Father's Day

We celebrated Michael's first Father's Day in New Mexico with lots of breakfast burritos (which Nathan loves!), a hike through Petroglyph National Monument on Saturday, a visit to the Corrales Grower's Market on Sunday and a Cowboy Junkies concert. Not too shabby!

Petroglyph National Monument is a park on the Northwest side of Albuquerque that was created to protect the rock carvings mostly created by the Pueblo Indians. It has some great little hiking trails and beautiful views of Albuquerque and the Sandia Mountains to the east. We figured it would be a good, easy first hike for Nathan. We started the hike with a big breakfast burrito at Flying Star. Nathan loved it, green chile and all!

Sunday we visited the Corrales Grower's Market. Corrales is a fairly rural area right within the bounds of Albuquerque, with lots of farms and horses. The grower's market didn't have much this early in the season, but had the best, cheapest breakfast burrito we have ever had.

Sunday night, Grandma and Grandpa Malenfant watched Nathan and Michael and I went to the Cowboy Junkies concert with our friends Ray and Jania. First we had dinner in Albuquerque's trendy area of Nob Hill. The concert was held at the Hispanic Cultural Center, in an amazing new auditorium! Very different experience than going to the concerts in the turn of the century theaters in Boston, the acoustics were amazing!

June Miscellaneous

This is a "miscellaneous" post, where I put the June photos that I thought grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc might want to see, but didn't fit anywhere else. So they might seem a little random :-)

Well, monsoon season has started, and we got a whopper right out of the gate. The skies opened up and poured for 30 minutes, with dramatic thunder and lightning. As the clouds passed, it was sunny over the city (to the west) put still pouring over the Sandias. Perfect rainbow weather! I could actually see the entire rainbow from end to end, but had trouble getting a good shot, but I thought this one worked well!








I checked in on Nathan napping one day, to find the photo below. The whale seems to be pleading with the camera "Please get this baby off of me!"

















Nathan's cousins Carly and Alicia came to visit for a few days, and they kept Nathan busy! (Sorry if the photos are a mess, having trouble getting the blog to post photos in any sort of order!)

Nathan is becoming quite adept with the cellphone. Calling all his buddies back East!

Happy Birthday Nathan!

A year ago on June 10, we welcomed Nathan Edmond Malenfant into our lives. And what a year it has been, watching this little baby grow, all the "firsts" and bless us with his happy go lucky little personality. We love to watch the bits of joy he brings to other's lives with just a smile and a laugh. We love you Nathan, and can't wait for the countless birthdays to come.

With the big move, Nathan was lucky enough to have not one, not two, but three birthday parties! First with the Savage clan in Maine, then with the Malenfant family in New Mexico, and a little celebration at home with Mom and Dad. As with all first birthday parties, Nathan wasn't quite sure what was going on, only that everyone kept singing the same song all together very LOUD and we kept trying to get him to eat something with icky frosting on it and we actually encouraged him to rip paper to shreds. But he loved the attention and all the fun new toys to scatter around our apartment!

Now, the photos...

Cake #1 up at the cabin in Maine with the Savage family. My mad decorating skills.

All went well at first, Nathan was very excited for the pretty cake and candle.

Then he got a little TOO excited for the candle.

After that Nathan wanted nothing to do with the cake, we had given him cake-phobia :-(

But once we sliced it up, he managed to enjoy a bit, frosting and all!
Enjoying his first birthday gift (which he broke 5 minutes later)!

For party #2 at the Malenfant's, he helped Daddy and Grandpa grilling the brats!

Cake #2, professionally decorated this time :-)

Grandma was kind enough to get Nathan the cutest frog cupcake, but he is not a fan of frosting!

Presents!

Help from Cousins Stephan, Patrick and Elisabeth.

"What are you looking at?"

At party #3 at home with Mommy and Daddy, Nathan opened the last of his presents, he was very talented at gift opening by this point.

Using a little force on the paper.

Puzzles!

Moving In!

We got an early start unloading our stuff on Saturday, with the truck showing up before 8am! Michael got them started, and I helped when I could. Grandma and Grandpa Malenfant were wonderful to watch Nathan all day. The truck was unloaded within 2 hours, and then we started tackling boxes. And boxes and boxes. We are still surrounded by them three days later, but we can actually function in the apartment and start to call it "home". Some photos from the moving weekend below!

The big truck in the little parking lot, Sandias in the background.

Taking Nathan for a walk to the grocery store, view of the
apartment building with the Sandias behind.

Took a break on Sunday to meet Dick, Darlene, Tania, Elisabeth, Stephen and Patrick for brunch at El Pinto. They have a fantastic patio area and great food.

Nathan enjoying a little bit of everything at El Pinto.

The sun glowing on the Sandias looking off our patio.

The view of the sun setting from our patio after a long but productive weekend!

Exploring Albuquerque

While we wait for our stuff to show up on the moving truck (tomorrow morning, can't wait!!), we have been out and about exploring Albuquerque. Earlier this week Grandma Malenfant and I took Nathan to Explora, a combination children's museum/science center. They have a little area for crawlers/toddlers. Nathan had a great time with all the toys and playing with (around) the other kids. Then we had lunch across the way, where Nathan begged me for some (very cery mild) green chile and loved it! Working on his New Mexican side already.

Nathan methodically transferring every ball from one bucket to the other.

Ooops!

Crawling over the bridge, he was very pleased when he made it over the top!

That is all for now, will post again when we have dug out from our mountain of boxes!!

The Long Goodbye

We have made it safely to New Mexico! We had a wonderful time seeing almost everyone back on the East Coast, and I was so happy to be able to have the long goodbye. Or, I should say, see you later, because we will be back to visit!

We started out with many playdates. Nathan had a great time playing with his buddies while Mom got to spend time with her friends. Below, Nathan, AJ and Chase were never awake at the same time, but they still had a lot of fun. Joy, Kate and I had a great time as well.

Then Kate and I took one last trip to downtown Boston to check out the tots room at the Children's Museum. Highly recommended!


Lisa and Emily were gracious hostesses as always!


Heidi stopped in a few times to get in her goodbyes. She never fails to make Nathan laugh (or anyone for that matter), he will miss her!


Finally we headed up to Maine for some time with the Savage grandparents and some of Nathan's aunts, uncles and cousins. The weather was gorgeous, and it made it so hard to say goodbye...



Finally, we were off! The flight was uneventful, and Nathan enjoyed a longish layover in Baltimore.


Thank you to everyone who touched our lives in the last 10+ years in Boston. You have made it a happy home, and as we head off to our new adventure, we keep looking back, wondering how long it will be before we are back for good. I will keep updating this blog for anyone who cares so you can peek in on how we are doing, but it won't be a substitute for keeping in touch with everyone. You can count on emails/phonecalls/something on Facebook from me!! I miss you all!