Our adventure in El Paso continued after the gun range (and a taco break) when we hopped in the truck and drove out to White Sands for some Sand Dune Sledding.
Sounds awesome, right?!
It was pretty cool but it was also a lot of work to get back up the sand dunes and it's really not like snow sledding at all.
(it was awesome to get away from the kids, just the two of us...first time in almost 3 years)
(pigtails were helpful to keep my hair out of my face until they tried to kill me...this pic wasn't moments before "the incident" where my pigtail got caught under the sled and made me wipe out...graceful, as always)
The rest of our time in El Paso was spent playing games...I'm now just a little bit obsessed with dominoes...eating and just hanging out. The boys cleaned the guns while JG and I played with our nails.
We stayed in El Paso until just about the last possible moment. We got to my parents' house (which is about three hours from our place) at 0200. They had to leave for the airport at 0400...they're in Belize for two weeks (must be rough). We stayed at their house until both Joshua and I had enough sleep to get back on the road which took a while because the kids woke up way too early and we ended up taking shifts napping. We managed to pick up the dog from a local farm where he goes while we're out of town and get home with enough time in the afternoon for the kids to lay down while I got some laundry going...exciting stuff. But we were still in a rush because the boy had his first t-ball game that night.
(the boy in the 1st inning...he hit...he ran...unfortunately, he ran to the pitcher's mound before he ran to first base...thankfully, in the second inning he managed to run the correct direction and even scored)
(it was sort of a David vs Goliath situation...except that Goliath won...the other team was clearly older and much more experienced than our kiddos but they had a great time)
(in the 2nd inning, our boy was the catcher...isn't he just the cutest little thing!)
Have I mentioned that we had a whirlwind week and a half?! Because we did and even after the t-ball game, it wasn't over. We got home and repacked the suitcase for an overnight yellow ribbon event about an hour and a half from where we live. Thankfully, this time around it wasn't death by power point and a few of the speakers seemed to really have the attention of the audience which when you're talking about a few hundred soldiers who were made to attend and spouses who were only trying to be supportive, it's no small thing to keep their attention. It was good to hang out with some of the guys Joshua deployed with and having a couple free hotel rooms for the night (one for the kids and one for us-adjoining of course) didn't suck but I'm glad to be home. Other than going out for the 4th, I plan to stay home for nice stretch, if only to recover from the last two weeks.
I hope everyone has a happy and safe Independence Day. Let's celebrate our nation's freedom by blowing a piece of it away...it's the American way.
Posts
