Water Fight

The cousins all had a great time playing together.

The weather in El Paso was unbelievably hot.

A quick trip to Walmart for squirt guns turned into an afternoon of fun.

Another cousin joined in the fun.

Nathan has a new best friend.

Water guns gave way to hoses.

Soaking wet kids = happy kids.

The kids can't wait to go back to El Paso - 110 degree temps and all!

El Paso

Wow, too busy having fun traveling to update this blog.  Sorry to those of you waiting to see pictures!  :)

  This cutie above belongs to my brother and his wife whom we visited in El Paso.

 It was the first time we had met these two (wife and baby) and we had a blast.

 I can't believe my little brother has a baby girl.  Well, actually, both of my little brothers have had little girls this year! 

 Mike is so good with her.

Had a great time meeting Mike's step-daughter as well. 

Elizabeth was THRILLED to have more girls in the family.

She gets so tired of being surrounded by boys.

Couldn't pay my kids to pose for a picture....

Elizabeth and her new found friend (cousin).

The River Walk

 The pictures don't do it justice, but the River Walk in San Antonio was gorgeous!

 We enjoyed walking along the water.

 We took a boat tour.

 We found a boat named the "Kari".  :)

 Elizabeth was way too hot!

 We also saw a wedding on a boat on the water.

 I loved the light on the water.

The Alamo

One of the reasons we stopped in San Antonio was that Andrew was dying to go to the Alamo.

It was interesting, but much smaller than we had imagined.

It looked so strange nestled between all the tall buildings in San Antonio.

It was also unbelievably hot!

We were grateful for the little bits of shade.

The kids were facinated by the cactus.  We don't have much of that in MA.

Nathan kept asking if he would really get hurt if he "touched those spikes".  Thankfully he didn't try it to find out.  :)  He's one curious little boy.

Alex liked the branches on this tree.  :)

He said he was too hot to smile.  :)

Roof Top Swimming

Hi!  It's me, Shepy.  We've been so many places in the past two weeks.

One of our favorites was San Antonio.  The kids LOVED the hotel.

It was right on the River Walk (pictures of that in another post) and had a view of the city.

The kids LOVED the swimming pool that was on the ROOF of the hotel.

We went swimming at night and enjoyed looking at all the lights on the buildings downtown.

The kids have been counting up the states we have been through - Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Deleware, Maryland, Virginia, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. (I am behind in writing posts....  pictures of the rest of our travels coming soon)

Farewell Barbara

Sunday we got the very sad news that my step-mother, Barb, died unexpectedly.  We were planning to visit Dad and Barb this week.  Instead, we will be attending Barb's memorial service.  I am grateful, in a way, that we were already out here when this happened and that we drove here.  We will now have more flexibility to stay and help out.

We last saw Dad and Barb in September.

We spent three days together in Pueblo, CO.

We were all together to celebrate my brother's 40th birthday.

Plenty of laughter and fun. 

The kids and Barb especially liked the guy who twisted balloons together at the restaurant.  He made my Dad this motorcycle.

We will miss you Barb!  I will miss our frequent phone conversations, your encouragement.  The kids said that Barb is "kind", "Nice smile", "Loves books".  You will be missed!

We are heading to Los Alamos for the memorial service.