Carlsbad Caverns

My mom and dad and sister Emily all came into town last week and while they were here we went to Carlsbad Caverns. If you have never been it is amazing. This is the beginning of the natural entrance. We all went into the cave this way except for my mom, grady and Emily's baby (Jace). My mom has a bum knee and since this hike is all down hill for 800 ft. we figured it would not be very smart for her to try to hike it, which worked out well to send the two little ones with her. So this first picture is at the beginning of the hike.

Here is Cayden and Ally, they did AWESOME!! Ally only complained of her legs hurting at the very end after hiking down for 45 minutes and then for an hour on the floor of the cave.

Here is my dear dad taking pictures for my mom. He was so cute, the first 10 minutes we were stopping every chance we got to take a picture and he would always say "me me will love this one" (meme aka my mom). We quickly decided we will never make it to the bottom if we don't move it along.

Here we go....

There was so many little walkways where you went in tunnel like areas and a few places you had to duck. For the most part it was wide open, it is a huge cavern, biggest in the US I think.

My dad and Cayden. It was so nice for Cayden to have my dad there because they both wanted to stop and read every sign and Cayden loved pointing every little thing out to my dad. From the picture it looks like the cavern is gray but it is not, it is much more colorful.

After we got to the bottom and met my mom with the two little kids (who took the elevator) we walked the loop of the "Great Room" which size was equivalent to 14 football fields, it took about an hour and was amazing. Jace was a trooper, he actually fell asleep in the backpack and his poor little head was bobbing all over the place.

I carried Grady most of the way on the bottom. There are some pretty good size drops, although there is a railing, but it still made me nervous. I told him over and over about the danger and that he could fall far far down. I think I may have overdone it, he was too scared to walk after that.

The kids with their meme and grandpa. They absolutely LOVED having them here. Funny thing, my mom came here 50 years ago with her grandma and now was here again with her grandkids. She told my kids that in 50 years they need to come back with their grandkids.

We had a great time and I am glad we made the trip.

Trip to Prescott

Over Labor Day weekend we went to Prescott to my mother in laws little house to help work on it and try to speed the process of getting it in live in condition. It is the cutest little house and we had a great time with family working hard, eating lots and laughing even more. Here are a few pictures of the house and us working. This is the front, isn't it darling???

Here's Kristi, takin it easy just like she should be.
Wierd, this one is sideways but this is Grandpa Rowley workin really hard on ripping out a bathroom. I hope I can work half as hard as him when I am his age, he amazes me.

Travis in the backyard AFTER we got all the weeds pulled. I wish I had gotten a picture before. He is visualizing the masterpiece we are going to create.

Here he is hard at work leveling the ground inside the pathway we made so we can lay a brick border and fill the path with pea rocks.

Grandpa Rowley taking a quick break and on the phone with his sweetheart.

Wow, Brian, lets try not to make that face again EVER!! Putting up the white picket fence.

Kristi outside enjoying the BEAUTIFUL weather. Seriously we couldn't have ordered better weather, it was so great. Little Owen in the background playin, he is such a good baby

Laying the brick border. I am not sure what Hillary is doing,lol! Here is proof that I DID work and not just take pictures, ha ha

I just loved this random picture that was on my camera. I am not even sure who took it, I think Kristi did but it is so classic Hillary I had to post it.

We had a wonderful time and really got a lot of work done!!!!!

T.E.A. Party Express

I don't know if any of you are familiar with this movement, but it is a huge bus that is traveling from Ca. to Washington making like 30 stops along the way. It is a rally getting people excited and standing up for what they believe, quit raising the taxes, no on the health care bill, etc. Well one of the stops was Las Cruces last night. We decided to take the kids and head down and show our support. We all wore our red shirts and made posters. Travis and I talked to the kids about what we were doing and why, Cayden understood pretty well but I think Ally was just excited to go to the "Tea Party". We were so proud of the kids, they held their posters high and wanted to get right in the middle of it all. We knew there would be reporters there and so we had asked Cayden what he would say if anyone asked him why he was there. His response was "I am here because I like my country the way it is and I don't want them to change it". We had a great time and there was an awesome turn out. Towards the end the kids headed over with Travis to where there was a bunch of commotion. It was the reporter from Fox News there reporting for the Greta Van Susteran show. That was pretty exciting cause that is national news. The kids of course jumped right in with their posters in hopes to make it on TV. Sure enough Cayden was in view the entire time the guy was interviewing the lady who put the party on. It was so neat. We rushed home and set our tv to record the later showing of her show since it was live and we got up this morning and watched it. I was so proud of my kids. Cayden is there behind the reporter holding his poster that read "Dude, where's my country" and his flag and just as happy as could be. A couple of times you could see Ally's head poke out from behind the lady and I saw myself a few times when they spanned all of the crowd. It was a neat thing and I am glad we took the kids and hopefully they learned a little bit about the importance of standing up for what you believe in. Of course I forgot my camera, luckily Clayton had his so once I get pictures from him I will post them.