Yay for a visit to Yaya's! July and August 2011

With Jim's 10 year high school reunion happening in Lubbock the first weekend of August, we thought we'd plan that visit in conjunction with a trip to see Yaya!  So, the last Thursday in July, we all boarded a plane for Santa Fe.


The start of our trip was a bit rocky (a calamity of errors you may call it, that or a hilarity of errors) - we once again had trouble with our go go baby trendz (GGBT) stroller thingy that allows us to pull Clay around the airport in his car seat.  This time it wasn't that we couldn't get the contraption on, it's that we couldn't get it off to go through the xray machine (which we found out later that they could have just hand scanned it which they eventually had to do) but the tightening mechanism jammed to where we couldn't get the thing off yet it wasn't fastened tightly enough for us to put Clay in the car seat for his magic carpet ride.


So, I ended up carrying the babe through the airport while Jim was loaded down with the car seat.  While Jim tried to fix the GGBT, I took C to the bathroom for a diaper change.  It should be noted that this corresponded with Little Man's insistence to stand during all diaper changes.  Fast forward 5 minutes and one wonky shotty diaper change later and you'd find me, holding Clay, and suddenly feeling super warm and cozy.... or drenched in baby urine (fun, fun, fun!)  Clay was soaked but had a change of clothes, I was soaked but did not have a change of clothes, so I got to buy a really "awesome" State of Texas T-shirt in the gift shop for the low low price of $18.99 plus tax, street cred, and bragging rights.


All of our fun issues resulted in a time crunch, so we had to ditch our plans to do dinner at Chili's and settle on McDonald's for Clay.  He LOVED it - it was his first time to have McDonald's.  While I've always loved McDonald's (like any good red blooded American does), I had never realized how truly gross it is to feed your kids that stuff.  I won't go into elaborate detail, but if you'd like to know, simply tear chicken nuggets into bite sized pieces and then deal with the aftermath of grease, I am telling you - LIFE CHANGING EXPERIENCE!  Unfortunately, Clay didn't feel the same and continued to ask for more, more, more, more of both the chicken and the fries.  Oh well, he was a happy boy and the rest of the flight was uneventful.  


The next day Yaya kept Clay while Jim and I went into town for some quality time.  It was great!  We saw one movie (Horrible Bosses), ran errands, chatted, got a snack, met Clay and my mom and Steve for dinner, and then decided to go see another movie (Crazy Stupid Love - we both adored this movie and kept talking about it the next day).  

At a childhood fav, Thomasita's, by a fountain that I was obsessed with as a child (and still as an adult).   This was a big day for Clay's Ewing heritage.

The next day we went back into town for lunch and then decided to that Clay's hair was getting a little crazy so we went for his first professional haircut when we were in Santa Fe!  For those of you who are concerned, I can assure you that Clay is nothing like Sampson so a little snip snip did not squash his cuteness powers!

This is after I cobbled together my best Spanish to ask for a hair cut "Necessito un pelo corta para un nino, por favor".  The lady at the front desk was able to converse with me in pretty good English (once she heard how pathetic my Spanish was); but the lady who cut Clay's hair had to make due with me saying awesome things like "Muy Bueno, Muy Guapo Nino, and Muchas Gracias")

Clay wasn't too sure what all the hubbub was about or why he was in such a funky chair; but he was a good sport!

She did clippers on the sides (which were surprisingly quiet) and then cut the top using scissors.

He was soooo good; I know he looks pretty bald here but I promise that the haircut made him look like he had more hair.

Clay with his new-do!

One of Clay's favorite things to do at Yaya's was to watch the hummingbirds come to feed.   At night, there were times where there would literally be 8 or more hummingbirds at this one feeder; it was amazing!

One night Yaya brought out a special dessert treat, mini drumstick ice cream cones.  Clay LOVED them!!!

Daddy got in on the fun and (purposely) got just as messy as his littlest guy; Clay (and all of us) that was hilarious - such a sweet hearted Daddy!

About this time (really since about 15 months), Clay started walking around like a little southern gentleman with one or both of his hands behind his back.  I finally had my camera out to document this cute little quirk.

Dressed, ready for church, and on the move!

Clay wanted to give Yaya hugs (she of course obliged!)  Clay also started saying "turtle!" this weekend.  Yaya loves turtles and has turtle shaped jewelry and home decor accents so he got to say it alot!

After church and lunch, Clay went back to Yaya'sobsessed interested in "Breaking Bad" which is shot in Albuquerque.  So, when we decided that the Plaza was too covered up with tourists, we decided to go on a "Breaking Bad" location shooting location hunt (it wasn't hard because Jim had downloaded a an app on his phone that told us where to go).  For those of you in the know, we found a random house, the car wash, and Walt's house; for those of you not in the know we found blah blah, blah, and blah blah blah.


Clay and I spent the rest of the week soaking up quality time with Yaya!  We taught Yaya how to use her brand new DVR (funny story here, I was asking if she could record multiple shows and still watch a recording.  Her response was "I don't know and honestly, if I get to that point, that's just ridiculous".  I am pretty sure that she got to "ridiculous" within a week or so (no judgement, I asked because we totally have an inappropriately close relationship with our DVR).

Other things we did with Yaya was play with some of my childhood toys, play with new toys Yaya got just for Clay, read a ton, play with play dough for the first time, play with the wicked awesome ice-sailboats that Yaya made, sang, danced, read some more, cuddled a lot, ate extremely well, oh and took Clay to his first Chinese food restaurant, showed off Clay, went to a park near Yaya's house (one that is on the grounds of a Christian Camp that Granny went to growing up), practiced walking up and down stairs, read some more, laughed a lot, made paving stones for Yaya's garden complete with Clay's hand and foot prints, taught Yaya how to down load songs from iTunes, and played a lot more.  It was an absolute blast!

READING!

There was an awesome thunder-rain storm that resulted in a (drum roll) DOUBLE RAINBOW!!!

Clay loved the double rainbow!

Clay thought Playdough was great!

Playing the "trap door" game!

Playing at the Glorieta Center

I am not sure why, but Clay wasn't too sure about going up and down the ramps but he would do it as long as Yaya was there with him.

Love this kiddo!

Little Man was not afraid to explore the Glorieta Center all on his own!

 On our last day in New Mexico, we headed into Albuquerque for some fun!  We went to Chick-fil-a for lunch and just played and played and played (hoping that we could wear out little man enough that he'd take a nap).  No such luck, so then we headed to the Albuquerque Children's Museum.

Clay loved these exhibits because there were marbles and golf balls a plenty so Clay would point and say "bah bah" (which is Clay for "ball!")

Making waves with Yaya (in a good, scientific way)

Learning about water locks and channel systems

Out of ALL of the exhibits our little bookworm found the books and put Yaya to work reading one of his favorites "Hop on Pop"!

"Gearing Up" for more play!

What's better than one angle of Clay, a kaleidoscope of angles of Clay!

Before our flight, we met up with Janny for dinner at The Flying Star and then went back to her house and played outside for a while.  It was so much fun!

Little Mister got changed into his pjs (and ran around barefoot - yuck!) at the airport.  It made him happy so I decided to be good with it!  He was a great travel companion and was happy to see Granny, Poppa, and Daddy when we got to Lubbock!