Chicks Are Gone

Yesterday was time to say goodbye to our last chick. It was so fun having all three kids here for Christmas (could have been a bit warmer tho, especially since we didn't have snow!) We got us a game called Bocce and the kids had fun for short periods of time until their ears got too cold or the wind just cut thru them. Figured it would also be a fun game to play at reunions!

The goal is to see who can get their balls to land the closest to the little white ball. They played in the open lots across from our house where the uneven ground and vegetation made for some weird bouncing, rolls and stops.

There was a lot more time spent indoors playing table games, watching videos and reading, and of course eating. I had thought our little house would feel crowded but for the two weeks we had company we didn't feel like we were on top of each other.

Jenn helped decorate the tree when she arrived a few days earlier than the boys and helped make the living room quite festive.

After dropping Ben off at the airport we thought we'd do a bit of sightseeing so took a route down the west side and around south end of the Manzanos. At the south end are some old mission ruins we explored, the Abó Ruins. This is an important part of the history of New Mexico. The Abó ruins is one of three Indian village/Spanish mission complexes preserved as a National Park. A trail takes you through the mission ruins and unexcavated Indian pueblo of Abó. A quote (by Maj J.H. Carleton in 1853) in one of the leaflets said "The tall ruins standinig there in solitude, had an aspect of sadness and gloom.... The old wind ... appeared to roar and howl through the roofless pile like an angry demon." Guess we visited on a good day - that's what it was doing. Tho I was disappointed the sun got blocked with the heavy clouds and the wind was so cold. These ruins, located on a pass opening onto the Rio Grande Valley, carried on a lively trade with people of the Acoma-Zuni area, the Galisteo Basin near Santa Fe, and the plains. It was a thriving community when the Spaniards visited the Salinas Valley in 1581. Franciscans began converting Abó residents in 1622 and by the late 1620 the first church was finished. Battered by disasters that struck the other Salinas pueblos, the people of Abó left sometime between 1672 and 1678 to take refuge in towns along the Rio Grande.

Can you tell we were cold?