White Sands National Monument

In July we took a trip to White Sands National Monument. It is part of a 275 square miles field of white sand dunes composed of gypsum crystals. It is the largest gypsum dune field in the world, smack dab in the middle of the desert and it is absolutely beautiful! We have gone several times and spent the day sledding down the dunes but this time we got to spend the night! It was a campout! It was a whole process to be able to camp there. You have to be part of an organization, they don't just let families camp there. This was a work trip for me. I work with the New Mexico FIESTA Project as a Family Contact. As a Family Contact I provide training and support groups for foster and adoptive parents, and we do family activities too. Creating community for families formed through adoption, like mine. 

We had a blast! Several families from the different areas we serve came and we chatted while the kids wore themselves out sliding down the dunes over and over and over again. They didn't even want to stop for S'mores... S'MORES people! They were just having too much fun! When it got too dark to sled anymore we all went to our respective campsites and called it a night. Well, there was quite the lightning storm going on so my husband and I took a blanket up to the top of the dune and watched the lightning. It was nice. The girls ended up coming up there too for a little bit. I could of slept up there if I wasn't so scared of scorpions. So, we went to our tent. 

Then the storm got closer. And closer. And closer. Our tent was blowing over, the wind was not letting up. There we were at 1 AM taking down our tent, hoping not to wake the baby in the camp next to us. So, with the girls moved to the van and the tent down. And down for good because the poles snapped. We tried to get comfortable in the van. We made it in just before the rain came. After it stopped Rab slept outside the van door on my cot. I slept or tried to sleep in a very tight space on the floor of the van, I quickly gave up on that and moved to the passenger seat. The dark haired child slept under one of the back seats while the blonde one got one of the whole seats to herself to sleep on. She was unmovable. When we woke up at the crack of dawn she said, "That was a very restful sleep." Say what?? She was the only one. 

We had pop tarts for breakfast, visited with the other families and headed out around 9 AM. We stopped at BK for an early lunch and came home and had a very lazy day! 

As I am writing this it dawned on me that every single time we have gone camping it has rained. And I'm not talking a slight drizzle, there has been times where it has been hail and a torrential downpour! 

Carnival Party!

I love to plan a party. And this one was fun to plan. There are so many great ideas on Pintrest and I used them!

My girls turned eight this month! Which is really hard to believe, they were just four like yesterday!  I gave them some ideas for birthday parties, Frozen, Dr. Seuss or a carnival party. I was hoping for the carnival party or Dr. Seuss, oh the places I could go with that...but they decided they wanted a carnival party. So the planning began.

I planned six games. There was the balloon burst, ring toss, lollipop pull, spray away, ping pong toss and knock down the cans game. I also had two quart size mason jars that had jelly beans and gum balls in them and everyone got to guess how many and the winner got the jar of goodies. I put clown noses in a clear glass vase, like a hurricane, and taped a clown what is different game to it and they all got to wear clown noses, that was cute. The kids were really having a great time. I ordered tickets to hand out as they played the games to get their "prizes." The prizes were dollar store items in little zip lock bags. I took a box that I had and put the wrong side of wrapping paper around the box, it was Christmas paper if you were wondering why I used it wrong sided. Then I took clothes pins and a dab of gorilla glue and attached them to the box and hung the prizes from them. You can kinda see it in the photo below between the garage doors. Those are the birthday girls in the photo.

balloon burst

 I did a photo booth with all kinds of different props. My favorite prop was the strong man dumb bell. Which unfortunately one side was popped by my blonde haired child at her first attempt to play balloon burst. My fault for having it so close. She still got tickets. To make the dumb bell I took an empty wrapping paper roll and two balloons, taped the balloons to the wrapping paper roll and spray painted it black. Cute huh?

There was also a concession stand, with bags of popcorn, whole pickles, cracker jacks, animal crackers and cotton candy. The kids got to "spend" their tickets on whatever they wanted.

The photo above was the center piece for the girls table. The wind kept blowing and knocking down the cracker jack boxes. Speaking of wind, everyone was having a great time and the winds started to really blow and then the rain came. It's monsoon season here in New Mexico and I thought it would be a great idea to have an outside party.....We were doing photo booth pictures and the wind started getting bad, as you can see..My poor photo booth. It got way worse but I won't post those pictures.

