Labor Day Weekend: Historic Los Alamos

After visiting the Black Hole, we drove over to Fuller Lodge so that my family could look through the historical museum.

Becca had fun grinding the corn.

After finding an available potty and looking through the museum, we stopped to look at a log cabin built in 1913 that was moved from it's original site to a location behind Fuller Lodge.

There are my super cute parents.

Here's an ancestral pueblo dwelling from approximately 1225. Becca and I both walked along the remnants of the walls like a balance beam. :)

My husband trying to ruin a picture by hiding his face.

There he is! So cute.

Amy visit!

As soon as we picked up Amy from the airport, Roxy was all over her!

We spent most of our weekend watching movies and eating yummy, gluten-free food. On Saturday, Amy and I braved the rainy weather to go exploring Los Alamos.

Our first stop was the CB Fox Department Store.

They had lots of Thanksgiving and Halloween decorations, including the "Jelly Belly Fall Festival Mix," which had something that looked brain in it (see it in the bottom left corner of the bag)....

Then we walked over to the Bradbury Science Museum and played in the puzzle room.

And had way more fun then two-college grads ever should. :)

More pics to come tomorrow!

The Los Alamos County Fair

After I finished up with the parade and Russ had gotten cleaned up from his bike ride, we went to Ashley Pond to check out the fair.

There were tons of people wandering around looking at the different booths and exhibits.

There were five bounce houses and three rafts taking kids across the pond. So awesome! This was another one of those moments when I wished I was still a kid and could go play with all the fun stuff.

This was one of my favorites! It was the booth for the local dance studio, which does full blown ballets every year. They did "Alice in Wonderland" this last spring and that's Alice's dress hanging from the right corner of the tent and the Queen's dress on the mannequin in the right corner of the pic.

This contraption was making home-made ice cream, super nifty!

And this is where I got a delicious margarita-flavored sno cone. The only bad part was that there was a lot of naked ice towards the bottom.....

Overall, lots of fun and we enjoyed getting to know the town a little bit more.

Everyone Loves a Parade!

This last weekend I helped with the Los Alamos County Parade for work and you know what they gave me!?! 

A megaphone!

I was responsible for making sure that all the participants stayed in their appropriate order as the parade began. It was very exciting! :)

Here are the few pictures I got of parade participants. (I didn't get them all because I was VERY busy talking into my megaphone. :)

The fire brigade.

Russ had gone out on bike ride instead of coming to watch with me and as soon as I saw the fire engines, I knew he'd be jealous.

The local radio station.

 

An Arabian horse and rider.

More horses, this time with cowboys.

Some very funny motorcyclists.

And the local theater's cast of "Suessical."

Just hearing them sing pulled at my musical lovin' heart-strings.  (Right after we moved, I did email about auditioning but I'd missed them by a couple weeks. Boo.)

Los Alamos: A Lasting First Impression!

Several weeks ago, I was asked to write an article for The Essence, a local publication put together by the Chamber of Commerce, about Russ' and my first impression of Los Alamos. Here's a short excerpt:

"My husband and I are new to Los Alamos, very new. We moved here in the middle of May and we have been so blessed to become a part of this fantastic community. My husband and I have only been married a year and moving eight hours away from both sets of our families has definitely pushed us to grow in ways we never could have dreamed. This community has made the move so much easier then we could have imagined..."

Follow this link to read the rest, my article is on page 10. :)

This rainbow had no pot of gold...

Russ and I returned to Los Alamos last night after a 10-plus hour drive from Oklahoma City where we had been for a long weekend. We went for the Oklahoma City blessing and reception for Andrew and Melissa's marriage, it was wonderful and lots of fun!

On our way there, we drove through a rain storm that included a HUGE rainbow, it was beautiful. But, unfortunately, we drove right past the end of it and there was no pot of gold. Major bummer.

I promise more OKC weekend to come later in the week.

Dog Park

Last week, we went to the Los Alamos dog park for the first time.

I think the puppies had a good time making new friends...

And exploring the park. :)

Roxy sprinted from one corner to the other with her full, long strides.

And Pirate ran away from the bigger dogs to hide behind Russ' feet. :)

All in all, we had lots of fun!

TriAtomics

He's official. 

Russ now has a bike jersey and a triathlon top from the Los Alamos TriAtomics tri club!

My Seester-in-law Came to Visit!

Russ' sister, Sabrina, came to visit us last weekend.  She had spent her entire summer the San Francisco Bay area and we were her first stop on her way back to OKC.

Here Sabrina is trying out the 3-D TV at Best Buy when Russ was looking around at all of the different televisions. (Did you know that some TVs can't come up to certain elevations...? They could explode.)

Russ made us maple bacon and chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast Sunday. Yum!

Later that afternoon, we went to the Los Alamos Library's Harry Potter exhibit. It was pretty interesting to see where JK Rowling got some of her inspiration.

Russ isn't the biggest Harry Potter fan, can't you tell?

Sabrina loves genetics and Harry Potter. :)

We had an awesome/relaxing time with her.  Too bad it rained almost the entire weekend and we never got to go on a hike to the ski hill.

Next Big Idea

One of the best things about my job is that I get to be involved in a ton of various activities! 

Last week, I spent Monday-Wednesday commuting to Santa Fe for Business Advisor training. (I could never commute on a regular basis, all you folks who do it amaze me!) And Thursday and Friday I helped with some prep work for a community-wide event, The Next Big Idea.

Here are the tents all set up and ready for the exhibitors.

Balloons make every event more festive.

The event had several different science and technology exhibitors; there were remote-controlled robots, water rockets, a Prius that could park itself, holographic jewelry, a mind-flex game (where you could control a little ball being blown over a board with your mind) and lots of fun food vendors.

There was also a volleyball game with a giant beach ball. This was lots of fun but the ball kept knocking down the net and it made it hard to keep playing.  Overall, I was super impressed that they could even serve a ball that big because it was heavy!

With all the fun exhibits geared towards kids (making silly putty, shooting water rockets, moving a little ball with their mind) the balloons were still a HUGE hit! :)

Summer Concert

Last Friday, we went to another concert at Ashley Pond.  At first, Russ and I went on our own but after running to get some yummy Sonic goodness (strawberry limeade chiller, I highly recommend it) we picked up the puppies from home.

The dogs were very well behaved.  They whined every time another dog or a child walked by but that's only because they wanted to play. :)

Roxy was fascinated by a doberman playing nearby.... it barely noticed her but she couldn't take her eyes off of it.  Maybe she had a crush...