We love Visitors!

In mid-July Grandma Karen came down to visit us for a week. While she was here we took the kids on a couple of **cough** Nature Walks **cough, cough**. The H-word tends to give them anxiety, so we just don't call it that. They're not fooled by the term Nature Walk, either.

The first place we went was called Dripping Springs and it's at the Organ Mountain Desert National Monument, which is about 1/2 hour away from our house.

About 100 years ago there was a resort there, so people would travel up to relax and get out of the sunshine for a few days. Now the hotel is just a ruin. I love old things like this. You can try to imagine what it was like back when it was new and fancy.

Also our house started getting framed while grandma was here.

The next Nature Walk we took was at the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Park. When we arrived the gate was locked, so we called the number and they said "Oh yeah, it should be open. We'll send someone out to open it." Meanwhile we decided to just park on the road and walk in. It turned out to be pretty far and the kids weren't pleased. We saw a bunch of cool cacti, though!

Out in the desert in the middle of nowhere there was this amphitheater. I'm not sure what it's used for, but it must be a good place for one because when Karen, Ally, and I headed up a trail to the top of a big hill, Skyler, Kylee, and Colby sat down there (you can see them really tiny in the photo below), and apparently they could hear us talking the whole time, clear as day. We never heard them at all.

We got some windows!

The final Nature Walk we did was called Pine Tree Trail, and it was in a different part of the National Monument. This tarantula (look close - he's HUGE!) scared the pants off me, but eventually he crawled off the trail and I was able to hustle past. It was a near-death experience. I might have almost shed some tears.

Colby loved the first part of this trail because there were huge boulders to climb up.

We could see all the way across the valley towards Alamogordo, including the missile range in the desert out there, and White Sands National Park. It was really pretty.

My GPS somehow got confused and thought we still had a 1/2 mile to go before the halfway point, so the kids were SUPER HAPPY when we made it to the top sooner than I had said.

The second half was all back downhill, so the kiddos were pleased about that. Colby thought he wanted me to carry him, but after about 1/4 mile I told him he was too heavy. He ended up running down most of the last mile with me and Skyler because he wanted to stay ahead of "the girls". Anytime he heard their voices he'd take off running even faster. Great way to give him a second wind!

The whole trail is 4 miles, and these kiddos overall did a great job. Though when we were done their question was "what was the point of that hike? We didn't SEE anything!" I tried to explain that the point is just to go up the mountain and see nice views. They thought that probably wasn't worth it.

At the end of the week our friends the Wells from Carlsbad came to visit as well. We all headed back up to the Dripping Springs area to do a really short (like 1/2 mile) walk called La Cueva.

Basically there's this little tiny cave in the rock and they have signs telling you the story of a man who lived there long ago, who was murdered in the cave. People used to bring their sick friends and family up there because he was kind of like a medicine man. His friends down in the city were worried about him living up there alone, so he would light a fire outside the cave every so often so they'd know he was okay. One night the fire wasn't lit, so they came up to check and found him stabbed in the back. I don't think they ever found who did it. How sad! But also, can you imagine living in this tiny cave for months? Yikes.

We love visitors! It's always so fun to have other people to talk to and go exploring with!

 

Life in Las Cruces

One of my favorite things in the world is laying in my hammock and enjoying the warm weather. Our rental house has a HUGE covered patio, so I set my hammock up back there and I lay in it every day.

Everything here is still shut down - you can't eat inside restaurants and the pools, libraries, etc. are all closed. However, the library did an online summer reading program and then you could go to a drive-up table every Monday to pick up books and prizes. One of the challenges was for the kids to cook or bake something, so one day Kylee helped the kids make cookies.

I bought this plant (above) when we lived in Carlsbad. When we moved I gave it to my friend Ashlee because it wouldn't survive the weather in Idaho and she really liked it. Now that we've both moved to Las Cruces she gave it back. I told her she could keep it, but she said "I'm just so happy you're back! I kept her alive for you!" I really love Ashlee and am so glad we live close again. Plus her kids are all the same ages (even with matching genders) as my kids, so they all love to play together.

One day this really bright double rainbow was right outside our front door. We could see all the way to both ends.

After 10 years with the same toy buckets we bought a couple of new ones and organized the boys' room. It looked super nice for like 5 minutes until all the toys exploded. It'll likely never look this nice again.

Our house got plumbing and a foundation!

Skyler's Baptism in Colorado

Before we even moved to New Mexico we had already planned on heading up to the Sugiyama's house for the 4th of July because Andy was off work that entire week. Pax and Skyler had both recently turned 8 and were waiting to get baptized (Covid restrictions), and Connie was hoping maybe Pax could get baptized while we were there in July. With the way Idaho's restrictions were, it ended up not working out to baptize Skyler in Idaho, but right before we moved Connie's bishop in Colorado gave permission to baptize Pax and Skyler together on July 3rd as long as our New Mexico bishop would give permission as well, which he did. So...we invited all the grandparents and headed up to Colorado!

The Sugiyamas had recently found this little hike that is really close to their house, so one day we headed out to get some excercise.

The kids thought this old upside down truck (that apparently fell off the cliff from above?) was the coolest thing ever.

Walking through this really narrow rock hallway was also cool.

When we originally said we were going on a hike Connie assured Bruce it was a very easy "walk" and there would "definitely not be any chains". Basically she was making fun of me because the last hike I took them on in Idaho ended up being super steep and had chains you had to hold onto. Then we got to this part of the trail where you had to climb up rocks and...there were CHAINS! She claims to have "forgotten" those were there. We got quite the good laugh out of it.

On July 3rd Pax and Skyler got baptized. It turned out to be really nice. We had our two families plus mom and Bruce, Sugi's parents (they drove from Texas), and Andy's mom, who only lives about an hour away from Connie. We had a couple of short talks, the kids sang a song, and it was just a really great thing that these two got to do it together. They really get along so well.

While we were at Connie's house most of the kids slept in a room together. One night Lucy went to bed in her actual bed, but then when we went to check on them later she was snuggled up with Skyler on the floor. I love that she has her little eye mask on. So cute!

On the 4th of July we went on another little hike.

Several people commented about how festive we were with our whole group in patriotic shirts.

 

It was a little bit crazy to have so many people staying in Connie's house at the same time, but it's always so fun for the kids to play and the adults to visit. We'll have to go to Colorado again soon!