Balloon Fiesta 2010: More Pictures

Here are more pictures from the Balloon Fiesta this weekend. It was so amazing to be in the field as the balloons were taking off!

Adelaida loves to be "swung" between Dale and me, so whenever she is holding both of our hands, she pulls her feet up and says "wheeee!" -- thanks to Diane for taking this picture just at the end of swinging Adelaida.


Looking south from Balloon Fiesta Park, balloons fill the sky!


The special shapes balloons are always fun to see, like this jack-in-the-box.


Look, Mom -- it's Smokey Bear!


A recurring big hit at Balloon Fiesta are the bees: matching bee balloons, one with red antenna and one with blue antenna. This year, there was a surprise third bee, with purple antenna: the bees had a baby!


Dale and Adelaida pause for a father-daughter tickle break.


Looking straight up at the balloons flying overhead.


We were walking around Balloon Fiesta Park when it suddenly got very dark -- we looked up and realized we were in the shadow of a solar eclipse!


The owl and cactus were two of the last balloons to go up.


More to come!

Balloon Fiesta 2010

Following closely on the heels of the New Mexico State Fair is the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta -- a state fair with balloons instead of animals. We've been several times since we've been in New Mexico and generally enjoy it -- when we forget about the hours stuck in traffic, the frigid temperatures, waking up at 4am, and all the times we go to the fiesta only to find that the weather isn't favorable for the balloons to take off. Nevertheless, we decided this year to take Adelaida and hope for the best.

Hot air balloons are surprisingly sensitive to the weather and can only take off if there is no precipitation and very little wind. My general plan for attending balloon fiesta is to plan to go every day, and continue planning to go until the weather is favorable and the balloons actually take off. This year that turned out to be a great plan -- we went the first day and the weather was wonderful! It was the best weather we've ever seen for balloon fiesta -- clear skies, no precipitation, no wind, and it was actually warm by the time we left the park.

Being in the midst of a huge field of balloons as they are unrolled, inflate, stand up, and take off is amazing! An essential item to take to the fiesta is a camera, and we took over 200 pictures. Here are some of my favorites.

The first line of balloons inflates against a New Mexico sunrise.


Adelaida spots a balloon in the sky.


A balloon flies overhead, next to the crescent moon.


The first wave takes off!


Balloons fill the sky as more inflate on the ground.


Dale and Adelaida squat in front of an inflating balloon.




Once they take off, the balloons look pretty small, but on the ground they are quite large!




We had a great time and took so many more pictures. I'll post more pictures later!

New Mexico State Fair 2010

New Mexico's state fair is advertised as "like all the holidays rolled into one." Hearing that, I was eager to take Adelaida ... and ended up taking her twice: after work one evening last week by myself and again last Saturday with Dale. While the fair wasn't quite as great as "Hallow-Labor-Fourth-Giving," we still had a great time.

Note the leash-backpack and the ankle band!

We started at the "tag your tots" booth -- a state police initiative to tag kids so that it is relatively easy to reunite lost children with lost parents. Adelaida was cautiously interested in the ankle band the policewoman held out to her, until she realized it was going on her leg. Much screaming ensued and I ended up taking the ankle band from the policewoman and putting it on Adelaida's leg myself. She spent much of the remaining time at the fair pulling at it and saying "off please." I just hate to ignore a request from Adelaida when she uses good manners to ask for something, but the ankle band stayed on. In fact, I was so afraid of losing her in the crowd that I pulled out the dog-leash-backpack so that Adelaida could walk by herself without getting away from us.

Next we visited the "petting zoo" -- I put that in quotes because there were signs as we walked in that read "please do not put your hands in the cages." Well, it was at least a good opportunity to look at some animals. Most of the cages had both baby and adult animals, so she saw a cow and a calf, a sheep and a lamb, chickens and some chicks, and a pig and several piglets. Surprisingly, she seemed to enjoy the chickens more than any of the other animals.

