes!!!). The kiddos played nicely together and enjoyed the indoor pool (ha!)!
All the travel wore Carter out and by nightfall, he crashed in the froggie position on his little aerobed:
The next morning Carter and Becky had some play time and a little breakfast while I packed up our gear:
Looks like the two of them had a very meaningful conversation and hopefully he was telling Becky what a wonderful time we had! I also hope he expressed his gratefulness for letting us crash at her place for the weekend!
[And for some reason, I didn't take any photos when Jamie came over for dinner... I MAY have deleted some photos from the memory card recently, because I'm lacking a significant number of photos from June and July. Whoops... Next time!))]

We decided to stay the night in Oklahoma City for the Fourth (and cut our trip home shorter!). We stayed in Bricktown, which is a quaint little area downtown with a lot of hotels, stadiums, restaurants, and even a riverwalk. Too bad it was like 105 degrees or we would have taken more photos of the riverwalk (and maybe actually spent some time ALONG the riverwalk...).

We did visit the Bass Pro Shops and let Carter "drive" the boats for about an hour. He even got a new snazzy life jacket and splashed and splashed and splashed in the pool! I swear, that kid is fearless! He'll get out and jump back in with no qualms about where he'll land. Lucky for him, we're waiting to catch him and won't just let him splat on the concrete!

Fortunately for us, our best pals (Chris and Renae) live just a few miles away from Bricktown and therefore, met us for lunch by our hotel. After snarfing some tasty pizza, we came back and let the kids (Hannah, Micah, and Carter) run amok inside our room. The closet was a HUGE hit with the gang and Hannah and Carter took turns shutting each other in:
The adults had some catching up to do, so we all just lounged and took it easy:
More closet fun:
Hannah surprises me every time with her adorableness:
And yes, we kept Carter locked in the cabinet under the sink when we stayed at the Marriott (I kid, I kid):
On the night of the Fourth, we walked along the riverwalk and stopped to feed the ducks some of our leftover bread from our BBQ dinner. Carter LOVED it and had a blast when one of the ducks jumped right up beside him (scary!):
Matt tried to snap a photo from the other bank, but it was pretty hard to see:
From there, we headed back toward our hotel and set up our lawnchairs right along the bank. They shot fireworks off right in front of our hotel, so we couldn't have asked for a better view! Carter's STILL talking about the fireworks and how they looked like "stars!"

Hope you, too, had a wonderful Independence Day and I hope you didn't melt in the 100+ degree temps!
~kerrie

N.I.M.B.Y.

A phrase that is frequently used in my line of work (environmental engineering) is often referred to as "N.I.M.B.Y." or "Not In My Back Yard." Basically when it comes time to site a new water or wastewater plant, a new landfill, or some other type of "environmental" infrastructure, well, frankly, no one wants it around or NIMBY. Sure, we all NEED drinking water, wastewater treatment, etc. But please, NIMBY!

Today, however, I'm using NIMBY to describe the fires that are currently burning around the state of New Mexico. I don't want ANY of these in MY backyard! NIMBY! NIMBY! NIMBY!

Starting around 2 yesterday afternoon, a fire started near the town of Los Alamos, NM. By the time I went to bed, it had grown to nearly 5000 acres. When I woke up, it was almost 10,000 acres. 24 hours later, officials called for mandatory evacuations for the area since it had grown to nearly 50,000 acres!!! [And just so you know, that's bigger than their last fire, the El Cerro Grande Fire in 2000 - it was only 47,000 acres...]

I have friends that live there, I have co-workers who grew up there, and I have projects currently underway in Los Alamos. I swiped this photo from MSNBC so you can see the view from last night. You can google to find more horrific imagery of this Las Conchas fire. HORRIBLE...
While Los Alamos (or "LA" as some of us say) is still an hour and half north of Albuquerque, the smoke is very visible here. With the crazy winds we keep getting, the voracious heat, it's horrible. The air will be putrid and smoky; it already is. I can't imagine even being NEAR LA at this time...ick!

Here's another photo from KRQE news so you can see some of the smoke (just to the left of this picture, around the corner from the hospital, is the entrance to Los Alamos National Labs):
As of June 27, 2011, I can name a dozen cities that have wildfires burning in New Mexico without even looking it up on the local news. It's a total change of pace for me, since I grew up in the flooding town of Shawnee, Kansas.

With that said, can we please start our monsoon season now?! That'd be great, Mother Nature, thanks!

Stay safe out there and please, please don't light any stupid fireworks in the middle of a tinderbox! I'd like to keep my house in one, standing piece, thank you.

Seriously, be safe this fourth of July!
~kerrie

The Reverse Method

Now that the weather is warmer (read: HOT!), we've been eating some icy desserts in the evenings to cool off. You also may have heard that there's a HUGE wildfire in Arizona (google some "Wallow Fire" images and you'll be blown away!)...anyway, it's REALLY smokey over here in Albuquerque (yes, nearly 200 miles east of the fire), so we've been enjoying our meals and desserts indoors. With my weak lungs, it's been a bit rough (read: inhalers, inhalers, inhalers!), but I've managed. I've also found that ice cream really helps :)

Carter tends to agree with me that it's not really the ice cream that is the tasty part, it's the cone. Even the weird bright green (or red or yellow) ones that taste like styrofoam... Maybe it's because we're both lactose intolerant, but it's just more fun to wolf down the cone than it is to eat the actual ice cream (or orange sherbet, as shown here).

Carter's "Reverse Method" seems to be just the ticket - see?
Perhaps it's even better if you shove the whole thing in your mouth?
Nope...that's REALLY cold!
Oh well, back for more:
I'm slowing trying to catch up on the blog, but it may be a month of so before I get my act together... :) In the meantime, stay cool and grab a cone!
~kerrie

2011 Making Strides Against Breast Cancer

Fun little post about my BIG support of the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer event that is sponsored by the American Cancer Society here in New Mexico. This year's walk was held on one of the windiest days ever here in Albuquerque and it was cold, cold, cold. But the Greenies didn't let that stop 'em! We braved the cold and bundled, bundled up!

Happy to report that I was the TOP FUNDRAISER (!!!!) in New Mexico (up until the day before, when someone very, very generous made a giant donation to someone other than me and knocked me off my top pedestal)! I turned in almost $3000 this year and I think I deserve a huge pat on the back, as do all of my sponsors! *blushes

A few shots from the walk with my family and co-workers:

L-R (back row): Steve, Matt, Danita, Matt, Matthew, Jakob
L-R (front row): Carter, Kerrie, Heidi, Lauren, Elizabeth, Sarah, Jakob's cousin (I have forgotten his name...Cameron?)

And just so you know, Carter was wearing PINK socks to show his support for breast cancer research!
Tyler and his daughter walked separately:
And here's a shot of our FABULOUS t-shirts that my work generously sponsors. Just a tad too big for Carter:
Carter says "THANKS FOR MAKING STRIDES AGAINST BREAST CANCER!"
...and so do I! Thank you! Now...let's find a cure, eh?
~kerrie