a day in town

Yesterday me and the girls went into to Los Alamos to check out the sights at the Chamber Fest, "chamber" meaning Chamber of Commerce. It was a nice day, although a little windy, and we had nothing else to do anyways, so off we went.

The festivities didn't get rolling until 11, and we got into town around 10ish so we killed time by checking out some garage sales. One of my favorite things to do now that I CAN. All I scored was an IKEA floor lamp and a couple books. One garage sale was at the home of a stained glass artist. I saw many tell-tale stained glass shop items in the garage and I asked her about it. She brought me in her house to show me some of her work. It was very beautiful, the house too was very nice and for sale, and if I happened to have 399K laying around, maybe we might be able to buy it in the future. Oh, that's right. I DON'T have it laying around. Oh well. Interestingly, when I was first starting out doing stained glass I got my first work table from a garage sale in Carlsbad from a guy who did stained glass. One of my regular readers was with me. Her name rhymes with Famy :)

The Chamber Fest was as expected. Some tents set up with all the businesses on the main drag represented. Bank, Curves, Department store, Allstate, State Farm etc, etc. There was also a car show going on and a couple things for the kids to do.

I spent all day pushing the girls around in the double stroller that my sister gave me cursing it under my breath thinking it was the dumbest stroller in the world because it seemed that the front wheels did not pivot, so when I wanted to turn I basically had to put ALL my weight into just turning it and dragging the wheels. Today I realized it was not the stroller that was dumb. I was the moron. There were some brakes (well hidden) on the front wheels. I unlocked them and it rolls with ease.

Here are some pictures. We are enjoying life in town thus far!


This is the parking area outside of the library. We have been there twice now. Once in Los Alamos and once in White Rock. It has been since I lived in Chicago (I moved in 2003) since I have had a library card. Where was the Carlsbad library??


The pond. Even the ducks are different here. In Odessa if you even looked in their direction the ducks would be ALL OVER you looking for food. Me and the girls wakled around the pond one day and threw some cracker crumbs in to the three ducks that live there. They looked at them and swam on. I noticed no one else was feeding them and I started looking for signs that said "Don't Feed the Ducks". There weren't any. I guess people just don't feed them. Weird.


Giant sand pile at the Chamber Fest. This is an easy easy way to entertain a multitude of children.

Fishing for ducks. This was really hard. You were supposed to get a loop of string around the head of a duck. The string was wet. The loop stuck together, it did not open and stay in an open position so that a duck head would fit in there. It was for ages 6 and under. After about ten minutes Sara finally "caught" one. We got a prize of a whopping one dollar certificate to the department store that sponsored this event. Also we got to keep the duck. That was the best part.


This is the bubble pit. It looked super fun. HOWEVER, we came upon this last, and it cost three dollars for 5 minutes. I had no cash left on my by then. I couldn't use an ATM either because I "lost" my ATM card, then found it the day after I reported it. So, Sara had to be the poor little girl standing outside the pit playing with the free bubbles that got blown out on the grass...




But she had fun. The free bubbles were enough for her. There was also a bouncy house and our way out of town after a trip to the bank I stopped back so she and my three dollars could go bounce, but she was already asleep in the car.

I got Sara a kite at the kid's clothes/toy store at the fest yesterday. Here's a tip. When you spend 4 dollars on a kite you get a 4 dollar kite. But Iffy was able to keep it aloft for a while (yes, I did make Kite Runner jokes) and Sara thought it was the greatest, funnest, most awesome thing she had ever seen.

Training for Cirque du Soleil