Telluride Vacation, Part 1

Last weekend, Dale, Adelaida, and I met Dale's family in Colorado for a real vacation. We rented a little house in Telluride and met up with Charlotte and with Richard, Laura, and their two girls. This was the first time for Richard and Laura to meet Adelaida, and our first time to meet their younger daughter Sarah. The three girls were quite taken with each other -- Adelaida spent quite a bit of time just looking at Elizabeth and Sarah, and Elizabeth was especially generous in providing Adelaida with toys.

In addition to playing with her cousins, Adelaida got to spend some good time with her Mamaw, who may have been a little unprepared for Adelaida's new interest in grabbing people's faces and glasses! It's hard to live so far away from our family, and this was only Charlotte's third time seeing Adelaida: she came out to visit when Adelaida was only two weeks old, then we visited her in Colorado when Adelaida was ten weeks old. Of course, Adelaida is quite different now, at six months, than she was when Charlotte saw her last at ten weeks old!

Telluride is very much a tourist town, although its high season is predominantly the winter. There are ski slopes all around the town and ski lifts up the sides of the valley. Telluride also has a free gondola that operates year-round and ferries people between the town of Telluride and Telluride's sister town of Mountain Village, located just above Telluride. The first day of our vacation, we all rode the gondola up to Mountain Village and played a round of disc golf on Mountain Village's course (actually, Dale and Richard played a round of disc golf; Charlotte, Laura, and I all played about a hole-and-a-half before deciding that the it would be a great opportunity for the boys to catch up with each other).

We enjoyed walking around Mountain Village, which has a great playground, a rock-climbing wall, a duck pond, and plazas that we used to teach Elizabeth to throw a frisbee. We ate lunch, then took the gondola back to Telluride that afternoon. When we returned to Telluride, Dale, Adelaida, and I walked through town a bit and found a wonderful farmer's market. We bought steaks, bread, and salad greens and (after a brief and much-needed afternoon nap) cooked dinner at the house.



After dinner, we all celebrated Sarah's first birthday, a few weeks early. She opened her presents (with help from her older sister), then ate her birthday cupcake, using not only her hands and mouth, but her forehead, nose, cheeks, arms, and chest. Fortunately, Laura had the foresight to strip Sarah down to her diaper before giving her the cupcake!

The next day, we took a hike in the mountains just above Telluride, up to a beautiful waterfall called Bridal Veil Falls. At only 2 1/2 years old, Elizabeth was quite a trooper on the hike, but after about an hour was tired of both being carried and walking. She, Laura, Charlotte, and Sarah headed back to the house while Dale, Richard, Adelaida, and I continued. The waterfall was very pretty, and the view of Telluride from above the falls was spectacular. We rested that afternoon, then went out to a great restaurant in town that night for dinner.

The last day of our vacation, we headed back up the gondola toward Mountain Village, but decided to ride only to the first stop, Station St. Sophia, and hike the rest of the way. It was a nice hike through aspen groves and coniferous forests, with beautiful views of the valley below. We spent some time in Mountain Village before returning back to Telluride and a relaxing evening at the house.

We really enjoyed spending time with Charlotte and with Richard and Laura and their girls, and it was nice to do it in Telluride, where things like work and housework couldn't get in the way of enjoying each other's company! I'm especially glad that Adelaida got to spend time with her cousins, Elizabeth and Sarah. Although she may be too young to remember this visit several years from now, we have pictures of the three girls together that we'll always treasure.

First Father's Day

This past Sunday, we celebrated Dale's very first Father's Day! Adelaida had two presents for her favorite Daddy: a toolbox-shaped key hanger that she made for him at school (assisted by the wonderful Ms. Adrienne and Ms. Vickie) and a garden stepping stone that has her footprints in it and says "I LOVE MY DADDY." (I had planned to include her handprints, but it is surprisingly difficult to get a six-month-old baby to press her hand, flattened and with fingers spread, into wet concrete.)

In honor of Dale, who has been an incredible father (and a pretty great husband, too) I thought I'd show off some cute father-daughter pictures from the past six months.