We had to pack it up and head inside in a hurry. I think I was more bummed than the kids because I had so much work put into it. This mama was tired!!! But they are so worth the work! We did get this shot of our family before the wind got bad.

The girls really are twins. They just look nothing alike! I love when people ask me questions like whats the age difference between them? And I get to say 2 minutes and then get a puzzled look form them. We started attending a new church so I have been getting those questions a lot lately.

We went inside and had corn dogs and little bags of chips. Then it was cake time and then they opened presents. I did cupcakes just because its easier to serve that way. I didn't serve ice cream this time and since it got moved inside I am kinda glad I didn't, last year I did and I portioned it out in muffin wrappers the night before and covered them with plastic wrap so when it was time for cake and ice cream you just put it on the plate with the cupcake and voila. So easy.

Even though our carnival party got rained out it was still a good time. One of the girls told me this was the best day of their life. Love that.

Jen

Camping Part 1

Sleeping in a tent on the hard ground with pine cones making lasting indentions on my back is not my idea of a good time. Don't get me wrong I love to camp, I just like to be comfortable while doing it. Really comfortable. And port a potties are not my friend. 

This was our the first time taking the motor home on a trip. We went to our spot in the Gila Wilderness. It was Rab, the twins, my son Nick and his girlfriend and me. We loaded up supplies and the ATV and dirt bike and hit the road. 

We had a great time. Roasted GIANT marshmallows over the fire and made s'mores. You can't camp without s'mores. It got a bit messy. 

We Went on ATV rides. There are a thousand trails out there to ride and we rode about 237 of them. It was a blast. Except the time we went up the mountain and it got a bit rocky, it got so rocky we didn't want to go back the way we came. Nick wanted to make his own trail and I said no way, man. We ended up making our way down the mountain ok but had to ride on the main road to get back to camp. It was an adventure. I had the dark haired child with me and she is one that if you ask her what's wrong she says, "I don't even know" so I asked her if she was worried and she said, "yes," flat out yes. She was scared we were gonna be lost forever. Once we got back to camp she told the story over and over to her sister. It was like a fishing story without any fish, she stretched the truth a little bit. It was pretty funny to hear. 

Jen

Camping Part 2

It was hot in the forest. I have to admit that we spent a lot of the time in the motor home. If we weren't out riding, walking the dogs or tossing the ball around, we were in the air conditioned motor home. I have to say it was nice to have the option! We played games and talked.

Some good friends of ours live close to where we were so they came and spent the afternoon with us. Got us to venture outside where the sun and fresh air was. So there we were sitting outside under the canopy visiting and it started pouring down rain and hailing. It was insane! Back inside we went. It rained for a long time. The wind caught our canopy and chairs and blew them all around. We still had a nice visit, just inside with the ac. No complaints here;)

Here is a shot of our dark haired girl. Think she was tired? 

They had such a blast running up and down hills, playing "hide & sneek" and looking for pine cones.  

We wonder why we don't do this more often. 

Jen

Fourth of July

This was an unusual Fourth of July for our family. We usually host a BBQ and have friends and family over. This year is was just my little family of four. Everyone was busy or just wanted to be home. I can understand that, I felt that way myself for some reason. It was different but nice.

We still bbq'd. We had pork chops, roasted baby bell peppers and red onions, grilled jalapenos and  macaroni salad. We still did our annual reading of the Declaration of Independence, our family tradition. Then we sat outside to watch the firework show. The town fireworks are done from the fairgrounds, we have a pretty good view from our house so we watch from here and avoid the traffic. Then we did some of our own. We got done doing our fireworks just as it started to rain. And boy did it rain! Our neighbor said we got an inch, which is awesome! It always seems to rain on July 4th here, it's the beginning of Monsoon season.At least we got to enjoy the show first. Here are a few shots of our nigh. 

Sparkler art!

Roman Candles

More Roman Candles, my favorite. 

The Red, White and Blue. The symbol of our freedom that we are so blessed to have.

I hope you had a wonderful and safe Holiday.

Jen