MAFED Awards Ceremony

Ian's martial arts class (Martial Arts for Education)
held their annual awards ceremony last night.
Each elementary school that participates in the
program did a demonstration of a basic skill
and then the higher kyu students showed an
advanced version of the same skill. Afterwards,
the Senseis handed out medals to all of the students
that earned their greenbelt along with certificates
for the Most Improved Student, Best New Student
and Best Overall Student for each school. Much to
our surprise, Ian was give the Best Student award
for the Colinas Del Norte program! YAHOO! We
were all so excited and proud of him. Great job Ian!



Pardon the end of the video. As you will see, I am
still practicing the video function of our camera.
This is a clip of Ian demonstrating one of the
very basic maneuvers on how to defend yourself.
(by getting out of the way!) This is called Open Door.


Ian is receiving his medal from
Sensei Dale.


This is most of the Colinas Del Norte students.
There were about 5 or 6 that did not attend
the ceremony. You can see that almost all of
them received their greenbelts this year. (This
was the first year that CDNE participated in the
martial arts program.)


Ian and Sensei Debbie

Volcanic Adventures

Ian had a 5 day weekend so we took advantage of
the time off for a new adventure. A few months
ago we hiked the petroglyphs so today we hiked
the volcanoes that created the rocks that the
petroglyphs were carved on. These volcanoes
are referred to as the Three Sisters or Albuquerque's
Volcanoes. These volcanoes are an example of a
fissure eruption. In most volcanoes, lava erupts
through a vertical vent. In fissure volcanoes, the
lava rises along thin cracks in the earth's crust and
seeps onto the surface. This particular fissure is over
5 miles long. There are three volcanoes in this park,
JA Volcano, Black Volcano and Vulcan Volcano. There
are a series of trails that take you along them. We
walked along all three of the volcanoes, probably
covering a little over 4 miles. It was a great afternoon!
http://www.nps.gov/petr/planyourvisit/vol.htm This
is a link to the park's website, where I took my
information. Check it out if you want to learn more!


You can see JA Volcano in the background.


All hiking adventures should start with a picnic.
And what better to have at a May family picnic
than peanut butter and jelly!


This is a close up of lava rock, called basalt. The
texture of the rock depends on how quickly the
lava cooled. If it cools quickly, it will be rough with
tiny gas bubbles. If it cools slowly, it will be smoother
and be a darker gray.



This is a large basalt rock with lichen
on it. Lichen is an organism composed of
fungi and either algae or cyanobacteria.
It can be in a variety of colors, ranging
from green, yellow, orange or rust.


This is at the top of JA Volcano. The views were
spectacular. While doing research for the blog,
I realized that the Native Indians believe climbing
to the top of the volcanic cones desecrates the land.
I would never have taken the kids to the top had
I realized this while we were there.


This is on the trail between Black
Volcano and Vulcan Volcano. How
sweet is this?


The largest of the three volcanoes is Vulcan Volcano.

Ian decided to take a side trail to go up a little

higher on the volcano. He made it about 3/4

of the way up to the top before he turned around.

This is from a ledge near the top of Vulcan. Those

are the Sandia's in the background.

This is a mini-volcanic valley on the north side

of the Vulcan Volcano.

We were walking into very strong winds and

the sand was irritating Jenna's eyes. Here she was

telling me that she had had enough and wasn't

walking any further. This was not one of her

favorite adventures and she kept telling me that

"her feet were killing her" and "this was a

really bad idea".

Much to Jenna's delight, we finally made it

back to the parking lot.