The proud Daddy, approximately six hours after Adelaida's birth. She already has her hand clasped around her Daddy's finger!


By the time she was three days old and almost ready to be released from the hospital, Dale was already comfortable being a Daddy, and Adelaida was pretty comfortable on his lap!


Dale holding Adelaida when she was one week old


Adelaida enjoyed playing on the floor with her daddy from the time she was a week old


Watching football with her Daddy, at three weeks old


Dale carried Adelaida through Carlsbad Caverns when she was a month old


At two months old, Adelaida was introduced to "flying" through the air, on an airport train in Denver


Adelaida helped her Daddy play cards when she was two months old


More fun flying through the air, when Adelaida was two months old


This was the last time Adelaida was able to wear her "Daddy Loves Me" onesie -- she outgrew it when she was three months old


Ah, the good old days, when we could hold Adelaida on our laps while eating and she wouldn't reach for everything she could see!


Dale got his new BlackBerry when Adelaida was four months old. She didn't seem to mind the hat over her face!


Adelaida's first hike with her daddy, when she was four months old


Daddy-daughter swimming lessons when Adelaida was five months old


Baby push-ups


Adelaida loves to be held upside down and have her daddy nibble on her ears. Dale is using this opportunity to teach her "left" and "right" by telling her which ear he is going to nibble. She loves it!


Dale took a break from kickball to hold Adelaida


Six months old and she still loves to go hiking with her daddy.

School Pictures

Adelaida's daycare recently had a professional photographer come in to take pictures of all the kids. When they came back with the photos, they convinced me (and I in turn convinced Dale) to buy the biggest package of pre-printed photos they had. This package came with the digital files of the images, so I thought I'd share them with you all. They took pictures of her in three different poses, with facial expressions ranging from super-happy to stunned. Here are the pictures







Aunts and uncles, grandparents, and great-grandparents will all be receiving one of the photos soon. If anyone else wants one, let me know, as we have several extras.

A half-birthday

Today is a big day for our little girl: her first half-birthday! It's hard to believe that six months ago she was just a tiny little newborn, taking her first breaths (with the assistance of a ventilator) and meeting her daddy and momma for the first time. She's changed so much since then that it is hard to believe that the beautiful, talkative, smiley child we have now is the same person!

Here is a look at how Adelaida has changed in the past six months.

Adelaida's biggest accomplishment when she was four days old was being alive! She had just survived a hard and scary birth and had been released from the hospital two days earlier than expected.


Before she was two months old, Adelaida had spent time with all of her grandparents and had taken a couple of trips with us. We had gotten settled into a semi-routine with Adelaida and were getting used to being parents.


At four months old, Adelaida was discovering the world around her from the vertical position! She had just started sitting up unassisted and had started standing while holding onto furniture.


Adelaida is now six months old and is getting more and more exciting every day. She enjoys laughing, at just about everything around her, and is fascinated by other babies. Adelaida's favorite thing to do is to have her daddy hold her upside down and nibble on her ears!


Now, here's a bonus picture of Adelaida with Pink Panther. Dale and Grant were playing with Adelaida and Pink Panther and I got a picture of the guys holding them upside down together.

Butterflies

Dale and I recently became members of the Albuquerque Biological Park, which allows us to visit the city's zoo, botanic garden, and aquarium for free. Dale hasn't been able to take advantage of our membership yet, but Adelaida and I have walked through the botanic gardens a few times. The last time we went, the Botanic Gardens had just opened their annual butterfly pavilion, so we spent some time with the butterflies.

We went with a couple of other moms and babies, and all the kids loved the butterflies! Adelaida had a long-winged zebra-striped butterfly land on her shoulder, but I wasn't able to get a picture of it. Here is Adelaida's friend Emmalene with a butterfly on her hat.









In addition to seeing several different types of butterflies (bright orange, zebra-striped, purple, and leaf-shaped butterflies, among others), we also witnessed something I've never seen before: butterflies hatching from their cocoons. We saw two butterflies break out of their cocoons and unfold their delicate wings for the first time.

