Roswell

This is OUT of order but I'm doing it anyway. I don't have the Grand Canyon pictures up yet which should come before Roswell but oh well. On our drive from Albuquerque to Carlsbad, Roswell was right on the way. Luckily we were not abducted by aliens nor did we see any aliens. Of course, anything that is unexplained or that the kids don't know what it is - it's now blamed on aliens. Clearly, the aliens did it. This has complicated conversations with the five year old who isn't really aware of the joke of the conversation. I had a few very interesting exchanges with him while trying to explain that aliens aren't real or at least I've never seen one & I'm not sure that I've seen actual proof of aliens. He was especially perplexed by this when we stopped at the meteor crater (pictures to follow of that, too). His take on the meteor crater is that an alien got mad, picked up a giant rock and hurled it at the earth. After it landed and made the big hole, the alien picked it up and took it back to space with him. I explained that the meteor was a giant rock from space that didn't need an alien to throw it, it just fell from the sky and didn't burn up like most rocks from space do. Tate didn't think that was a good explanation. He liked his alien story way better and who could blame him but then he really didn't want to stand next to "Bob" the Alien when we went to the Roswell visitors center. (see below) Chloe liked that the street lights had alien eyeballs on them. When the boys and Jake went in to a gift store, they swear that the worker was an alien. At first they thought she was part of an exhibit because she didn't move and then they thought she was a mummy. They settled on the idea that she is an alien in disguise as a human. Apparently, it isn't a very good disguise.

The Beach at Del Mar

While staying with the Hollingsworths in Temecula we hit the beach in Del Mar. It was a lovely, warm day and the kids played in the water even though the water was cold. Kaleb and Chloe wished for wetsuits which made a lot of difference for them in Santa Barbara last year but they braved the cold anyway. Tate was way less afraid of the water than he was last time and that was very fun to see. The Hollingsworths made it down for part of the day & after the water fun was done we went up to the top of the nearby hill and saw the amazing view as the sun was setting. One of the things that was most exciting for everyone was that there was a pod of dolphins swimming just out from where the kids were swimming. When all the people came in, the dolphins went away. I think that they were watching us as much as we were watching them. It was really, really cool.