Quick Successions: New Mexico Edition

School ended for 2017 on December 15. It will reconvene January 4. I also finished the 15th, but I don't have to return to campus until January 8. To celebrate our newfound freedom, we rode on the little train at the mall and then went to see Santa.  Later in the week, we went to the Albuquerque BioPark's River of Lights. It was cold for Albuquerque. You can see the mist rising off the water in this shot. This one with my girl standing in the soft light is my favorite.  

It is holiday time again.  We had fun getting ready for Thanksgiving in November. The highlight may have been making the stained glass ornaments for the window.  There was also the matter of the primary program. Practicing was not as nearly fun as eating the pizza afterward. I went to conferences and to research at several sites in November. One of them was Orlando, Florida. I think I joined an elite club of people who go to Walt Disney World and do go to the park.  But it was beautiful. Hannah was old enough to help with Thanksgiving dinner this year. She did the Jell-O salad. She also helped with the rolls. After dinner we had a pet hospital. Hannah was the doctor and I was head nurse. We had quite an infirmary of patients, but managed to heal them all before it the weekend was over.  After Thanksgiving, we did a little Christmas shopping and then stopped to have lunch. The restaurant looks empty, but it's really not. There was ...

She had cupcakes at school for her birthday. I forgot to take a picture of the kids passing them out and eating them. They were also celebrating Halloween at school so she got some fangs. I always hated stuff like that, but she loved them. She put them right back in when she got home. Besides Hannah's birthday and Halloween they had an end of term assembly. Hannah got two awards. One for math and one for perfect attendance. She actually didn't have perfect attendance. She missed two days and the school called me 40 times to check on her. But they must have forgotten and here is her award. The other is for math. In her class, she is light years ahead of her peers in math and the only one who can read. Hannahween continued the next day with a visit to Chuck-E-Cheese. I feel bad that I don't have friends with children and so I can't throw her parties with lots of kids, but she was a good sport. I bought her 10 dollars' worth of games and she won ...

 Fall in Albuquerque is rainy but we can amazing rainbows. It wouldn't fit my whole camera, but this is a whole rainbow. They are gorgeous. Fall in Albuquerque also means balloons. I took Hannah out to see them inflate them one morning.  I didn't take this photo of the balloons, but it is a good rendition of what it looked like during festival time. One of my graduate students presented at a local conference and I went to go and listen to her give her speech to people who came to the poster session.  Hannah has been doing more art. The red-headed woman with the carrot on the left side is me. And then the pumpkins. We like painting them more than carving them. This one is Frankenstein.