It's been a fun day so far.  We got up bright and early and went on a two hour horseback riding trail.  Everyone in our family got to ride a horse.  Dad got a funny-looking gray-speckled horse named Chief.  Mom got a pretty white horse named Silver.  I got a dark brown horse named Busta Move.  Amy got a chestnut horse named Tater Tot.  Luke got a dun-colored horse named... Elvis.  I know!  Elvis!  I was incredibly jealous at first, Elvis being my favorite person in the universe and all, but Elvis the horse turned out to be slow, grumpy, and old, so after seeing his temperament, I wasn't jealous after all.



I never knew that New Mexico was pretty, but it is.  We rode along canyons and the base of the mountain.  Everything was red and purple and blue, as if it was painted right onto a canvas.  It was beautiful.  The weather was perfect as well.  We plodded along and talked and laughed and enjoyed ourselves.

At one point, a paint horse in our group got spooked and bucked off its passenger, a sweet girl with cerebral palsy.  She was okay- she wasn't even really frightened- but I felt bad for her.  Who expects to go on a slow, safe trail ride and get bucked onto the rocky canyon floor?

For lunch, my family ate beside the pool again.  If you ever check out the Tamaya resort, the nachos with queso are very tasty.  Don't leave without trying them out.

All five of us swam.  Tamaya has three different pools, but the most popular one has a water slide.  It's enclosed, so when you slide down, everything is pitch black.  You lose your sense of direction completely.  You feel yourself veering to the left and to the right and up and down. It's a little frightening.  And then suddenly, you drop down and see a shimmer of light.  And then whoosh!  You fall smack into the salt water of the pool.

After going down the slide a hundred times and relaxing in one of the hot tubs, we moved to the funny-shaped kid pool.  It's long, thin, curved, and three feet deep.  Originally, we thought it was a lazy river.  It wasn't, but it's perfect for races and games.

We finally returned to our hotel room to rest.  Mom checked her phone- we have very little reception, but occasionally a message gets through- to discover with a shock that my Naana fell this morning and broke her knee cap in four places.  We're currently all waiting in the room while Mom maneuvers herself onto the edge of the balcony, trying desperately to keep enough signal to talk to her mom on the phone and make sure that everything is okay.  I can hear Mom's side of the conversation.  Things don't seem great.  Naana is going to have to have surgery.  My aunt Denise is on her way to Amarillo to take care of her until we go back.  Our family friends are being great and taking care of our grandparents while we're gone.

We may end up returning home early.  The disappointment of that fact is dimmed with worry.  I think we all just want to make sure that Naana is okay.  I'll write more later.

Immediately after waking up, Dad and Luke went to go golf, and Mom and Amy and I left for the spa.  I've never been to a spa before, so I didn't know what to expect.  The moment I arrived in the spa area, I was offered a glass of fruit water and ushered into an area where I could change into a robe and slippers.  There was a hot tub, steam room, and sauna available while I waited (clothing optional, so I skipped out), along with a peaceful room with fluffy couches and tables of fruit and cold water.

I was escorted into the pedicure room.  Of course I've had pedicures before, but this one was much more extravagant.  I won't go into all of the boring details, but this pedicure was filled with soap scrubs and massages and all sorts of lovely things. 

The nice lady who did it all told me about her youngest daughter, Desiree.  She adopted the four-year-old girl six years ago.  Desiree was malnourished and had a receding hairline from lack of nutrition.  She'd been neglected by her mother and left to cook her own meals with the few ingredients left in her house... at age four!  Her mother had burned her, left her alone for days, and treated her horribly.  Now, at age ten, Desiree was like a new girl, filled with laughter and joy.  The story warmed my heart and again reminded me of what my parents told me.  Even though I was spending money on myself, it is helping this family, and in the long run, it's helping Desiree.

After our morning at the spa, we went and lied out by the pool until Luke and Dad got back from golfing.  The Tamaya Resort is about half an hour away from Albuquerque, which is a relatively big city.  We went into town to have dinner at the Boston Market and go to a game center just to hang out as a family.  We raced Go-Karts.  I passed my sister- yes!- and was ABOUT to pass my dad when the race ended.  After the exciting race, we all went to play Lazer Tag.

I must say, I am the worst person to play Lazer Tag.  I'm a very big advocate of peace, and I'm not a fan of guns, at all, so I have trouble bringing myself to hold even a lazer gun.  And I always feel guilty about shooting people.  Despite all of that, I love to play Lazer Tag.  I love being in a dark room lit only by a black light, ducking behind all the obstacles with spy music playing in the background.  It's so much fun.  But I was creamed.  I shot two people and was shot about eighty times, so I ended up getting zero points.  Oh well.  It was still fun.

I will write more tomorrow.