Introduction

I thought that a blog might be a good way to post updates about what we have done with our website.

By signing up to receive a feed (under "Subscribe to our blog with a reader" on the left hand side) your blog reader (usually your browser) will show you when there is a new post--as long as you remember to regularly check your feeds.

By signing up to get notices by email (under "Subscribe via email" also on the left hand side) you will automatically get an email when I post a new entry.

I have already posted a couple of entries ("Our SAR field trip April 16 to 19th " and "Update from April 6th, 2009 ") as a way to show you what I have in mind for the blog.

The blog should make it easier to see when we have done an update and I can include pictures and a little more narrative than I do in the update emails I have been sending out. I'll still send out the emails, but I will watch to see how many people subscribe to the blog and that will help me decide whether to put more or less detail into the blog entries.

As you look at the blog, note that there is a section called "Some links". In there I put a link to our website. There is also a link to the blog Tevya has been authoring. That is a great piece of work and Patricia and I look forward to reading each entry. I also included a pointer to the Snapfish album where I post the pictures of Abby that Kate sends us nearly every day. I have just changed the order of the pictures in the album so the latest pictures are at the beginning of the album.

This is a picture of some of the pottery sherds that were picked up along the trail to the Pinnacles site we visited on our SAR field trip. One of the things I have discovered about pictures in the blogs created with Google's Blogger is that if you click on them, you get the original image. If you do that with this image, you will see lots of detail. The same trick works with the pictures on our website; if you click on a thumbnail, you get a medium-sized picture and if you then click on that picture, you get a full-sized original.

I hope you find this blog useful.

Our SAR field trip April 16 to 19th

Patricia and I had signed up for a field trip sponsored by the School for Advanced Research (SAR) to an archaeological project near Truth or Consequences. On the way there we stopped at the two Salinas Mission sites we had not yet seen. First we stopped at Abó and then Gran Quivira.

The ruins of the mission at Abó.

The pictures of these two impressive ruins start here on our website.

Then we took some back roads through Lincoln County past Ruidoso to the Inn of the Mountain Gods in Mescalero where we stayed the night.

On Friday we took more back roads through Cloudcroft and through Alamogordo and stopped at White Sands National Monument. Neither Patricia nor I were expecting such an extensive are of (gypsum) sand that looked more like snow than sand.

We drove on to TorC where we met the SAR group at the Sierra Grande Inn. We stayed there for a couple of nights. Friday night Karl Laumbach (who heads up the Cañada Alamosa project) and his wife Toni gave us some background on the project. Saturday we spent 10 hours in the field driving to Cañada Alamosa and visiting a couple of the sites. It was very interesting. Patricia and I rode around with Karl and Toni all day so we got some extra information. Some of the pictures we took are posted here.

Update from April 6th, 2009

In early March I told you about some updates to our website. While we were on the road to visit Kate, Jeff, and Abby in Las Vegas, we were able to spend a little time in Chaco Canyon and we overnighted in Monument Valley. We also drove through Zion National Park. As expected, we took lots of pictures on the road and LOTS of pictures while we were in Las Vegas.

It is hard for us to believe how much Abby has changed just since we were there in mid-January. She is as bright, energetic, and curious as any 6-month old. While we were there she learned to flip from her tummy to her back so she is now capable of doing a complete 360 turn. While that complicates things because of the oxygen tube, it allows her to move around a good bit and do even more exploring. Since we left, she has learned to sit up on her own without any support. That will expand her horizons even more.

One way to see the changes in Abby is to look at my Snapfish album that contains the pictures that Becky (Jeff's Mom) takes almost every day. Kate sends them to me and I put some of them on a Snapfish album. Becky spends a lot of time and effort to get these wonderful pictures and we really appreciate them. I try to update the Snapfish album within a day of getting a new set of pictures.

The newest pictures are here. In there is a "folder" of Chaco Canyon pictures and a "folder" of Monument Valley pictures. I included a link to a map of Monument Valley on the web pages, but here it is again. When you look at our pictures of Monument Valley, it might be useful to have the map open in another window. In fact, the map even has an inset which, if you click on it, will show you almost exactly where we were when we took many of the pictures.

For those of you who can't wait to get to the Abby Pictures, they start here.

I have also added some pictures from Tevya and Kris to the Noah pictures. They include another set of class pictures. And speaking of changing, Noah is learning something new every day and growing rapidly. According to Tevya, not everything he learns is good--or quiet--and it is hard to keep up with him. I get to make a quick trip to West Linn to see for myself next month.

I also added some pictures to the Abby album. Some of these are duplicates from the Snapfish album and some are from our most recent visit that I did not post elsewhere.