Girls Home for the Weekend

Last fall, before Kristen was even home from her mission, Amy bought tickets for her and Kristen to attend a Morgan Wallen concert in Denver over the last weekend of May in 2026.

They flew home on Wednesday, May 27th on different flights. That's cause Amy is trying to earn status on Delta and Kristen flew cheaper on Frontier. Kristen's flight was one hour earlier than Amy's but Kristen ended up being delayed for an hour by weather here in Denver. So they left about the same time. Amy now landed first. 

Chris and I picked the girls up from the airport with Amy exiting the airport about 5 minutes before Kristen. Great timing.

We stopped at Chick-fil-A in Castle Rock to get them some dinner before driving the rest of the way to Monument.

Kristen wasn't feeling great with a cold so she quarantined in the basement most of Thursday. Amy went to watch the Thunderbirds fly over the Air Force Academy stadium. I was teaching my Pathways class, but as soon as I was done I happened to walk outside to get the mail and saw the six planes blasting over the stadium. 

I waited a bit out on the deck and what do you know but those six jets flew over the house. Perfect shot!

Amy had fun too. She was in the Scheel's parking lot for their "watch party". Lucky us we get to see this every year for graduation. As well as the two days prior when the Thunderbirds are practicing.

Misha came home Thursday evening. 

All three of the girls went to see Chris at his work on Friday. Kristen and I were just finishing up grocery shopping when the other two picked her up on their way.

Kristen stayed to help Chris with some odd jobs like shredding while Amy and Misha went to work out at the VASA gym close to Chris' work. 

As soon as Kristen and Chris arrived home on Friday evening, they picked up Amy and Misha to go check out Curtis' bat cave (Chris' boss). Ever since Amy heard about Curtis' car collection she has wanted to see it. They got a tour of the house and the bat cave. Amy sat in the DeLorean holding a Back to the Future set piece signed by Doc Brown.

Look at that "pivot" door in the background!

I met them all at Texas Roadhouse for dinner.

On Saturday, the girls all drove to Denver. 

Amy and Kristen had their concert and Misha got to be their chauffeur. PS They LOVED the concert.

Amy and Kristen spent the night at Misha's. I'm sure Misha's studio apartment was a bit of a tight fit.

Amy and Kristen drove home from Denver on Sunday morning. That was another big reason for coming home. The Mazda has been sitting in our driveway since Misha bought her car earlier this month. Kristen is excited to have a car to get around and to not have to pay for Uber home from work late at night.

Updates on Garden and Landscape

I think Chris and I were brainwashed into thinking there wouldn't be as much work to do here in our yard in Monument. Believe me, there is plenty.

He and I both spent at least 8 hours working after the girls left for Denver. I bought some geraniums at Home Depot and got my window boxes filled. Plus, I purchased some already well established begonia at King Soopers with Kristen on Friday that look sensational. I planted 10 peonies and then we had to run drips to each of those.

Chris and I got the final step of the sprinklers set up in the garden boxes and I finally got my strawberry plants and asparagus in the ground. Fingers crossed on the asparagus. It was looking kind of dead and crunchy.

The landscapers worked on installing a path on the east side of the house that connects to the path just outside the garden area. Those men sure do work hard.

Chris spent about five hours pulling overseeded grass out of the rainwater river bed.

I also purchased some fake geraniums for a window box that is higher up. We'll see if I don't buy more of those and forget about buying new plants every year.

This is the work so far on the path around the back and east side of the house.

New Mexico - Day 7

It was not with sadness that we departed Taos on Monday morning. Chris wanted to get another hike in so we stopped at Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. 

It was a bit of a drive in, but the views of the convergence of the Red River and the Rio Grande were amazing. 

We hiked the Big Arsenic trail. It was downhill from the mesa down to the river bottom. 

We hiked around a bit and found some petroglyphs. Very cool. We tried to find some more, and I will admit I was taking careful steps and sweeping my eyes over the landscape looking for rattlesnakes the whole time. Whew, we didn’t see any! 

The hike back up to the car was grueling but we made it! We started for home and it was with happiness that we saw the “Welcome to Colorado” sign. Country roads take me home…

New Mexico - Day 6

We had looked for a ward to attend in Taos, but unfortunately there were no times listed for the local ward. We had not seen a single church building in all of our travels so maybe it was a small branch that had been dissolved. 

We drove out past the bridge and gorge on Sunday morning to checkout the Earthship community. It was definitely marked with “private property” and “no trespassing” signs, so we didn’t drive onto the property. But it was very interesting with the homes that were built into the ground and used eco friendly methods of building and living. 

As we drove toward the Taos Ski Valley, we drove through this cute little village called Arroyo Seco. We stopped to look around.

 

The ski resort was small but busy with summer visitors and lots of others wanting to hike to Williams Lake. This was the busiest hike we have been on this year. After arriving at the lake, we found a quiet spot on the mountainside for lunch and marveled at the number of people at the lake, especially the number of people with their dogs. 

Before returning to our car, we made a quick stop at Kachina Falls overlooking the resort. 

We planned to drive the Enchanted Circle that took us to a variety of stops on a circular mountain drive that began and ended in Taos. It was anything but enchanting. We drove through Red River, Eagle Nest, made a stop at a new Vietnam Veterans Memorial site, Angel Fire (which also has a ski resort), and returned to Taos.

We tried dinner at Aly’s just down the street from our BNB, but they were slammed with customers, drive-thru orders, and on-line orders and we were a non-priority. We waited at least 45 minutes for our dinner, and by then it was 8 pm and my stomach was aching.

New Mexico - Day 5

Time to leave the resort. If we had known that there would be so little to do in Taos, we would have asked for a 4 pm late checkout and then relaxed by the pool again. 

Before leaving, we check out some bikes to ride to the horse stables, but most of the horses were out on a tour with resort guests. 

Our next stop was the Rio Grande that ran next to the resort. New Mexico must be experiencing a drought because the river was very low and not so “grande”. 

Taos was underwhelming. Luckily we were able to drop our stuff off at our bed and breakfast before heading out to the explore. The BNB was a cool old hacienda called Hacienda del Sol. It was charming. 

After our first stop at the BNB, we found the Taos Plaza. It was under construction, so maybe it could have been a lot more charming than it was. 

We walked through some of the shops, found some artistic streets that had been recommended, and stopped at the famous San Francisco de Asis church.

The church was hidden away, so you wouldn’t necessarily know it was there if you weren’t looking for it. 

We decided to drive to the Rio Grande Gorge and Bridge. The gorge was impressive. We walked along the rim. 

You can’t walk onto the bridge, apparently too many people use it as a means to end life. There is a security guy who sits and watches the bridge all day long. Fun to say that we have been there. 

It was also a busy weekend in Taos and the area for a large motorcycle rally (based in Red River), and the police presence was high. Dinner was ok at Guadalupe Grill. My best attempts to avoid onions were foiled by the green chile enchilada sauce that was filled with onions.