A weekend with Carissa

Joe's daughter Carissa from Seattle was here with us for the weekend. We only had about 48 hours so we tried to do as much as we could in as little time as we had. After getting off work on Saturday, Carissa and I walked Sam over to our pet salon for a fashion show and Halloween costume contest. Sam didn't participate in the fashion show but I did dress him up for the costume contest. He was so cute. He didn't place in the contest but he had a great time just being there.

Saturday night Carissa and I headed over to Rawhide. Yes, I know I was just there last weekend but it is such a fun place to go this time of year. The weather was great!

Sunday we stayed at home most of the day. We did go out and wash the car and go to the store. We also put up a few Halloween decorations. Because Carissa had a birthday this month, Joe cooked her favorite meal today. Steak and crab legs. And then shortly after that it was time to head to the airport. It was a short trip, but we had a great time.

Some of our Halloween decorations

Rawhide

Saturday night we had our good friends Sonja and Theresa over for dinner. Afterwards we met up with my friend Pat and just the girls went over to Rawhide Wild Western Town for a little Halloween fun. They always deck out the entire town with great decorations and also have a couple haunted houses. I love going there this time of year. It's fun just to walk around and see all the characters in scary costumes and just people watch. And the haunted houses were actually pretty scary. It was a good time.
I just wish my camera took better pictures at night. These I'm posting are actually pretty good, however these are nothing compared to what we saw while we were there. The town looked great.

Sonja and Teresa

Tempe Marketplace

This last weekend we got together with my good friend of 21 years, Heather and her husband Larry. Because we live an hour from each other, the 4 of us only get together about twice a year. And we always have such a great time when we all get together. This night was no different.

We met up at one of my favorite places, Tempemarketplace. I Love going there. With the colored waterfalls, fireplaces, outdoor live music, wonderful restaurants and great shopping, it's just the perfect place to go.

We started at King Fish House where we had drinks and appetizers. Joe loves the fresh oysters. Then we headed over to Lucille's Barbecue. They have the BEST pulled pork sandwich and the BEST flourless chocolate cake. Although I didn't have room for the cake this time.

After dinner, the guys headed up to Cadillac Ranch for drinks and Heather and I went shopping.
She brought her 2 daughters, Charlie and Allie with her but they were off doing their own thing there at the mall until we met up with them later, We all had a great time. It's an awesome place to go.

Cadillac Ranch

Heather and her daughters

Charlie and Allie

Albuquerque Balloon Festival

We flew into Albuquerque on Saturday, Oct. 4th. The weather was BEAUTIFUL. It was so nice to get out of this heat and into some cooler weather. We were staying with our good friend Crystal and her daughter Mariah. We also spent most of our time with her boyfriend Peter and his daughter Savannah. Crystal and Peter are a great couple and their kids are best of friends.

After dropping off our luggage at the house, they took us to Old Town Albuquerque. What a great place. All the old buildings and great shopping. And the weather was so beautiful. We walked around for a couple hours but had to get back to the house so Mariah could get ready for her Homecoming Dance. She had 2 of her friends come over to do hair, makeup and get dressed. Yes, I helped out a little with the hair. It was so fun watching them get ready. I felt kind of bad for them though because it had started to rain.

We made it an early night because we were getting up really early for the Balloon Festival.

Our friend Crystal and her daughter

Mariah

Crystal and her boyfriend Peter

On Sunday morning we set the alarm clocks for 4am to get an early start on the balloon festival. Unfortunately it was still raining and all festivities had been called off. The good thing was we were all extremely tired so this meant we could sleep in. We knew we had 2 more days to catch the festival. We decided this would be a good day to drive to Santa Fe.

On our way, we stopped at this great little cafe for lunch. The rain had let up and the sun was shining but it started to rain again as soon as we pulled into Santa Fe. Luckily we had brought umbrellas. Although it was drizzling the entire time we were there, we walked most of the Old Market of downtown Santa Fe. It wasn't really that cold. Just wet. We had a great time.

Peter's daughter Savannah and Mariah

Some of the weather we hit on the way

back to Albuquerque

Finally, there's a break in the weather and we make it to the balloon festival. We leave the house at 5:40am. Yes, everyone goes that early. Because it was Monday, parking and entry to the park went real fast. I guess it's pretty nuts on the weekend. Once we were in the park, the first thing we did was get coffee, hot chocolate and breakfast burritos. It was so cold (45 degrees) and so windy. There was even some concern as to weather they were going to let the balloons go up. After breakfast we shopped some of the vendors for a blanket and gloves. There were tons of vendor tents set up selling everything from food, clothes and of course tons of balloon items.

Finally about 7:30 the balloons were allowed to launch. At this time it was also much warmer and the wind had died down. I'm only going to post about 10-15 pictures, but I bet I took about 50. It was just amazing. The first balloon to go up carried the US flag while they played the national anthem.