Albuquerque - Adventure 1

  Andrew has training at Kirkland AFB for four months.  He is moving squadrons and planes.  The U model gunship is dying and the J model is replacing it.  Andrew was selected to transfer over to the J model AND be an aircraft commander instead of remaining a co-pilot.  I am super proud.  Four months of his training is done at Kirkland AFB, NM.  Instead of being apart for those four months we elected to go as a family.  Every day I think about how grateful I am that we are not apart.  I can live just about anywhere as long as I get to be with my family.
  Andrew was able to secure a TLF for our family and we are SO grateful.  Albuquerque is highest in the country for auto theft and up there for other crimes, so, getting to live on base was a huge sigh of relief.  I have yet to leave base without Andrew and I don't see me doing that any time soon.  The horror stories of what happens in broad daylight in good parts of town have intimidated me enough to stay on base when Andrew is at work.  It'd be one thing if I were to go out by myself, but having four young girls in tow.  Yeah, I'll pass.
  The weather here is absolutely beautiful.  I LOVE fall weather and have missed it a ton while living in the south.  And the colors!  So pretty!  Golden yellow leaves everywhere.  A nice change from pine trees.  The mountains are also a nice change and I love looking out my windows at them.
  Because we don't go out during the week, each weekend we plan on going out to see and do fun things.  Last Saturday we went to the Botanical Gardens and Aquarium.  Before heading there we stopped to grab a bite to eat.

  Lunch was yummy.  We ate at the Golden Crown Bakery.  We ordered pizza and a sub sandwich.  Sandwich was good, pizza was delish.  And it came out super fast, too.  That is a huge bonus when you're trying to get your four kids to sit down and wait patiently for their lunch. After finishing up, we drove to the Aquarium.
  On our way, we passed a huge rattlesnake that had been ran over.  The thing had to have been 4-5 feet long.  I really hope we don't meet one of those guys while we are here.
  So, the Aquarium.  We all had a fun time looking at the bright colored fish.  Some were small, others huge.  Because Abby especially loves creatures from under the sea, she was running from one fish exhibit to the next, oo-ing and ahh-ing the whole time.  At home she would often request Sharks, a Netflix documentary, to be put on tv.  She had to have watched it 20 times.  Seeing sharks and funny shaped fish was her cup o' tea.

Looking at the sting rays

 One of the funny shaped fish.  It had quite an odd nose.  Almost like a dolphin.  It looked too big for its body. 

Abby was a little disgusted with the "sea spider".  I don't know its real name but it was huge and looked like something out of a nightmare.  

 Waiting for the sharks to swim around.

 Outside was a small exhibit for the otters.  They weren't exciting as they were sunning themselves on a platform.  Looked enjoyable to me.

  The gardens were serene, or at least they appeared that way.  There were plenty of kids running around playing in the open grassy area, but it just looked so peaceful and happy.  There was a train expo going on where collectors would set up their trains and let them go around on the train track.  Some even had steam coming out of their whistle.  The girls didn't want to stop watching.

  All around the gardens were animals shaped out of wired lights.  I'm guessing that they turn them on at night during the holidays??  I'm not sure if they are turning them on yet but it's something I need to look into because they did an amazing job.  

  There was also a butterfly enclosure with a dozen or so different kinds of butterflies.  They were pretty but the girls lost interest after 10 minutes of not being allowed to touch anything.  The bug exhibit was next.  At this point we were all done and ready to go home.  We walked through quickly, cringing at the big creepy crawlies.
  One fun adventure down, many more to go!