Jorgito's DIY Fall Decor

For the first time in my blog history I will be going out of order and skipping stuff but I have 2 great excuses: 1. I left my camera at in Nebraska with all my photos of the NE trip and brother's wedding and 2. I am about 2 months behind in blogging and nobody wants to read about fall decorations when they should be putting away their Christmas tree.

JORGITO'S DIY (do it yourself) Halloween Project

Step 1: Empty a wine bottle.  No photo necessary. My blog followers & friends know a thing or two about emptying wine bottles :)

 Step 2: Paint empty wine bottle with your favorite fally colors

Step 3: Find a stick and some pine cones. Go on a hike or out to your tree in the front yard and get a branch that will fit in the opening of the wine bottle. This photo is prior to finding the branch but Ito's face is just priceless when he finds this rock!

 

 Step 4: Fill bottle with sand and shove stick in bottle.  Glue fall leaves on branches.

 Step 5: Get out the pipe cleaners, construction paper, googley eyes and glue.

 Step 6: Make festive characters to hang from your branches.  Spider and bat made from pine cones.  Pumpkin made from an orange.

Step 7: Hang characters with pipe cleaners.

Step 8: Enjoy and do not let your mom take credit for this! :)

Happy Fall Y'all

Love, Jorgito

Our 1st Visitors

I found the much needed motivation to unpack all those boxes knowing my parents were on their way!

Jorgito really enjoyed having two of his favorite people come visit.  I really enjoyed not having to explain to him on a daily basis why he can't go to grandma and grandpa's house today.

8/18/11 ~ Jorgito's half birthday!

Time to sing half the birthday song and blow out 2 & 1/2 candles on top that half cake.  (Papa Jorge's idea) Awesome!

Jorgito lead Grandma and Grandpa on several hikes.  JR dog of course got to come too.

Of course we saw lots of rainbows

We visited a real Ghost Town

We followed GPS instead of our common sense and took a 2 hour "detour" through mountain roads that should be only driven on with a high clearance 4x4.  Luckily we found this stream where my dad and Jorge filled up water bottles to cool the brakes off.  What an adventure!

Had lots of back yard pool parties

Discovered delicious area restaurants

Explored around the City of Rocks

Trekked through ancient Native American cliff dwellings

Hiked to the top of Gomez Peak

and no visit to southern New Mexico in late summer is complete without a stop in Hatch, NM. 

The Chile capitol of the WORLD!!!!  

La Casa

Air mattresses really came in handy while waiting for the moving truck.

An empty house was pretty much a dream come true for this speed racer.

Speed racer had to move outside when the moving truck arrived

Ok mom and dad I will take care of the train table while you two work on those boxes

A cozy Living Room

and a big kitchen.  Great place for Ito to help me make cookies.

Since we couldn't have "pets" in our house we decided to ease Ito's heartbreak of missing J.R. dog with some fish.

 The front porch needed a little help.  Luckily I knew an experienced Landscaper and a "helper".

Exploring our big backyard

Since our furniture still had not arrived and Jorge had a week until classes started we decided to go explore our new surroundings.

Lucky for us our new backyard is 3.3 million acres of rugged beauty called the Gila National Forest

So we laced up our hiking boots, lathered on the SPF and took off...

The first couple weeks took a little getting used to....we now live 6,000 feet above sea level

We met some new friends

 Our new friends have hairless cats.

One thing we didn't miss from Nebraska was the heat and humidity.  Here we are in early August wearing sweatshirts for our evening hike.

 

We live on the edge of campus directly across the football field.  Ito likes to race his bike around the track.

Is there a rainbow coming out of my head?

During monsoon season we could pretty much see a rainbow nearly every day.  AWESOME!

Welcome to the Land of Enchantment

The moving company packed up our earthly belongings and said see you in Silver City, New Mexico in 4 to 11 days.   Having a feeling (that turned out to be correct) I knew it was going to be closer to 11 days so we packed the red minivan and headed out on the LONG 1,200ish mile journey.   We said goodbye to the Good Life and Hello to the Land of Enchantment. 

This didn't happen nearly enough!!!

Our first night's stop was at our friend Jean's house in Denver.  She was also entertaining weekend guests and we had a wonderful time together.

Finally after two full days of driving we made it to New Mexico

We stoped in Santa Fe for the night and had a great time being tourist

The first of MANY yummy Mexican food dinners

1,200 miles & 4 days later we pulled into the driveway of the place we now call home.