Before I forget, there is a video and picture from Trevor’s last day of swim school for this cycle. It was Wednesday. He might get to continue in January! He has made a lot of improvement in these eight weeks. (I am behind glass, so there is really poor sound in the video)

He graduated the beginner lessons and now is called a “glider”. They are working on letting go more and working on his independence in the water.

We got home today from our trip. Saturday was not as awesome of a day as Friday. We went to see the Very Large Array (radio telescopes). We goofed our planning though, and the dishes were in their most separated configuration. They spread out over 20 miles! So I missed out on the cool pictures I was hoping for. They change every four months, so if we go at this time next year, they will all be in close.
This part of New Mexico is one of the darkest parts of the whole country. I was hoping for good star-gazing. The sky was like a gray wool blanket of thick clouds, sustained 15MPH winds, and it was only 45 degrees. BRRRR! In the middle of the night, it cleared up, but it was below freezing and still so windy. No night pictures.
I also had some kind of nausea, either car sick or elevation sick which I have never had in my life, or maybe virus. I had fever chills for the better part of the evening. Everyone else is OK and I am better today.
All that said, it was still a cool experience and we will go back.

There is one dish on the walking tour that you can see up close.

There are more. They spread them out on railroad tracks with these giant special moving rail cars.

Details

We were there just in time to see them all rotate in unison, they turned almost 180 degrees. It was awfully quiet for such a huge thing.

Facing the trail now

It was so cold to have the wind on our faces but the boys handled it well

We stopped in Pietown, NM that night and got the very last piece of pie for the whole year. They close down for the winter! It was good pie. We stayed at a little RV park there. As we were pulling in, I noticed this truck. I did a double take. Did that say Stool Bus?

Yes, it is a waste vacuum pump truck.

When you are in the poop business, I guess you need a good sense of humor.

Even the license plate. 😀

We stopped in our favorite forest on the Mogollon Rim on the drive home to see some light snow actually falling from the sky. The boys played for a while to stretch their legs. We got home just in time to beat the storms. It is pouring rain now in Chandler but there is a massive snow storm starting up north.

This is going to be another super big post because I took so many pictures today and I can’t narrow it down any more, I love them all! We opted for a very non-traditional Thanksgiving because we had no turkey plans and Bill had a 4-day weekend. We hit the road for New Mexico.

Where there are missiles on the side of the road 🙂

See Trevor?

We slept in our trailer at a KOA camp in Alamogordo and went strait to the White Sands National Monument in the morning. Much better than fighting crowds at the stores! See Trevor?

We brought a sled (Thanks, Weber family!) and hauled our toys in. (and Brendan)

All the fun of snow without the cold and wet

Going down the hills on the sled is fun!

Climbing back up is tricky!

Brendan loves the ride

New Mexico is indeed the Land of Enchantment for little boys with dump trucks and shovels

Zoom one

Zoom two

Zoom three!

Sledding is a blast except for the guy (Daddy) who has to drag the loaded sled back up the hill

Bill and Trevor – Zoom one

Bill and Trevor – Zoom two

Bill and Trevor – Zoom three

Bill and Trevor – Zoom four!

Someone found their happy place!

There is Brendan, perched on the edge, ready to zoom down the perfect ripples of sand

Heehee

There he goes!

I have to put down the camera to catch because at the end the sled stops and the boy keeps going!

Zoom one!

Zoom two!

Double heavy, back up the hill

Pulling them down is much easier!

It was 41 degrees but the sun was so hot, it felt like 80. The sand was nice on little feet

Trevor could have stayed the whole day. He did not want to go! He is hugging the last dune and saying goodbye – until next time.

After lunch we went up to this cool place on the side of the mountain. It is the New Mexico Museum of Space History. It is a very cool building. You go inside and ride the elevator up to the fourth floor. Then there is just a long series of ramps that takes you down through all of the displays and back to the first floor.

They have a great outdoor display

From nasa.gov – “The F-1 engine – the most powerful single-nozzle, liquid-fueled rocket engine ever developed – boosted the Saturn V rocket off the launch pad and on to the moon during NASA’s Apollo program during the 1960s and 1970s.”

Little boys, big rocket engine

Brendan is playing with gyro controls for Thor missiles

There is a fun dress up area for kids to take a trip to the moon

Brendan getting astronauted

Three to transport! (There is a level dedicated to Star Trek and its relationship with NASA)

The museum elevators look cool and there are cool sound effects when the doors open and close

Aw, time to go?

So far, we have found that KOA campgrounds are usually reliable RV parks. But they all seem to have retro playgrounds. We even found a few loose nuts under this merry-go-round. Trevor calls it the “Round-abound”

Since it was cold, Brendan finally got to wear his CJ7 hoodie. It was too hot to wear it for Halloween!

All this fun and it is only Friday!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

This is going to be a huge post because there was a lot of fun stuff this week.

We started out on Sunday with a trip past Wickenburg, AZ to the desert wilderness where Uncle Ken and Aunt Barb have built a home.

Ken helped Trevor give some apples to the donkey

And some to the feisty mule

The boys love to visit Ken’s train room

Peek-a-boo

We thought it was cute to see Jesse the dog and Levi the cat chillin’ together on the bed

Barb and Ken with all the boys

The boys have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of their special-order birthday gift. The giant packages finally arrived! New pedal bikes! We started by letting Trevor zip around with it with no pedals so he could get the feel of it. Brendan is not quite tall enough for his yet, but soooo close.

Brendan followed Trevor on the old balance bike for a while

Here is a good example of the size difference between the old baby balance bikes and the new bikes!

We put the pedals on Brendan’s with some training wheels until his legs get a little longer

Happy boys!

Helping Daddy to tweak the seat

We were also excited to have Aunt Heather (Bill’s sister) here for the fun. She was in town for work and got to chase Trevor on the rocket bike.

When the boys were tiny, balance bikes were a fairly new concept. But the idea totally works. Trevor hopped on his pedal bike with no training wheels and took off like a pro. It was amazing!

Here’s the first try with the pedals!

He is so proud!

We are proud of Brendan too! He pedals so hard!

For dinner, we took Aunt Heather to a new place that was recommended by Brendan’s OT. It’s called “The Perch Pub” because they have an exotic bird rescue on site.

The boys walked around and saw all the birds.

Brendan loves cockatoos. This one was very entertaining!

The majority of the restaurant is outdoors. The setting is so pretty!

We played 2×4 Jenga and bean bag toss in this cool side area. The boys’ cousin Triston came to join us too, he just missed the pictures.

This morning, Heather played Legos with the boys. Triston made Brendan a space ship the night before and Heather helped Brendan install upgrades.

We went to the Cornish Pasty Company for a nice lunch before Heather had to go to the airport.

This is why Bill likes the Pasty Company

Trevor begged from the moment he woke up that he wanted to go ride his bike. We took a 1.2 mile ride around the neighborhood and he had only one small wipeout. We were only home for five minutes and he wanted to go again. So the whole family went out for a “new bike photo”

We rode to the boys’ school because the big empty parking lot is a perfect place for practicing. They used the bus drop-off loop as a race track.

Trevor said his name was Blazer and his bike was a Blaze-go-bike. He rode fast!!

I see many hours on bikes in the near future.