Out in the West Texas Town of El Paso

FoxHaven On The Road (Part 2)

Day 4: Since church didn't start until 12:30, Jay and I took the little kids to visit Jay's Gran in the morning. (Kit went with Jay's sister, Janey, to the young singles ward.) The children were excited to play with Great-Gran's cat and explore the backyard in their Sunday clothes. They managed to stay just presentable enough for church. (Kyle took the picture with Kinneret holding the magnifying glass. He thought is was funny, so I include it here.) Before we left on vacation, Kinneret had gotten "mail" in Primary assigning her to give the prayer on this day, and she was more than a little disappointed that she wouldn't get to fulfill that assignment. However, she did get to say the prayer in Primary after all so going to church with Nana and Papa was a success. After church, Jay reminisced with family and I tried to teach the little ones how to play kickball on the tennis court. Congratulations to HRK and GRK (Home Run Kyle and Great Runner Kinneret) of the Green team! Kyle learned how to be a great sport when I explained that Cordelia didn't really understand the rules. She would kick the ball, run after it and catch it, hand it to me, and then I had to try to tag her with it. She figured out the rules by the time we left El Paso, but we had a great Sunday afternoon.

Day 5: Today was cookout day with Irma's family. We started off the day with a trip to Wal-Mart to get some last-minute things for the cookout, and to get floaties for the pool and a bigger memory card for the camera. The kids loved playing in the pool at Nana's house, even though it took a little while to get used to the cool water. After a quick lunch (who can spend much time at lunch, even though Aunt Janey made homemade rootbeer and a wonderful oreo chocolate pudding dessert, when the pool was waiting??), we played in the pool again until it was time to ride the tramway up the mountain. Thankfully, nobody demonstrated a fear of heights once Kit quit trying to rock the tram car. At the top of the mountain, Papa found the Ciudad Juarez temple in the binoculars for us. Kyle and Kinneret enjoyed the ride up and down, but I think they probably had more fun exploring the gift shop. The bottom right inset on the second picture shows Garry, Irma and Irma's mother. And as a "look what I did" comment, I made the dresses that Kinneret and Cordelia are wearing. Luckily you can't really tell that they are about two sizes too big around (these girls have long, skinny torsos) since I added a little tie that wraps all the extra material around to the back.

Day 6: White Sands! What a great morning. The air was warm, but not hot, so it turned out to be the perfect day to visit White Sands. The only down side of the trip was that once you slid down the hill, you had to climb back up. And that Kit bruised a tail bone and Kinneret bit her lip, but we had a blast. Cordelia thought it was great that she didn't need a jacket to play in the snow. We did learn that sand angels aren't made as easily as snow angels. All pictures look good in sun and sand, but I couldn't post them all. Hopefully, you can tell that we had a wonderful morning! We toured the gift shop and did our part in stimulating the local ecomony before we left, dripping sand every step we took. Kit fell in love with some Indian flutes. He still seems to be very musically oriented, even though he has decided against taking band this fall. The kids were excited to head back to El Paso with the promise of more swimming, but were upset to learn that the pool was closed. We promised them a swim at a hotel on the way to Missouri. Tuesday evening, our last evening in El Paso, was the night of Janey's Mary Kay makeover party. Kinneret and Cordelia had a blast putting on their own makeup!