McDonald's Farm was next -- this is a mock farm where kids are "hired as farm hands" as they walk in the area and visit several stations where they learn something about working on a farm and complete certain tasks (like "gather two eggs from the henhouse" or "drive the tractor around the corn field" or "milk the cow"). It was a lot of fun -- so much fun that I took Adelaida to this area both times we visited the fair. Adelaida had two favorites here: riding the tractor (with some power from her Daddy, since her legs are much too short to reach the pedals) and carrying around the basket that she was given to collect her farm produce. She called it a bucket and was reluctant to give it back when we were done!

McDonald's Farm also had live cow-milking demonstrations, at which the kids sat around the cow trailer while "Grace" the cow was milked (first by hand, then with an electric milker). Adelaida was pretty sure the animal in front of her was a cow, and insisted on telling everyone that it was a cow and that cows say "Buuuuuuuu" (she learned the cow sound when most words started with the "b" sound, and has stubbornly stuck with it ever since). At one point in the demonstration, the demonstration guy was talking and the cow suddenly belted out a very loud "MOOOOOOOOOOOOO." The demonstration guy stopped talking when he heard that, all the other kids were quiet because they had been listening to the demonstration guy, and Adelaida decided to talk back to the cow -- she stood up and said "BUUUUUUUUUUU" right back to the cow! Everyone laughed, Adelaida sat down, and the demonstration continued.

After turning in her eggs, fruits, and vegetables at McDonald's Farm, we visited the main fairway for lunch, then stopped by the alpaca barn before leaving. Adelaida LOVED alpacas last year, and thought they were pretty neat animals this year as well. Did you know that alpacas say "woof woof"? Adelaida taught me that at the fair this year, although we never did hear an alpaca speak to verify that. Admittedly, they do look a bit like dogs with really long necks, so maybe they speak like dogs too!

We had a great time at the fair this year. Adelaida enjoyed the animals, the farm, and all the people. (She still likes to point out all the hats, dogs, bikes, and babies she sees; there weren't many dogs or bikes at the fair, but there were enough hats and babies that she was pretty busy finding them all!)

Here is another picture, of Adelaida sitting on an alpaca at the fair last year. I am amazed at how much she has changed in the past year!

Telluride Vacation: what a difference a year makes!

Michael and Sami took a picture of Dale, Adelaida, and me on the gondola -- one of the few pictures we have of all three of us. I realized later that we did almost the same thing a year earlier with Richard and Laura, and they took a picture of the three of us in the gondola as well!

Here are the two pictures: Dale and I look about the same in both pictures, but Adelaida really changed a lot in one year!

June 2009


September 2010

Telluride Vacation: on the playground

Several times while we were in Telluride, I took Adelaida up to the Mountain Village playground. This playground has a very serious playset, designed for older kids. There was no way for Adelaida to reach the climbing platform, except by me putting her up there!

I would place her on the rope floor; she would move across the rope floor to the bridge; stand and walk across the bridge; sit down on the other side and walk three-quarters of the way around the giant hole in the middle of the platform to the slide, sit on the slide and slide down on the belly -- her favorite way to go down any slide. The first six or eight times she navigated this playstructure, I walked with her the whole way, ready to catch her if she fell through the rope floor, or fell through the bridge slats, or fell off the side of the bridge, or fell down the hole in the center of the slide platform -- there were a lot of ways for Adelaida to fall off this structure! But she navigated it successfully several times, and my confidence in her increased to the point that I could actually step back and take a few pictures.

Transferring from the rope floor to the bridge:


Crawling across the bridge (which was odd, since she usually walked across the bridge):


And walking across the bridge:


Here Adelaida is crawling around the platform with the giant hole in the middle of it. What were they thinking putting a giant hole in the middle of this platform?


The playground had two pieces of equipment: the playstructure and a teeter-totter. I tried once to put Adelaida on the teeter-totter, and she responded by clinging to my neck for dear life. So when Dale and Michael arrived and wanted to put Adelaida on the teeter-totter, I thought that was a bad idea. But there must be something magic about being on a teeter-totter while sitting on daddy's lap that makes the teeter-totter fun and exciting rather than scary -- she loved it!


(I think Dale enjoyed it a little bit too!)