Adelaida's favorite part of the butterfly exhibit was not the butterflies, but the plants in the pavilion. The butterfly pavilion is a lush green enclosure that provides the butterflies lots of great greenery to land on. The leaves hang over the walkways, at just the right height for a baby carried in her mother's arms to reach out and grab. Adelaida tore several leaves off the plants and even got a couple of them in her mouth (although I don't think she actually consumed any of them).

We had a great time and hope to get back to the butterfly pavilion several more times this summer!

Feeling very lucky

Dale played kickball on Thursday night, as since it was a playoff game (and since Adelaida and I had only been to one regular season game), we decided to go to the game to cheer on the Mandrakes. Adelaida and I had been swimming just before Dale's game, so we arrived just as the game was starting. I remember thinking very clearly, as I got out of the car and began gathering all of our various gear, "I'd better not leave my wallet sitting in plain sight on the front seat."

What happened after that is a little less clear. I gathered our blankets and Adelaida's warmer clothes and the diaper bag and a toy for Adelaida, we walked over to the field and watched Dale play kickball (Team Mandrake X won, of course), and when the game was over we all left (Dale and Adelaida in the car I had driven there in; me in the car Dale had driven to the game).

We got home, unpacked both cars, played with Adelaida a bit, then went to sleep. The next morning Dale left for work early and I stayed home, cleaned the house, then had several kids and moms over for a playgroup. After they'd all left, Adelaida and I ran several errands in Albuquerque--dropping off knives to be sharpened, looking at phones at AT&T and Verizon, dropping off some baby toys to a friend--none of which required me to show an ID or use a credit card or cash. And then I went to a card store to buy father's day cards. I picked out the cards, went to the cash register, reached into the diaper bag, and couldn't find my wallet. I had no cash, no credit card, no drivers license.

At that point, I assumed I had left it in one of the cars (either than morning or the night before at the kickball game) or at home and wasn't too worried about it. I searched the car I had, then called Dale and asked him to search the car he had; neither of us could find the wallet. Adelaida and I were going to a concert at the zoo that evening with a friend (and wouldn't need the wallet for that), so I asked Dale to look for it at home that night. He searched, but couldn't find it.

I sat at the zoo concert (where we saw a kangaroo, a Bengal tiger, and the new baby giraffe) and mentally retraced every step I had taken since the last time I was certain I had my wallet, and realized that it could have been anywhere. I called the AT&T store to ask if they had found it (they hadn't). I still had a little bit of hope that it was at home, and Dale just wasn't looking in the right places (I'd put away laundry that morning, so it could be in my sock drawer; I sometimes set things down in Adelaida's room on her bookcase, so it could be there; I'd taken our recycling out to the garage that morning, and maybe I'd put the wallet in the recycling bin; I once lost my keys because I put them in the pantry while unloading groceries, maybe I'd done that with my wallet).

After the concert, I searched all the unlikely places I could think of, to no avail. The most likely place I had left the wallet was at the kickball park.

Saturday morning, after working out in the yard for a few hours, we went into Albuquerque and stopped by the kickball park. We looked in the parking lot, where we were sitting by the field, even in the trash cans, but couldn't find it. I was making a list of all the cards I'd lost when we got a phone call from a wonderful man named Dave. He was at a Little League park several miles away and had found my wallet in a trash can there! We drove over to the Little League park and talked a bit more with Dave, where we learned that he and some of the boys from one of the Little League teams had been emptying the trash can at the park, when the bag broke and the trash fell all over the ground. They were picking the trash up when one of the boys found my wallet. They looked through it for a phone number, found my business card, and called me.

The cash had been taken out of the wallet, but everything else was there -- my drivers license, credit card, ATM cards, insurance cards, and so much more. I felt so lucky that the person who had found the wallet, removed the cash, transported it across town, and thrown it away had chosen to throw it away in a trash can with a bag that would break when it was removed from the can, and that a person as honest and kind as Dave had been the one to empty that particular trash can. I also felt very lucky that the person who had found it had only taken the cash, and left all the other cards in the wallet.

I've had my wallet back for about 24 hours and have checked for it several times. It will be a long time before I forget this lesson to keep better track of my wallet.

Now, here's a random cute picture of Adelaida, eating blueberries: