Adventures In Woods

Yes, we braved the cold this morning and took our 17 day old baby girl to her and Memere’s first balloon fiesta.  It was a blast!  Sarah slept through most of it, and the boys had a great time - minus some cold hands at times.  Bernice took a fun family picture of the 5 of us:

Woods Family at the 2008 Balloon Fiesta

Thankfully, we were able to get some breakfast and warm up inside the Intel corporate tent.  For anyone who’s never been to the balloon fiesta, it’s quite an experience - especially with young children who are enthralled with all the sights and sounds and action! I took around 145 pictures in less than 2 hours, but I only uploaded 74 of them :)  It’s hard to take a bad picture.  If you’re interested, they’re online at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jcwoods1/BalloonFiesta2008.  Most of the ones with some of us in them are toward the beginning.

Even Jonathan took a good shot:

Jonathan's picture

Bernice arrived at the end of the balloon fiesta 5 years ago, but since Jonathan had been born the day before, she didn’t make it out to the fiesta.  That was remedied today:

Memere and Jonathan

I got a fun one of Jess, Benjamin, and Sarah after we got home too.  Ben delights in his little sister and frequently kisses her on the head:

Ben Kissing His Little Sister

The boys and I rode the Rail Runner down to Los Lunas yesterday.  Mark Essenmacher picked us up at the train station, and we had a fun time with his family for a few hours before returning home.  The Rail Runner is scheduled to connect to Santa Fe by the end of this year.  That will be a huge win for commuters - and tourists.  The boys loved that we could go faster than the vehicles on the road - at least part of the time.  It was $3 for all of us for the day.

Riding the Train

The day before that we went geocaching and chased each other and jack rabbits around for a couple hours.

Our 14th find

This is what a sabbatical is all about :)  Praise God for this amazing time with my family!!!  Anyway, after getting up at 4:45 AM this morning, I’m ready to hit the hay.