Telluride Vacation: family time

The greatest part of our recent Telluride vacation was hanging out with the family. This was a smaller subset of family than normal, but we had a great time with Michael and Sami. We worked hard all weekend to teach Adelaida to say "Michael" and "Sami" -- she picked up Michael pretty quickly, but has never been fond of words beginning with "s" sounds, so saying "Sami" took a little longer. I'll do my best to write down Adelaida's pronunciation of both: she says "Mi-mow" for Michael and "Da-mee" for Sami.

Below are some of the pictures we took on this great trip!

Adelaida has recently decided that snuggling is fun -- here she is after a bath, snuggled up with her Daddy.


Telluride and Mountain Village are connected by a series of gondolas, completely free and open to anyone. We rode up to Mountain Village several times -- here are Michael and Sami in the gondola, with Telluride below them.


Looking down at Telluride from Station Saint Sophia.


We don't use Adelaida's stroller very often, so being able to go for a "ride" was quite a treat for her. She loves her stroller, and often wanted to sit in it while we were at the house! It took me a while to realize she was saying "stroller" since it sounds more like "do-iyo."


As always, Adelaida wanted to do what the big people were doing, in particular her Daddy. So when Dale sat down in the chair to read his book, Adelaida promptly followed!


She also got up on the couch to read with me.


We had a lot of fun just sitting around the house. We took lots of toys for Adelaida, but she preferred to take a throw pillow, put it on the floor, lay down on it, pick it up, and repeat. This kept her entertained for quite a while!


Auntie Sami fashioned one of Adelaida's scarves into a bandanna on her head. Adelaida loved it! This instigated a discussion between me and Sami, in which I enlisted Sami to be Adelaida's fashion/clothes/make-up/dress-up role model. Adelaida really enjoys clothes, hats, sunglasses, shoes, and any other accessories she can find!


Sami, Adelaida, Dale, and Michael looking over the Telluride valley. Michael was scouting the trail he would be running on, and both boys were scouting mountain biking trails (they found several and had a great time mountain biking!).

Telluride Vacation: Rock Climbing

Mountain Village, the small village just above Telluride, has a rock-climbing boulder in the middle of the village. It is free to use and we have always enjoyed climbing up the rock while we are vacationing in Telluride.

Michael and Dale spent the most time on the rock; both reached the top at least twice, on different tracks. Sami and I climbed up several foot-holds, then decided we'd rather encourage Michael and Dale from the ground :)

Here are some pictures of our climbs:

Dale nearing the top


Michael looks for a good foothold


Both boys at the top! (Now how to get down?)


Trying different routes


The designers of this plaza very thoughtfully surrounded the climbing boulder with pea gravel, and put a bench next to the climbing boulder. Adelaida spent about a half-hour picking up a handful of gravel ...


... throwing it on the bench ...


... and repeating.


When we were ready to go, she thoughtfully put (most of) the gravel back on the ground.

21 months old ... and growing!

We celebrated Adelaida's 21-month-birthday this week (also known as the "one-and-three-quarter birthday"). If it has been more than a month since you've seen Adelaida, you might not recognize her -- she is growing more and more every day! The past few months have been a wonderful time, as Adelaida's vocabulary grows so quickly. She is more observant and much more talkative and more polite (we really work on "please" and "thank you" and being patient) than she was even a few weeks ago.

As usual, I took a few pictures of Adelaida with her Pink Panther (and she can now say "panther"!) and couldn't believe how long she has gotten (or how white her feet are -- I think she gets that from her Daddy!).


For comparison, here is the picture of Adelaida with Pink Panther at 18 months:


at 15 months:


and a one year:


Adelaida's first year flew by so quickly, with even more changes. This is what Adelaida looked like one year ago, when she was nine months old:


Six-month-old Adelaida was practically still a baby -- we even put her on a blanket when she was on the floor so she wouldn't get dirty!


Here is Adelaida at three months (her hair is so dark!):


And when she was just a few days old Adelaida was so tiny I could hold her in one hand.


I miss those precious days when Adelaida was so tiny and would sleep in my arms, but she is growing up to be such a fun, happy, smart little girl that I am excited to watch her explore her world and learn new things!