Our Camping Adventure

We went camping last week for what was supposed to be Tue to Thursday after breakfast. It rained a bit on Tuesday afternoon, but Wednesday it really came down.... for hours. We managed to get some of our dinner cooked in the fire, but finally decided at around 8pm that it wasn't going to let up (we were told earlier in the day the forcasts were calling for rain for the next 6 days). So we buckled the kids in the van and packed up in about 15 minutes and spent that night at home. The entire next day was spent cleaning up all the wet stuff, washing the wet clothes and drying out the wet tent. It was only a little over an hour away, so we didn't think the weather would be so much different than here in Albuquerque, but now we know.

We ordered a big 14'x14' tent online the week before we left and didn't think it would get here in time. But Tuesday morning as we were pulling out of the apartment complex to leave, prepared to use our small tent, the UPS van drove by. We flagged it down and sure enough our tent was on it! We did lose the plug to our air mattress and had to sleep on the floor and barely had enough blankets.

All in all we had fun, the kids had a blast and Darci slept GREAT on the floor in the tent. She really liked her first camping experience. We tried our hand at fishing, 3 different spots, but didn't catch a thing... not even a bite. I have to hand it to Tad. He showed a lot of patience. Not only did we not catch anything, but he spent a lot of time putting the fishing line on all the kids poles and fixing it every time they got them tangled up, which was a lot.

The campground....













This deer walked right by our tent. Tad got very excited like a little boy.





This is us waiting out the rain. Darci slept through most of the loud noise.

The campground lake....








Hiking....




The fish hatchery lake....








Fishing in the stream....

Bio Park in Albuquerque

We decided to join the Bio Park this year. For $75 we get free entrance to the zoo, the aquarium, and the botanical gardens. It's a really great deal, because each of those places would cost $23 for us to go to each time. And we've already gone enough times to pay for it. And we get 1 guest each time, so this time my Mom was here for a week and we went to all 3 places. The kids had a lot of fun with Grandma Noni, they can't wait to take all their grandparents here!

Botanical Gardens Childrens Garden...
The botanical gardens were really a lot of fun. You walk past this dragon and enter a magical world of gigantic garden vegetables, giant bugs and pine cones and a lot of fun.




























Botanical Gardens Main Area...
The gardens were soooo much bigger than I thought. I'm glad we have a pass and can go anytime we want to. Once school starts up again, I think we'll be coming either here, the zoo or the aquarium on all of Derek's half days.



There were a few biosphere-type buildings there.









During the summer they have a butterfly garden enclosure. These babies are so fast, it's hard to get pictures of them!


ZOO....

Paige & Kevin played in the splash area while Derek had fun in the play area.
There are peacocks running around wild all over the zoo.

I paid $3.50 for Derek to ride this camel. As I was taking the second photo, I hear one of the zoo workers yelling at a kid, saying, "No, honey, this is a wild animal!" I turn around and sure enough it is Paige trying to jump on one of the camels. She was supposed to be down sitting with my mom, but while she was taking a picture, Paige ran up the platform and was headed straight for a camel. And not just any camel, a camel-in-training!




The zoo has a new addition - a baby giraffe! And this time we made it to the upper viewing area of the polar bears and watched them play in the water for a bit.