Today we took a fun-filled family day trip to Bandelier. Bandelier is a National Monument where Ancestral Pueblo peoples lived for thousands of years. You can see their dwellings and other artifacts and hieroglyphics in the canyons and on the mesas.
We took the 'short route' home that turned out not to be so short after a couple wrong turns, going over some big bumps, and having Brynn throw-up one more time (at least this time we were prepared). Most of the turns came from an attempt to find a certain restaurant in Santa Fe called ‘Bobcat Bite’ that Scott read about in the Wall Street Journal. We eventually gave up when Ellie started to make it very clear that this extra detour wasn’t very cool. In fact she kept driving this point all the way back home.
Despite a few setbacks we had a great day together—so much so that Jared even mentioned he wanted to live in Bandelier forever.
It’s a couple hours or so from Albuquerque—and of course Scott insisted on the scenic route which was beautiful but added another 30 minutes to the trip. Not far from Bandelier, Brynn threw-up in the car. Being that it was really beautiful outside and not so much inside, we stopped and cleaned up and enjoyed the fresh air for awhile.
Once we reached Bandelier the kids did great with all the hiking and looked like monkeys climbing up and down the ladders and trails. 
On our way back down the canyon towards our van we drew a lot of smiles from fellow hikers. We started to figure out why once we noticed how they didn’t usually have children or at least in every case the adult to child ratio heavily favored the adults.
Our family looked quite the opposite. A worn out pregnant lady pushing Jared in the jogging stroller, Ellie asleep in Scott’s arms wearing only a diaper (she refused to wear anything else after we stripped her down to play in the creek), Brynn busily snapping photos to the left and right, and Kaitlyn wandering nearby through the bush in search of bugs and other critters.
Our family looked quite the opposite. A worn out pregnant lady pushing Jared in the jogging stroller, Ellie asleep in Scott’s arms wearing only a diaper (she refused to wear anything else after we stripped her down to play in the creek), Brynn busily snapping photos to the left and right, and Kaitlyn wandering nearby through the bush in search of bugs and other critters.
By the time it was all said and done this kind of sums up how we all felt.
We took the 'short route' home that turned out not to be so short after a couple wrong turns, going over some big bumps, and having Brynn throw-up one more time (at least this time we were prepared). Most of the turns came from an attempt to find a certain restaurant in Santa Fe called ‘Bobcat Bite’ that Scott read about in the Wall Street Journal. We eventually gave up when Ellie started to make it very clear that this extra detour wasn’t very cool. In fact she kept driving this point all the way back home.Despite a few setbacks we had a great day together—so much so that Jared even mentioned he wanted to live in Bandelier forever.
4 comments:
I am impressed with you guys! You are making our excuse that we have too many young kids to go and do fun stuff seem kind of irrelevant. Thanks a lot! We are trying to be more adventurous. We even took the kids camping for the first time in 4 years! But we can't keep up with you guys...it seems like you are always off hiking or something fun with the whole crew. I think that's so awesome. Sorry about the puking. That really stinks...really badly.
That sounds so fun. We went to Tent Rocks last week and got many a similar amused glance from the other hikers. I guess you just don't see too many big families these days. Brynn rocked at her talk yesterday. What a little reading genius. Woohoo!
Glad you had fun! You got some great pictures and I loved the one of Jared and Ellie asleep in the stroller.
K, ditto to what everyone else has said. You DO make it look easy! Seriously!
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