Day 4: On the road again

Finally back to my trip recap! I'm going to forget everything at this rate.

As usual, here's where I post links to the previous entries in case you're just joining us:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3 (Part 1)
Day 3 (Part 2)
Gallery of all my photos, most of which did not make it in the blog posts

Okay! On Saturday (back on October 10th), Dania and I had our last morning in Utah before heading back to Vegas. Before leaving Bryce, we wanted to check out the view in different lighting, and from a different point than what we had seen the day before.


We headed to Inspiration Point, which is at 8,100 feet elevation.


Even though these pictures are cool for me to look at, I know that they don't compare to real life. There are so many textures and colors and every angle is a little different. Plus it's just really interesting, and not the kind of terrain you run into every day (unless you live there, of course!). I'm getting broken record-y about this, but it was just such a unique experience to see this canyon full of spires and hoodoos.


Eventually it was time to get going, and we said goodbye to Bryce and started back on our longish drive (about 4 hours, I guess) to Vegas. It went pretty smoothly, and they let you drive fast in Utah. Sometimes the highway had an 85mph limit! I wasn't very comfortable maintaining that, though I'm sure I would if I had a bit more practice.

We stopped for lunch in...I forget the town. A place that has a university. Oh, Cedar City! I looked it up. That was probably the first normal-sized city we came across, and they happened to have a Zaxby's. I had only been once in NC years ago and remembered it being a yummy southern fast food chain. We picked up some lunch, made another stop at Walmart (I can't even remember why now), and then made it to Vegas in the early afternoon.

Since we had a bit of time before our flights, we made a couple of stops. First was to a mermaid show Dania had read about. This girl was the only mermaid that day, and she swam around and played little window games with the kids.

Then we decided to go back to the Bellagio. I really wanted to see it again because I loved it there and was eager to watch the fountain show again in daylight. First we walked through the lobby and conservatory, though.

You saw this from when we went on Wednesday, but it was night time then.

Check out this pumpkin made of roses.

I'm in ♥ with the Bellagio. Hm...am I supposed to say "the" in front of it or not?

We watched the fountain show, and then went and had some gelato. Time was getting tight by this point, because everything takes longer than you think it should (like walking to the gelato place, waiting in line, finding the car, dealing with traffic). But we managed to get the rental car back in time and clear everything out.

After we were checked in at the airport, we eventually parted ways so that Dania could fly back to Sacramento while I flew to Albuquerque. It was a little sad to see this portion of the trip come to an end, but I was excited to see my sister's family for a couple of days! I can't even remember much about the rest of that night besides landing in Albuquerque and my sister and brother-in-law picking me up. We got back late, so most of the girls were asleep in anticipation of an early morning at the balloon fiesta. The oldest, L, was letting me use her bedroom and it looked so cute and tidy! And then we all went to sleep.

Hopefully soon I can talk about Sunday at the balloon fiesta and the remainder of my trip! Thanks for following along. As always, I have additional photos here in this gallery: Utah Trip Gallery

ABQ 1

Oh yeah, I have a blog! I've meant to post here several times, but there's always so much to do in my free time that the blog gets bumped to last place (well, maybe not *last*). But I recently got back from a trip to the Albuquerque area to visit my sister's family. Big news: I now have a new niece! She was born March 27th, and of course she's adorable because my sister has a habit of creating adorable daughters.


If you follow me on Instagram, you may be already burnt out on photos from my trip. I will post some duplicates here, but also several new ones. I have a ton, and I don't even know how to organize them, but I think I'll just start with some of my new niece, S, plus a few others of her sisters.

I have been doing more black and white lately, so bear with me.

Is she nervous? No, she just loves having her hands near her face whenever possible!

With her daddy's hand.

I kept one in color for you, and here's a funny face I caught. Babies! They're pretty cute.

I was so happy that I got to take pictures of all the sisters together, and individually, in their Easter dresses. Aren't they beauties? I do have some with E's face toward the camera, but I think it's adorable how she's gazing up at L, who is holding little S. Group photos are hard to do, which is why I generally avoid them, so I was very happy to get a few even though the pose is nothing special. It was hard enough just getting every girl outside at the same time and all in a good mood with hair fixed! But the older they get, the easier it is...of course the olders--L and K--are a breeze, but you never know how cooperative the youngers are going to be.

Now a few individuals, but many more to come. Here's L! We took most of the pictures out in the backyard, but she went with me down the street so I could get that purple tree in a few. I had never been to ABQ in the spring and wanted to capture some of the blossoms.

I took a whole set of K in her new bedroom. My sister's husband is very handy and they were able to convert part of the garage into a bedroom to accommodate their growing family. This is K's first time having her own bedroom, and I love it so much! The colors, lighting and peacefulness made it ideal for taking some indoor photos (many of little S were taken on K's bed). Also, it was my guest room while I stayed there, and she slept in her sister's room--wasn't that sweet?

Here's N looking darling. I can't wait to show you more.

