Of Lizards and Little Girls

She just loves them so much. So, soooo much.

Azalea may be named after a flower, but she is all about things that move. She just can stand herself when she sees a new living creature. She loves all animals, reptiles, insects, birds.... I have no doubt that somehow her life will circle around helping other living creatures as she herself grows. Unfortunately for now, she needs to learn how to contain her love.

The novelty of lizards has not yet worn off for us here. I'm not sure it ever will. We all went for a walk on Friday around what we hope to be our new neighborhood in a few weeks. The kids saw yet another lizard scooting across a rock and they all "ooooohhhhhhh"-ed. So Elmer with his quick hands was able to get the little guy so that we could all get a little closer look. Azalea insisted that she would hold it gently, watch over it, and release it on the appropriate rock down the street. Unfortunately she couldn't stop petting the little guy over and over. Moving his little, and I mean little, he was only about 3" long, body parts around even through our protests. Until she finally "taught him a trick". At first she was so proud of herself. After all she only had him for a few minutes, and already she taught him a good life skill. Poor little guy, and Azalea too for that matter. Azalea thought she had taught him how to play dead. Well, we all know how this ended. There was no playing and she had killed the lizard. From loving him too much. We are learning to love from a distance now. And have taken to carrying around our bug jar, so that when we do find something small and cool we don't have to love it with the squeeze of our fingers.

The snail in this picture was "loved" by Azalea for about 4 days before we instated the "Catch and Release Snail Program". After all he needed to go find his family...

Tomorrow she wants to look for Preying Mantis. No joke.

Some recent outings

Petroglyphs

and

Hiding in a hole at the Petroglyphs



Father and daughter walking the path...

On top of a Volcano



Below is a pic of the kids lovin' on Lisa's birds.


Azalea taking "Caroline" out for a ride.


A view from on top of Sandia Crest. Gorgeous.


Riding the train between the BioPark and the Zoo

Phew!

I can't completely breathe a sigh of relief, but I can exhale a little.

Lola and Tigo started at their new school on Thursday. They didn't shed any tears or show too many signs of distress. Mom, over here, had another story. I almost lost it a few times as I watched Lola walk away into her class room. Luckily none of the kids noticed. Lola was able to get into the bilingual class with a great young teacher who she really likes, a class with lots of girls who have been welcoming her into their tight knit class. And there are only 15 KIDS. FIFTEEN!! How great is that. Haycock was great, but there were always at least 25 kids. How nice to be in a small class.

Tigo also has a small class of only 20 kids. His teacher, a man, is in charge of the school garden, which is attached to the community Open Space. We've been told to expect him to spend a lot of time there. Tigo gets tired to fast so I think the transition to being in school all day will be a lot harder for him though.

Azalea still attaches to me as she is unaware that we occupy two separate bodies. Luckily she is darn cute, but I've got to find her some friends to play with.

To back track a little. Because I was able to enroll them in school, this means that we have found another home. For superstition and track record purposes I will keep details few on that. But we plan to move into it over the Labor Day weekend. It's an old house, but cute and we should be happy there. Fingers crossed.

Craziness

Nothing is true until it happens. And then even after it happens apparently it can be taken back. As is the case with the house we were intending to buy here in Albuquerque. Somewhere between Nashville and Memphis on the date of our supposed settlement I got the call that the deal went through on our house. A new annoying cloud on the title is keeping us from buying the cute little house we were hoping to call home here. I'm sure there is a reason but right now it's just annoying.

So we have been spending the last couple weeks, either hopeful that we could work it out or looking for a new home. Or contemplating leaving this place all together... almost anything is an option right now. As we are with out homes and with out jobs and can't register the kids for school anywhere until we have an address...

There is hope on the horizon that we will find another home in a better environment for us. But right now we are living in limbo in temporary housing.

On a positive note there are a ton of great things for the kids to do here in Albuquerque. We have joined the Explora, the local children's museum. Lola says it is her favorite she's been to. And we've been to a bunch all over the country. Tigo loves the BioPark and the Botanical gardens, as there are dragon's gardens and an amazing model train set. And giant "underground" garden that you can walk through and beautiful, beautiful flowers. And Azalea loves the Butterfly garden. And there's the river, and one day we'll get up to the Tram and get to the top of the mountain. So there are some really fun things to do in the midst of going crazy...