Roastin' them up!

We made sure to get as much green chile as we could in our suit cases to bring back to Vermont! You just can't get great Mexican food here and most people don't even know what green chile is. So every year both of our wonderful parents ship as much as they can over to us to fill our freezer for the year. We really have appreciate it!

Greg roasting it on the grill. It smelled soooooo good!

Here they are all roasted up.

We let them cool and froze them for later. Now we can enjoy them all year long!

September Trip Back Home!

We recently got to take a trip back home for about a week. We won't be able to go home for Christmas this year, since Tyra has to work and the flights are so much cheaper at off-seasons, that we decided it was a good time.

We'd really been wanting to make the trip to meet our new niece. Greg's brother, Jason, recently had a beautiful little girl, Melanie Lane at the end of July. We have lots of pics of the sweetie and her older sister Kaori below.

We were able to spend some time with most people while we were there, but some not enough, and some not at all! =( The trips always seem to fly by too quickly!

It was weird being home and not getting to see the Mullins clan (Tyra's sister and fam). We missed them moving to AZ by just a few weeks!

We did manage to have a little bit of the same on our trip home. We can't (or rather Tyra can't) go to El Paso and not eat at Chico's Tacos!!

She must have been having some sweeeeeeet dreams! Or just gas!!!! Either way still cute

She may appear to be crashed out, but any little noise or sometimes nothing seemed to wake her up.

There's Kaori in the middle of a dance routine!

There's a pretty little girl!! Look at all that beautiful hair!!

For Tyra's birthday, some of both families took the drive past El Paso to Cattlemen's Steakhouse in Fabens, TX. We saw a show on the travel channel that was highlighting the steakhouse and neither of us had ever been there. So we had to try it! It's a working ranch with a petting/feeding zoo, a rattlesnake pit, and a couple of old movie sets from movies that were filmed there.


As you can see below, Janet, Kaori, and Rick are all too eager to go check out the animals in the petting zoo!

It was really wonderful to have my Grandma in town for the birthday celebrations. The timing was too perfect!

There's a couple of cuties!

And there we are! Bring on the delicious steaks!!!

Funny lookin' llama! We only got close enough to take the picture. Too afraid it'd spit! No petting that thing!

Nice Texas rattlesnake

The ranch and patio's had some beautiful scenery!!

We highly recommend trying the steakhouse out if you haven't already. It's a little pricey but meals could easily be split between 2 or more people because they served huge portions!

_________________________________________________________ We stopped by to visit my Aunt Lisa and Uncle Jason in Deming, NM one day. They moved out there a couple of years ago and completely renovated an abandoned home. It's really beautiful now, and we're amazed at what they've done out there! The pics below are of the giant greenhouse they've set up where they grow the most delicious tomatos on vines without soil! Jason sells at the Farmer's Market most weekends in Las Cruces as well as other various places.

Of course, we couldn't leave the southwest and not take back some chile with us!! We were running dangerously low, and I mean dangerous! I was scared!

Aren't they pretty! I'll bet they'll taste awesome.

August 2009 Weekend Trip to Boston

We decided to take a quick trip to Boston one weekend in August. We left early Saturday and headed to Boston. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive but it's pretty along the way so, felt like shorter.

We started out walking the Freedom Trail. It's a 2.5 mile red-brick lined walkway, though it felt like a lot longer! The trail starts out at the Boston Common park and leads you through the city of Boston by a red-brick line on the sidewalk. Along the way are various historical landmarks, buildings, monuments, etc.

Here's the line we followed through the city, neighborhoods, the market, up hills, over bridges, etc.

This is a really old and small cemetary in the middle of the city with all sorts of big modern-day buildings all around it. That's something I thought was unique about Boston; the city kind of grew around the cemetary and old buildings.

There were numerous famous and historical gravesites here. This one is Paul Revere's Memorial and the one below is his actual gravestone which is right next to the other.

Other gravestones include: Boston Massacre victims, Sam Adams, Ben Franklin's parents and John Hancock.

Most of the gravestones were illegible and slanted 1 way or the other.


This is the Old State house. It was the capitol building and the site to many historical speeches and events that lead to the revolution including the Boston Massacre, which began just on the other side of the building.


Here's the intersection where the Boston Massacre began.

This is Paul Revere's home. We took a tour through it but they didn't allow photography so, can't show you that. Sorry!

This is the Old North Church and the statue is Paul Revere. The 2 shuttered windows are the two windows that Paul Revere hung the 2 lanterns to alert the patriots that the British were coming! (by sea)

Up a steep and long hill and over a bridge, then up another steep hill and we came to the Bunker Hill monument. For those who don't know, Bunker Hill was the site of the 1st major battle of the Revolutionary war.

One of Boston's pretty harbor's with the city behind. Believe it or not, the trail started way over there!

