Everyone stayed up so ridiculously late last night, we, thankfully, woke up late.

It took us forever to get out the door, but we finally made it to Frontier Restaurant for breakfast.

Mom and I love the breakfast burrito – and everyone likes the cinnamon rolls.

K managed to point at a picture of John Wayne and say “Pop-pop” about ten times.

Then she pointed at a picture of a nappy looking nun driving a bumper car and said “Da-da” about ten times.

With our blood sugar levels maxed out, we drove down Central to Lousiana and shopped at ABQ Uptown for an hour or so.

I say we shopped.

I pushed yall around in the stroller, and mom shopped for kid clothes…

K, I think you waved at nearly every single person we saw.

It was approaching noon, so we leisurely called the hotel to request a late checkout.

And I think for the first time ever – we were told no.

So with haste, we made it back to our room before 12:00, packed up our stuff and left.

By then it was time for lunch.

And, thankfully, next up was our usual stop at Buca di Beppo.

You kids were so tired you barely made it through lunch and fell asleep as we got you into the car.

We headed to the Tamaya to stay there for the rest of our trip.

Shortly after check-in, we got a kit at the front desk and did smores on an outside fire pit.

It was cold outside – so as any father would – I picked up K and tried to get her as close as possible to the warm air.

The problem is that it was windy too.

The wind changed, the flames shifted, the fire danced around K’s face, and mom yelled at me:

“Is she ok?! Did you singe her eyebrows?!”

Everyone was fine.

We watched movies after we got back to our room.

I have a note here about mom being grumpy later that night – but I don’t even remember what it was about at this point.

Happy Anniversary to us!

We were all in bed by 8:30.

I love you.

-Dad

Since it’s always hard to leave town at 5 PM and drag into some other town at midnight with two young children, mom and I took off work at lunch.

We got Y’all out of school and we were all on the road by 1:00.

Thankfully, we only stopped once to stretch and use the bathroom.

Made it all the way to Santa Rosa.

We almost didn’t make it that far because K started fussing in Ft. Sumner.

She squawked on and off nearly all the way until Santa Rosa.

Three hours later, we hit Albuquerque and went straight to Trader Joe’s for water, milk, yogurt, bananas, and the essentials.

Then south on I-25 and west on MLK.

Finally, we made it to the hotel.

When we did, oh man, you girls went bananas.

You were both running and screaming up and down the halls.

We ordered room service and ate sitting on the floor picnic style.

At one point, K got ahold of a small ketchup bottle and promptly dropped it, sending ketchup flying halfway across the room like it had been shot out of a mini cannon.

We were on the 18th floor and you girls loved looking out of the full-length windows.

After all of that, it was obviously hard falling asleep.

The hardest part was that K kept rolling over and tickling H!

I love you.

-Dad

K, you are sleepover ready.

See, the last 2 days have been fantastic.

H went to spend a few days at Pop and Gammies house just for fun, which means, we have been showering you with kisses every night the last 3 days.

We must have read 20 or 30 books.

You have had so much attention to yourself, I am not sure you have known what to do with it.

You have been so sweet.

And at least 4 or 5 times a day, you ask for H.

“Parper?”

Ok, so why do I say you are ready for a sleepover?

H got home late yesterday, we were taking stuff in and out of the car, Gammies was trying to leave…

In all the back and forth, you found H’s pink little suitcase on rollers – and you were out the door in a flash.

We have the best picture of it.

[I would show it here. But that kind of defeats the privacy/anonymity I am pursuing.]

My beautiful girl.

I love you.

-Dad