UFO?

Last night the boys were outside in the backyard eating ice cream when Cooper says, "Daddy, come look, there are 2 moons!"  I didn't know what to think about that.  I thought that it was probably just a bright star or planet by the moon.  I went outside and I saw something that I had never before seen.  It was a big, bright, glowing orb that was pretty close to the moon. Take a look:

So, I got out the camera and zoomed in the best I could (optical zoom because any more than that you lose your quality, well our camera sucks anyway so not much quality), I snapped a photo, and this is what it looked like:

Then, I looked at that picture, and zoomed it in, and this is what it looked like:

A hot air balloon?  That is weird because even though we see them all the time here in ABQ, they are never out at night, and they never glow like that, and in addition, this one wasn't moving, it didn't move for about an hour.  It was just sitting there.  So, come to find out, there is a guy in our ward who works for the air traffic control here in ABQ, and he said that it was a high altitude ballon 600 feet tall, 400 feet wide, with a payload of 6000 pounds!  That is a HUGE balloon, because it was 120,000 feet up, that is almost 23 miles!  Pretty cool finding by the Coopster!

Labor Day Camping Trip!

This Labor Day Weekend we headed up to Red River, NM for a very fun and exciting camping trip with our good friends the Larson's and the Burk's, and all of the little ones (10 in total) associated with said families.  We decided with the triplets coming, and Emily getting bigger, and more uncomfortable by the day, it was time to do our final family camping trip for quite a while.  For those of you who don't know, Emily has a VERY hard time sleeping in her own bed without babies growing inside of her, add the fact that we were sleeping in a tent in bear country, it was 40 degrees, she has 3 babies in her belly, she has back issues, etc. it was NOT going to be a very fun camping trip.  The solution:

AMBIEN!!!

At least that was the hopeful solution.  The day we left she decided that it was time to call her OB and get a prescription for Ambien to help her sleep.  She read the instructions on the trip up to the campsite, which said something along the lines of: "Take only ONE capsule at night, right as you are going to sleep as Ambien takes effect instantly.  Allow for at least an 8 hour period of rest..."  It went on, and on.  Anyway, medications usually have little to no effect on Emily, and this time was NO different.  That poor girl didn't sleep more than 4 hours over a 3 night period!  I felt, and still feel, horrible for her.  The boys and I didn't have any sleeping issues (sorry hun!)

Our trip was so great!  We left on Friday up to our campsite, which was about a 3 hour drive to a private campground right outside of Red River, NM called River Ranch.  It was a great place, see:

Deer upon arrival

The Campsite, notice the rocks!

Fishing for the Kids

We were the first of our crew to arrive, and it was our night for dinner, so we got set up, and then went fishing.  They told us that they stocked the lake that day, so there were zero bites, but lots of fun.  Cooper and Luke loved fishing, which tells me that I need to do it more often with them, my question is how do I take them fishing in a state that has no water?

Check out that Hot Mama! 18 1/2 weeks preggers!

Even Emily got in on the (non)action fishing

The following day we headed up to the town of Red River, NM and walked the Main Street for a little bit, and we got a bite to eat at the Lift House.

Look at all the Chillins!

Hutchings Boys on the Ski Lift in the middle of town

Luke showing his snowmobile skills!

From here we went up one of the canyons and enjoyed a fun afternoon of riding the Burk's Polaris RZR to Greenie Peak.

Matt stylin' in the ladies bug eye glasses

Theron and me at Greenie Peak

An accidental beautiful sky picture!

We got back to camp and went fishing again.  Again, no luck.  I don't think there were too many fish being caught at all Friday and Saturday.  We had dinner, sat around the fire and chatted then went to bed, another great day!  Sunday, we woke up and got the fire going.  It got pretty cold in the evenings, we put a heater in our tent, that did pretty much nothing except melt itself.  Luckily for us, the brothers slept really well all 3 nights, Emily and the trips on the other hand, did not.

Sunday our friends the McAffee's came up to spend an afternoon with us, they were in Taos (45 minutes away).  We all went to a park in Red River where we had lunch, and ran some obstacle course races. When we got back to camp we went fishing, and finally we had some luck!  Well, if you call 2 little fish luck!  It was awesome to eat trout again though, I grew up eating trout and haven't had it for years.  It was just as good!  I was surprised that Luke tried it!  He is our kid that won't touch anything on his plate at home, but he gobbled that trout up.  Cooper didn't even want to touch it, which surprised me too.

The Monstrous 6 ouncer! (you may want to zoom in)

He was SO excited!

That evening we roasted some mallows and made some s'mores.  Theron busted out his mallow stick extender--check it out:

The amazing talents of Theron!

We had such a great time.  Need to send out the thanks to our buddies, the Larson's and the Burk's!  We had such a GREAT time.  Hopefully we can do it again, though with the trips coming, I don't think it will be happening anytime soon!