And E. I have plenty of photos of E. She's 3, so she's right at that age where almost everything she does and says is adorable! I couldn't help having the camera out all the time. She was actually sick with Strep the entire time, but would go in and out of good moments when the medicine was working. She's so sweet!! You can kind of see in her eyes that she's not feeling well, though.

Another from K's bedroom--that window and the curtains made a nice dreamy backdrop.

N also got sick later on, but I got a lot of photos of her before that. She and E are great at playing together and goofing around for the camera. I loved spending time with them.

These girls were my first nieces and I have loved watching them grow up. They are at that age (14 and almost 16) where they aren't very excited to pose together for pictures, which makes this candid extra cute because clearly they can still stand to be in each other's presence. ;) I was so happy we got the chance to take a little drive without the younger girls, because of course the youngers tend to take more of my attention. The olders and I also got to stay up late watching TV and making jokes about it (I'm sort of a bad influence in being critical of everything I watch). I feel like I got a lot of good quality time in with my nieces, even though some of them were sick!

More to come! I may separate it by niece, or I could just do several posts with all of them. I am open to suggestions!

Trip photos (part 3)

I forgot to say thanks for the well-wishes regarding my health the other day. On Saturday I woke up with extreme dizziness/vertigo. I've never experienced anything like it, and it was horrible. It was like being reallyreallyreally car sick, and I had to lay very still. I'll spare you the other details, but eventually I was much better, but slept a lot of the day away. It was frustrating that part of my weekend was devoted to feeling crappy, but at least it was just on Saturday.

This is the last set of photos from my trip. Most of these are from the butterfly pavilion at the botanical garden in Albuquerque. Enjoy!

I guess they're mating.

I love this butterfly SO MUCH (I want to marry it), but it would not sit still for me. Its wings were continuously flapping when I tried to photograph this angle, so this was the best I could do.

I still need to look it up. I'm sure it's some species that is only found deep in the forests of South America or something.

This butterfly is a little rough. I can't tell if it's born like that or if it got into a butterfight.

My beautiful niece taking pictures. She was the only one of my nephieces who seemed to enjoy being in the pavilion longer than a few minutes. Some were creeped by the butterflies flying around, some just got bored, but K hung out with my sister and me while in here. It was fun. I think she got some good pictures.

I like this butterfly--nice colors.

This butterfly stayed on a woman's leg as she walked around in the pavilion, so on her way out the workers had to shoo it off with their magic butterfly wand.

Closeup--it looks like it was just spray-painted. Maybe all of the butterflies were painted and they're just tricking us into thinking they're exotic? Maybe they're all just plain black naturally.

Some of the chrysalises they had hanging up. It's not only interesting how different they are, but you can kind of tell the stage they're in compared to others.

Pretty

These poor (Owl?) butterflies have the misfortune of dull coloring as well as a chrysalis that look like a dead leaf. Sorry guys.

While observing the one in the last picture, I realized this one was just coming out of his chrysalis! Their bodies are all pudgy at first, but they release some liquid (that looks like blood--ew) and look normal after awhile.

Lots of semi-freshly hatched butterflies.

We took a break in the aquarium to cool off while my sister got lunch. These rays were fun to watch.

After a picnic lunch, I brought out the bubble supplies again.

I really liked her outfit--very summery.

One more visit in the butterfly pavilion. This butterfly was on a man's shoulder, so I took a quick photo before telling him about it.

These cool birds were in there, too.

Another butterfly hatching!

He looks about ready to be released.

Later that evening, my nephew and I took a walk and watched a storm moving in.

When it got dark I got the tripod out and tried more lightning photography. The pictures turned out better this time, and I realized a better way to take them that I wish I had thought of earlier on. Anyway, I was happy with the photos I got, and glad that my nephew was there to keep me company.

My best lightning shot of the trip.

I was really glad it was stormy on many of the nights I was there. So fun!

I had a good trip overall. I got to do most everything I wanted, and of course the main reason for going was to see my sisters and their families. It's bittersweet because seeing everyone always makes me feel a little lonelier when I go back home. Plus I tend to analyze everything I said and did, worrying about how I handled various conversations and situations with my nephieces. I have this fear of them remembering me for the times when I'm careless with my words or behavior. I've already apologized to my 6-year-old niece (through a text to her sister) for speaking somewhat harshly to her when she wouldn't listen or do what was being asked, and she apparently responded like she had no idea what I was talking about. :P I'm glad. I tend to be overly anxious sometimes.

Okay, now this post has turned into a confessional. I just want my nephieces to know how much I care about their feelings, even though I'm human and don't always show it. Maybe my sister can pass that on to them sometime(s). :)

Speaking of my sister (the one who reads my blog): thanks so much, R, for hostessing once again. It's nice of you to take me places and let the other kids come over so I can get plenty of time with everyone! I know that having a guest can be tiresome and throw off your whole routine, even if it's your sister. Know that I appreciate your time!