Nana and Bampa Visit New Mexico

Eli's Nana and Bampa Pratt came for a visit over Memorial Day weekend.  Of course, this gave us the opportunity to explore some new areas around here.  We went up to Santa Fe, which is about an hour away from Albuquerque.  We didn't spend a lot of time in the town itself, but I would like to go back.  It seemed like it had a lot of history and would be very interesting. 

We spent most of our time at Bandolier National Monument, which is known for its cliff dwellings.  They were fun to see, though it was quite hot.  It was a different kind of heat from what Houston has.  Houston has the "I'm miserable, drenched in sweat, and can't breathe" kind of heat.  This was the "burning fire on my skin with warm wind slapping my face" kind of heat.  Josh and I both agreed it was preferable to Houston's heat, but then again it was the end of May, not July. 
 
We also went to Petroglyph National Monument, which is about 15 minutes away from our home in Albuquerque.  You can probably guess what it's known for and what we saw.  Both national monuments were a great way to see and understand the cultural and historical roots of the area. 

This is Albuquerque.

Albuquerque Aquarium and Botanical Gardens

Last week on Josh's day off we decided to explore Albuquerque's Aquarium and Botanical Gardens.  Since we have been to many aquariums with Eli, the thing that stood out about this one for me and for Eli was the ship section.  Eli was excited to pretend play pirates. 

I enjoyed the botanical gardens.  Houston doesn't really have anything like that (at least that I've been to or know of).  They were quite pretty, and they had a train section with Thomas the Train and Percy that Eli loved.  We had a hard time pulling him away from it.

 

Leaving Houston for Albuquerque, Part 2

As we settle in to our temporary new home here in Albuquerque, I can’t help but notice the differences between here and Houston.  After all, I’ve become a Houstonian after living there for almost six years, and it won’t be long before I’ll be headed back. 

Weather differences are obvious, and mostly, I like the change.  Houston humidity in the summer is ridiculous, so I’m looking forward to a drier summer.  That said, already our skin and lips are chapped and chafed here in Albuquerque.  I’ve always had dry skin and am addicted to Vaseline, even in Houston.  Josh makes fun of me for it, so I had to laugh when he asked me for some the other night. 

Mountains are an obvious difference too.  I think I forget that Houston is near sea level where it’s flat.  Only as I was driving to Albuquerque was I reminded of that.  I forgot what it was like to drive up mountains.  Difficult but beautiful.  Josh even asked me if I was having trouble breathing here because he obviously was. 

Albuquerque is calm and quiet.  Houston is not.  I’m sure to some people Albuquerque is not quiet, but several times I have wondered why the streets are deserted.  I forget just how big Houston is (4^th largest city in the U.S.).  Josh commented that he likes not hearing the police sirens all the time, so quiet probably means less crime too. :-)  Although, we both have noticed that the cops pull people over more for traffic violations.  I feel a little more on edge driving around here.  In Houston, cops don’t have time to pull people over for speeding and other traffic violations; they’re too busy chasing criminals.

Expenses are another difference.  Some things are cheaper here, but other things are cheaper in Houston.  I guess there’s a little give and a little take.  I still don’t know why gas is cheaper in Albuquerque given that Houston makes its living off oil.  If anyone can explain that to me, feel free. 

As far as personal differences, I like that I have a washer and dryer here in my house.  I told Josh that it may be difficult for me to go back to Houston and use an apartment laundry room again.  We may be looking at places with washers and dryers when we go back. ;-)

We don’t live in an apartment here, so we have a yard.  It’s not the prettiest yard to me since it’s done with cacti, rocks, and dirt, but Eli is having a blast digging in all the dirt and rocks. 

We have hardwood floor here instead of the carpet we’re used to.  I think I prefer carpet.  It’s a lot easier to scratch and damage hardwood floors, and my feet get dirty when I walk barefoot.  I also like the padding that carpet provides.  I’m already nervous about Eli getting hurt on these hard floors. 

Of course, there are many other differences, but we’re looking forward to exploring Albuquerque more.  It will be interesting to see if I’m dreading going back to Houston at summer’s end or if I’m breathing a sigh of relief.         

Leaving Houston for Albuquerque, Part 1

It’s been over a week now that we left our home in Houston, but we’ve been so busy.  In fact, even before we left, things were quite hectic.  I wasn’t sure we’d ever make it out of Houston. 

To sum it up briefly for those who aren’t aware, Josh decided to do his third and final externship in Albuquerque, NM.  His other ones were done in Houston, but he wanted the experience that the Albuquerque VA Hospital would give him.  He decided this back in September/October, but we were still trying to work out the details as of very recently.  It’s only for the summer, and then we’ll be headed back to Houston in mid-August.  At least we’ll be headed back with one degree down (optometry) and hopefully only a year more for the other (Ph.D.).

Our last month and a half in Houston was full of stress and worry, which makes being here in Albuquerque that much more of a relief to us.  At the end of March, our car’s engine had to be replaced, and we were told it would take 7-10 days to do so.  I won’t elaborate on all of the painful details, but we ended up being without a car for six long weeks.  After a LOT of patience and some assertiveness, we got it back with a week to spare before we needed to pack up and leave our apartment.  Unfortunately, there were still some minor issues with the car that made that last week crazy for us. 

I did most of the packing and cleaning while Josh tried to fix the issues with the car.  The main issue was that our safety inspection sticker expired while the car was in the shop.  However, for some unknown reason to us at the time, our check engine light kept coming on, which meant it didn’t pass the safety emissions test.  Once again, I’ll spare you the details, but after taking it back to the shop and replacing a couple of parts, the light was still on.  Meanwhile, I was trying to do everything I could at home (which is not easy to do all alone).  We were supposed to move Wednesday, May 4^th, but we asked the office if we could pay for one more night and move on Thursday.  They had no problems with that, and we were hoping in the meantime we could get that little sticker so that we could drive legally.  When that didn’t happen, I told Josh I’d just drive illegally (shhh…don’t tell) because we had to leave and didn’t have much choice.  Still, we ended up staying yet another night (thankfully our office management didn’t have any problems with that) and leaving on Friday morning.

We drove to Lubbock, TX, the first day, which was an incredibly long 10 hours.  The worst part was from Brenham to Abilene.  It’s a one-way highway with very little to see, but we chose that route because it had the least amount of miles.  Fortunately, Eli is generally an angel in the car, so there were no problems there.  UNfortunately, I had to drive solo with him because Josh was driving the moving truck.  We had been planning to tow a small trailer and leave most of our stuff in storage in Houston, but we couldn’t tow anything because of our new engine.  Thus, we ended up taking all of our stuff for just three months. 

As we were staying the night in Lubbock, Josh told me that we would probably have to drive back to Texas after getting the check engine light turned off in Albuquerque.  It hadn’t dawned on me that the inspection sticker has to be from the same state where the car is registered, and we didn’t want to register the car in New Mexico and re-register in Texas.  At this point, I was very frustrated (as if I hadn’t already been).  In no way did I want to drive four plus hours back to Texas after driving to Albuquerque.  Fortunately, thanks to prayer and a resourceful husband, the problem was fixed.  Josh got up early on Saturday morning, got under the car, and discovered that the mechanics had simply forgotten to plug a hose back in and obviously didn’t check when we took it back to them.  So, we got the inspection sticker in Lubbock that morning and drove to Albuquerque afterward.  Incidentally, Lubbock County doesn’t require a safety emissions test like Harris County does (due to population size), so we probably could have gotten the sticker even with the check engine light still on.  That’s irony!