This is where we ate dinner that night. It was pretty good seafood, but we thought it was a bit over-priced. After dinner we went to a comedy club. There were 4 or 5 different comedians. We didn't know any of them but they were all pretty hilarious!

This is outside the Aquarium. We stopped by here Sunday morning. They have a huge 3 story salt water tank, with stairs that wind up around it. The tank had all kinds of fish as well as sea turtles and sharks. There were a couple of feedings while we were there by some scuba divers. There were also 2 huge open peguin habitat areas and a smaller one. Each had a different type of penguin in it. It was all pretty cool!

Greg made several attempts to get that perfect Jellyfish picture. The one where there is no doubt of what that thing in the picture is. Finally, here it is!

This funny dude held out his wing the whole time we were watching him.

There were tons of them! It was really fun to watch them interact with eachother and with the workers cleaning and feeding them.

Here's us at Boston harbor by the Aquarium.

After we went through the Aquarium we drove through some of the neighborhoods and then around the Harvard University area. We didn't see much of the University because it's surrounded by a tall brick wall with various arched gates. Fancy!

We headed back to Burlington and got back in time to make dinner and start the week again. It was nice to get away for a quick trip.

July 2009 Niagra Falls Trip

Our next trip this year was to Niagra Falls. We try to go somewhere different and special every year for our anniversary, which is July 3rd. Since it's the day before Independence Day, it has made for a good opportunity to take a long weekend. It's only an 8 hour drive from here, so off we went. We've heard from many, that if going to Niagra, we must stay on the Canadian side. So we took their advise and were very happy we did! There are so many more attractions, tours, restaurants, casinos, etc. on the Canadian side than on the American side. Both sides do the Maid of the Mist tours. We did the raging rapids tour that we have pics of below. There's a Behind the Falls tour where you can walk out right on 1 side where the horseshoe begins (and get pretty wet!) as well as a tour called Niagra's Fury (re-enactment of the beginning of the falls from the Ice Age on). The American side does have a wind-tunnel tour that we tried to go on when we crossed back into the states but seeing that it was 4th of July, there was an 8-hr line! No thank you!! In our opinion, the Canadian falls were much prettier and more impressive. It's in the shape of a horseshoe. Without the right breeze, it's difficult to see the middle due to all the mist. The American falls have a lot of rocks at the base and are quite pretty as well. You can see both of the falls from the Canadian side, but it looks like it would be difficult to see the Canadian falls well from the American side. We thought it would be kinda wrong to be in Canada on the 4th of July, so we traveled back over where we found out about the crazy line for the 1 tour mentioned above. The rest of the American-side tours didn't sound too interesting so we continued on and checked into out hotel just outside of Buffalo. We just relaxed the rest of the day. Went to a movie (The Proposal - very good!), dinner, and found a spot to watch the University of Buffalo's firework show. It was a great trip! We highly recommend the trip if you're able to go and definitely try to make it over to the Canadian side! You do need a form of passport to cross now but we ended up getting Enhanced Driver's Licences. It was so much cheaper and faster! It works on land or sea which basically includes Canada, Mexico, and most of the Caribbean islands. If we take a trip by plane we'll have to go ahead and get a passport, but no near future plans for that.

Canadian Falls - Maid of the Mist going in!!

American Falls - people in yellow ponchos in line for the Wind Tunnel tour.

Every night they illuminate the falls.

Pics a little blurry because of the mist

Every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday they do a ten minute firework show over the illuminated Canadian falls. Sooo pretty. We got fireworks on our anniversary and on the 4th of July!!

From the edge of the Canadian Falls

The Maid of the Mist boat that we took.

Prepared to get soaked! And we did! As we were getting on the boat we passed the people getting off and they didn't look so bad but I guess we were looking at the wrong group of people. In the heart of the horseshoe I had the hood completely covering my head and tried to hold the hand holes closed. It was a difficult task as the windy mist blew up the bottom of the poncho soaking the bottom half of our legs. It was pretty intense! The boat sits in the middle for at least 5 minutes. As you could imagine, it was difficult to see much through the blue poncho, but when I'd peek out it was difficult to see period with all the wind and mist.

View of the American falls from the boat.

Not too far North of the falls they have some class 6 rapids. Class 5 is the highest legal level for extreme rafters. There have been a number of crazy's in the past who have illegally tried these rapids and only a few who amazingly made it through alive

It was difficult to really show the intensity of these rapids in pictures. You just have to be there.

To top off the trip nicely, we opted for the ferry ride across Lake Champlain for a leisurely picturesque finale to a wonderful vacation. The ferry is an hour long ride that ends in the heart of Burlington's waterfront.

From the NY side, waiting for the ferry.

Ahhhh! There's beautiful Burlington Vermont!!!