Georgetown, TX

 November 16th-24th we got to spend time in the greater Austin area. Our friends have a ranch there where they raise goats and have chickens and rabbits as well. They also have parents who had put in RV hooks up the property and hosted us while we were there! The kids really enjoyed spending time with other kids and we also got to spend time with Hannah's birth family. We had a most delightful Thanksgiving with wonderful company and food! On Friday when we left no one wanted to leave. 

We went over to Lyn's house on Friday night, and then went back with just the girls on Sunday afternoon after church, the boys went back home to chill with our friends. 

This is Hannah's brother Zach, he spent time Friday night teaching Hannah, Damen and Kaleb how to sword fight, they all really enjoyed it! You can also see Hannah's sister in the background heading up the stairs, she escaped to peace and quiet often while we were there. We were a little scary and things got quite loud at times. 

Here they are with their sword. 

We all had a good time on Sunday, you can tell by by the grins, we also got to Lyn's husband Stan. Stan was kind enough to make us gumbo, which was delicious! Lyn brought it over to us on Thanksgiving evening, so we could try it before we left! 

On Thanksgiving after all the extra people besides us had left, the kids used the extra tables to play games, Damen and Meg enjoyed playing Uno through out the week. 

The other kids were all playing or watching chess

While the adults spent time chatting in the kitchen. 

But most of the kids time was spent here, in the octaball pit, they spent hours and hours their and had an absolute blast! 

Leaving Austin on the way to Houston the everyone got to experience Buc-ee's 😀

Sonora, TX

Texas is a huge state, but the west side of the state on I10 doesn't have much between El Paso and Austin. We were looking for a stop somewhere along there as it was over six hundred miles from Las Cruces to Georgetown, where our next stop was. Sonora, TX was along the route and when we were checking out campgrounds and looking at reviews we found there were caves there. We stopped at Caverns of Sonora and camped there for two night, this gave me time to work on Wednesday, since I had several meetings, one of which was a demo and gave us the opportunity to do a tour of the caves with out having to drive anywhere! The caves were super cool and covered with more formations than I've seen in any cave before. We stayed there the 14th - 16th. 

These fish tails were some of my favorite formations!

They had soda straws over two feet long, because they don't have any bats that come and knock them down.

 

Las Cruces, NM

From Phoenix we started heading east and had a long drive day to Las Cruces. Audio books do wonders for a long drive day, but it is still hard hauling a 5th wheel for 7 hours and having six people in the cab of a pickup for that long. We made it in at dusk and got set up quickly. Since it was a long drive day, we opted for a Saturday, as that way we knew there would be no work interruptions. Sunday, after church, we went to White Sands National Park and went sledding! The sand was nice and cool and sledding was a lot of fun!

Kaleb sledding

Hannah sledding

This video is me and Nathan racing 

On Monday afternoon the kids were bored, so Nathan Evie, Damen and Kaleb for a hike while I stayed home made dinner and cleaned up the RV. 

THey saw a beautiful sunset! 

And saw some wicked cacti we hadn't seen before. 

Phoenix, AZ

 We started heading south and decided to stop in Phoenix for a few days for some R&R. Or at least some down time for the kids. We were there Nov. 7-11th. 

On Wednesday the Phoenix Museum of Art has free admission in the evening, I figured if anyone wanted to go we could take advantage of that. Evie said she wanted to go, so she and I headed out. 

Some of the art was cool, some one was like "I could do that and some made you question what art museums are for. But I think Evie had a good time and she enjoyed all the outfits that were in one exhibit

A friend who used to live in the Phoenix area recommended we do White Tank Library and Nature Center, so on Thursday, I asked who wanted to do that, and Hannah, who is always up for a library wanted to go, and Nathan was interested in the nature center. The three of us headed out to explore and left the other three at home. 

Hannah enjoyed the library while we went out a took a hike. 

It was cool because you cool see the Phoenix skyline in the background, and across Phoenix to mountains on the other side. 

There were some huge cacti! 

And all kinds, I was fascinated by them.  

Williams, AZ

 We stopped in Williams for one purpose and one purpose only, to see bears! As hard as we had tried to see them in the wild we had not succeeded, so gave up and went with the guaranteed view at Bearazonia. They have 39 bears on site and have a drive thru and walking section to see bears along with other animals. 

Of course you have to keep your windows closed, which is kind of a pain when your windows are tinted

Do you see the bear in the tree? It was slightly crazy how high it was!

They also had an animal show where you got super close to the animals. 

The kids enjoyed it, although they would have liked to see a bear in the wild, they took this as an acceptable substitute. 

As we were packing up to pull out of our campsite Nathan found a tarantula crawling on our site. He kept an eye on it until we were pulled out to make sure Hannah didn't catch it to take with us 😂

It was pretty cool!