Friday, November 27, 2009

FALL!

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The kids had a blast helping to clean up leaves in the backyard. They thought it was the greatest thing to jump in them.

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Marley has been learning about Australia at school. The school had a fair to showcase all that they've been learning. Here are some pictures from it, although the quality isn't great. There were SOOO many people! It was really cool, he learned a lot from it. His class sang an Australian song at the end.

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This week was Thanksgiving, and as you know, another busy time for Patrick.  80 Turkeys this year! Over 1600 pounds! He is ready for a much needed day off. We are so thankful to him and all the hard work he does.

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Looking forward to this Sunday when we will cook together.  Amazingly enough, he is not quite tired of looking at turkeys yet… still has one more in him!

We went to Bernadette’s yesterday for Thanksgiving. 

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As you can see, uncle Timmy didn’t leave hungry :)

HOPE EVERYONE HAD A HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

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Sunday, November 1, 2009

Catching Up…

I know, I know, it’s been way too long since we have posted.  The end of Summer is always so busy for us.  End of Summer?..you say?  Well for us, September constitutes as the end of summer because Patrick is still busy at work, although it feels like it should be slowing down. This year  September ran into, well, November :)  Well here is what we’ve been doing the past couple of months. 

On September 13th, Marley turned 5!

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On September 17th, I turned 29!DSC05479

Not a great pic, sorry.

At the end of September, Grandma Katherine so graciously came to help us through Wine and Chile Fiesta Week.

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Other highlights of September:

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At the beginning of October, Patrick took some vacation time, and although most of it was spent relaxing, we did get out a little bit.

We went to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta for the first time.  It was really cool, although the traffic was horrible. Next time we’ll take the train or go in the morning. 

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Marley thought this balloon was a crying onion :)

Here are a couple of other pictures of the Balloon Fiesta:

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On October 14th, we celebrated Uncle Mikey’s 34th birthday with homemade pizza a la Patrick

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Patrick’s 43rd birthday was October 18th

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Then we were lucky enough to have Grandma Cathy come to help us take care of the kids at the end of October when Patrick had to cover other people’s vacations.

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What a busy month! And finally, some Halloween pictures for you.  Remember those pumpkins from our garden?

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Marley was Superman and Meliya was Tinkerbell :)

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Now, let’s get through November!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Into September

Two weeks passes by so quickly and when I was thinking about posting another blog, initially I didn't think I'd have much to write about. But that's not necessarily the case. We have been so busy and if we didn't take pictures of almost everything we do, I would forget everything. Thank goodness for the digital age!

Well first of all, Marley started Pre-K! He has been so excited all summer. He is doing really well so far, his teachers are really nice and we are all adjusting. As predicted, Meliya had a hard time with him being gone, but I think she is adjusting too. She is not used to being without him, they are always together.
As you can see, she puts on her backpack and shoes every morning, she thinks she is going with him.
Proud little boy!
In other news, my little brother, Dan, came to visit from Oregon and to help tune-up our car. It was great to see him. We had a lot of fun together. We spent a lot of time at my house along with my older brother Mike as well.
Here is a cute video of Mike and Meliya at dinner time:


Patrick and I went on a long overdue date this week. We had dinner at Terra. It was really good, but the company was better :) It was nice to be together for a few hours.
Other than that, we've been hanging out with friends and family a lot. And I have to say, thank goodness for my cousin Bernadette, she helps us a lot with the kids and we are always glad to return the favor. Oh yeah, especially now that our babysitter, Anna, had to go off to New York to get a real job or something :( We are going to miss you Anna! Good luck in your new adventures!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Lazy Summer Days

Haha yeah right. I wish we had some lazy summer days, there is never a dull moment in the Gharrity household. I swore that I would get everything done during my break between terms that I didn't have time to do at the beginning of summer, and of course it didn't happen. Now I'm scurrying around trying to get everything done all at once. On the list for this week: Garage sale, clean out closets, get ready for Marley and me to start school, and apply at SFPS. I can't believe Marley is starting Pre-K next week! I know it will be so good for him, and he will absolutely love it, but I just can't imagine him not being home all the time! I think Meliya is going to have a hard time with him being gone during the day. She is so used to him being there to play with her, and he really does take care of her. But I also think it will be good for her to have more daddy and mommy time.
So since I was feeling the summer crunch, I decided we needed to accomplish at least one of the things I told the kids we would do this summer: Ride the train. If you are not familiar with the Railrunner, it's the train that now runs from Santa Fe to Belen. Pretty cool. So on Saturday afternoon, I packed up the kids and we got on the train to Albuquerque. We spent the night in a hotel, went out to dinner, swimming, and lots of jumping on our king size bed until the kids were really good and worn out. The next day, Patrick graciously drove to Albuquerque (the train doesn't run on Sundays) and took us to the zoo!



It was pretty hot.

But lucky for us, there was a place to cool off.














We had a blast. The kids were so good, they really did well on the train, in the hotel and at the zoo. They are true adventurers. I love how the more adventures I take them on, the more I feel like we can branch out and do more. I guess it's part of growing up. For all of us :)

Now it's time to get ready for school. *sigh*. Summer's almost over, Patrick is midway through the busiest month of the year, next weekend is one of the busiest weekends of the year for Santa Fe, Indian Market. Yep. Never a lazy day in the Gharrity household. ~Trish


Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Into the woods...

We did it! It took some creativity...



The kids were totally comfortable and contained nicely...







And thanks to our new Thule, we were
able to fit everything we needed for 3 days...












We had a blast, it was so nice just to be together. We went up north between Questa and Red River in a campground called Columbine Canyon. The weather was great, it only really rained when we first got there after we set up our camp. It poured on us! We drove around for awhile while we waited for it to pass and when we came back to the campground, we saw that a different amazing site opened up near the river. So being the insane people that we are, we packed everything back up and re-set up camp near the river. We carried our tent to the other site. It was great. Our kids were looking at us like we were crazy people. This is why Patrick and I go so well together. No one else I know would take down their fully set up camp after only an hour of being there and drag their two very young children to a whole completely different site just so we could be by the river. Gotta love it. This is our spread :)














We went on this really cool hike that supposedly takes you about 9 miles up the canyon to a wildflower meadow. We obviously didn't make it that far, but it was a nice hike for what we accomplished. The kids were real troopers.
And considering Patrick carried an extra 30 pounds on his back, I guess you could say he was a trooper as well.












Patrick built us amazing fires and cooked fantastic meals.
We can't wait to do it again!

















In other news, I FINALLY finished Marley's quilt I've been working on for months. He picked out all the fabrics and I pieced it all together. I think it came out pretty good, and he likes it so that's the most important thing.