Cousins

You'll remember back here I posted that 3 of my cousins came to visit! Well, I finally got some pictures and thought I should share!

Even though some of the places we visited were a bit of a drive - it was nice to show them a bit of our corner of the Southwest.

We visited a market in Mexico. We were going to visit a mission church but didn't get meeting someone to guide us there coordinated so, we made the trip to Mexico to just visit the market. When we got there we went in, walked up and down a few aisles with them following close behind Jaden and I. A few times I stopped and said, "If you want to stop anywhere or look at anything just let me know." To which they responded, "no," "I don't need anything." "that's OK." After about 15 minutes I was thinking - oh no!...we came all the way into Mexico for THIS and they don't even want to be here!??!?!?! What else should we do this afternoon??? So, we went out to the little restaurants outside and got a few sodas. They slurped theirs down pretty fast and, while I was still sipping and Jaden was still sleeping in the stroller they decided that they wanted to go back in to look around. 15 - 20 - 30 - 40 minutes later they reappear with big smiles and a story about how they thing (If Lyle's dad wants to) they might buy this longhorn skull that they can get a really good deal on. Apparently Lyle's dad has been looking for one and this one is much more affordable - we'd just have to ship it to their home since it would be probably too big to take on the plane. "Okay," I say. "We can ship it this week before you leave."


Little did I know................................... that it was GIGANTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let me tell you...I was sweating getting this into the 4 door sedan we were driving home!
Stuck somewhere on my old-nonfunctional camera (or else forever lost) there are a few pretty funny pictures of Lyle climbing inside a HUGE box to cushion the skull for shipping and a friend and I carrying a literally COFFIN SIZE BOX to Greyhound to be shipped! Did you know that Greyhound ships packages? It's a good deal and apparantly the skull arrived just fine. Last I heard my aunt Trish was HOPING it might someday soon be REMOVED from hanging outside on her front porch! :-)

Lane also purchased a nice giant sombrero....and they got a few chair hammocks and other little items.

Another day we visited the zoo
It was Jaden's first visit to the zoo...but you can see the big kids had a good time too!

Hmmm...apparently I don't have any real animal pics....but there were real ones too!

The Sunday they were here we took them to visit one of our mission churches in Mexico. Nothing fancy but Lyle got to use a bit of his Spanish talking to a little kid. Lyle was surprised by how much he COULD say! :-)
Stephen and I led the music for the worship service since they don't usually have musicians. The people were SO happy to see us. And, they loved meeting Jaden! Jaden and I hadn't been to this mission site since he was born! Woah...that's WAY too long! I miss visiting them often!
We also drove on a day trip to Carlsbad Caverns - a HUGE cave!


Jaden insisted on walking part of the time - which was good - cause it was a long walk! He was really cute wanting to hang onto the handrail. He thought it was SO funny!


This is the time of year when there are loads and loads of bats that fly out of the cave at dusk so we stayed to watch that (no cameras allowed) even though that meant returning home REALLY late!

Another day trip to White Sands National Park - - dune jumping...
trying to sled....but we didn't have a dune quite steep enough for it to REALLY work
burying each other....



and all around general fun. The wind picked up and millions of grains of sand pelting you isn't too fun so we didn't stay long. On a less hot day it would be fun to go back!

There you have it. Not nearly a complete account of all of our adventures but - at least a little. This officially means that on September 15th I am now caught up in my blogging to the point of the current month!

Only 15 more days to catch up on!!!!!!