Father's Day/ Rocket Launch Madness!

It’s Father’s Day in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and also the day of launch for one of Matt’s graduate students. So, we have the whole family down to see (hopefully!) launch tonight/tomorrow, scheduled for midnight. They close the interstate down here for an hour in case the rocket decides to disengage its guidance systems and head for Albuquerque at ten feet above the ground. Getting onto base is likely to be an adventure, but I’ll be taking what pictures I can of our trip tonight and sharing that as a separate post.

I want to post instead about two great dads I’m lucky to have in my life. One is my father, who is probably eagerly checking my blog in hopes of new photos of the grandkids. He and my mom hauled us all over the country, by car, about this time every summer, and we saw more museums, parks, and tourist traps than anyone should have to endure…and the rest stops, wow, don’t get me started. (Kansas has GREAT rest stops.) Anyway, I don’t remember him ever having a particularly peaceful Father’s Day, as we were usually either on the road, or home doing a lot of gardening and yard work. I hope this year’s Father’s Day is better for him than some of the ones where I was little. Like the one when I was eight or nine and got food poisoning in Canada somewhere…road trips and upchucking children do not make such a stellar combination.

So as not to disappoint him, here are some candids from the first half of our trip. Yesterday we drove out to White Sands National Monument, where Miranda had her first White Sands dune experience:

We went to the legendary Chope’s Café in La Mesa last night for dinner and got photos of all of us to commemorate the occasion. They no longer have the $4 Petron margaritas they did when we came for Matt’s launch—prices have adjusted to the market—but the food was still most excellent.

The polliwog is recovering from a nasty cold for which he’s on meds, so he looks a little bleary and puffy-eyed due to the two nights of practically no sleep he was still catching up on.

The bug was doing great, however, and especially enjoyed the homemade tortillas.

Meanwhile, the parental units were thankful that the place retained its liquor license as well as its fabulous refried beans:

This morning, Matt and I took the kids to Mesilla Valley Kitchen. It’s reasonably difficult to celebrate the other great dad in my life, the father of my children, under the current conditions. It’s the day of launch, we have two children under five with handmade gifts that were a bit odd if charming (“Dad, it’s a can! With nothing in it! But you can decorate the inside!”), and everyone here is several hours short on sleep already even before tonight’s adventures. But this morning’s breakfast was at the very least at one of Matt’s favorite breakfast places on earth, so we commemorated the event with a photo once we got far enough in line to actually be inside the restaurant:

And already, you can see how much better the polliwog was doing at recovery after one passable night’s sleep. Next weekend, I think we’ll celebrate Father’s Day late—Matt can have a morning to sleep as late as he wants and I’ll take the kids somewhere they can’t wake him up. It’s funny how the most useful gift parents of an infant can give each other just might be sleep. Anyway, here is to the two fabulous fathers I love!