Camping in Cloudcroft

We went down to southern New Mexico with the express mission to play in the full moon. (Did I mention it's monsoon season?) I don't know what we were thinking but we ended up having fun in spite of the rain.

It took several hours but our first stop was to see the White Sands National Monument. We've been told that when the full moon is reflecting off of the white sand it's as bright as day. We arrived around eight o'clock. The clouds were thick and dark. There was a ton of lightning. So much so that I was worried our family would be struck. Being out in an area with no buildings or trees during a lightning storm didn't seem safe to me. After some begging and pleading Gordon, Bettie and Bryce finally relented and we headed up to our campsite. Luckily for us Bettie and Bryce had be able to get there earlier in the day and had already set up the tents. The downpour started during the drive. We were very happy to see the road into the campsite was gravel and not mud. (Have to be happy for little things, right?) Our tent still seemed mostly dry inside so with our van parked as close to it as possible, we unloaded our bedding and our children into it. Eve and Lily were able to fall asleep pretty quickly regardless of the rain and thunder. Abigail on the other hand had a really rough night. Because of that so did her parents. Our neighboring campers were also having a hard time with their generator. So when Abigail would start to settle down, they would have to rev up their machine and wake her up to streaming again. At 12:30 I was ready to go mad between the crying, the rain and the generator. Thankfully Gordon was able to find a way to help Abigail calm down and the neighbors gave up on their machine.

Morning dawned beautiful. We had a good breakfast of oatmeal and yogurt. My sister Sarah and her family joined us in the morning after their stay in a hotel. We had called them and warned them not to come during the storm.

Here we are playing around the campground.

Isobel


favorite activity:picking wild flowers



Bettie in her cute PJ's


Eva playing with Uncle Gordon


We have fire!


Abigail


Eve


Jaxon


Mckayla and Abigail


Lyla

A New Toy!

I was given the go ahead from Gordon so I bought a new camera. To research which to buy I asked a couple friends and family and settled on the Canon Rebel Xti.



It was frustrating upon delivery since they tried to drop it off while I was taking kids to school two days in a row. I finally was able to pick it up at the UPS office on Thursday night. Just in time for our trip on Friday. I was trying hard to read the manual so I would be ready. I had a lot of fun and over the three day trip I took 789 pictures with my new camera. And 54 more with two disposable cameras!

But hooray hooray I have a camera again!

First Day of 2nd Grade

Lily had a good first day of school too. Her new classroom shares a wall with her classroom from last year. So there's a door between the rooms and that was really exciting for her since she would be able to wave to her old teacher. She came home saying she really likes her new teacher. And several of her friends are in her class so that made it easier too. She already has blisters on her hands from the monkey bars, just like she did all of last year, so I think recess is going great too!

First Day of Pre-school

Here's Eve in her new pre-school and with her teacher, Miss Owens. Eve was really excited to go and was happy when we picked her up again. She was running around the room to show me all of the things she had played with during school. I'm excited for it too. Her teacher seems really good, she was a kindergarten teacher last year, so she has some experience. I am also excited that it's close, it's at a church about a 20 minute walk from here. It's going to be three days a week for three hours a day.

Dead Man's Campground.

Maybe if we had remembered this is Monsoon season our camp out wouldn't have been such an adventure. It was a ward camp out so there promised to be lots of fun people there. And the spot wasn't too far away from home, maybe a thirty minute drive. It was raining a little bit during the day but stopped before we left for the canyon. Once off the paved state highway the road was dirt only that was mostly composed of clay. It was so slippery and muddy our car slid sideways several times. We were stuck once but Gordon was able to work us out without having to get out and push. When we made it to the parking lot we were only the third car there and parked in the back knowing several more were following.

The other two families hadn't set anything up yet, wondering if we were really going to stay, since it seemed likely to get more rain. I decided not to wait since we were hungry and started a fire get our dinner going. While I worked on dinner Gordon set up our tent and bedding.

Dinner was delicious

In a Dutch oven:
Brown minute rice
Zucchini
onion
peppers (red and orange)
water
butter
salt
garlic

On the grill:
Steaks marinaded in Steakhouse sauce

Mmmm Mmmm

Dessert was harder to get going. I had forgotten our can opener and wanted to make peach cobbler. As each family arrived I asked to borrow their opener but it turned out no other families brought one. Most of them brought fast food they picked up on the way for their dinners. Finally Gordon opened the cans for me using a mallet and a steak knife.

When the bishop arrived he brought with him a huge canopy. It was complicated and took several men quite a while to set up. We teased them the whole time that setting up that monster was our rain insurance. Boy were we wrong. Half way during marshmallow roasting the down pour started. Thirty or so bodies crammed together under the canopy to try and stay dry. The rain kept going and going. We had thoughts of trying to drive home. But since the road was so bad coming in, we didn't think we could make it out, it being even wetter and in the dark. After about forty-five minutes or so Gordon and I decided we should try and put our children to bed. Our tent was soaked, lots of water had leaked in. So much so that we decided to move to our car. We layed the back seat down and pushed the middle seats up as far as they could go and set out for the worst sleep in our lives. Most of our blankets had been soaked, a couple were only damp so the five of us tried to lay together under the two damp blankets to stay warm. Lily eventually moved to sleep in the front seats with the small blanket. I had to keep Abigail on my chest for her to fall asleep and that took quite a while.

The rain finally stopped and a few adults wandered out to gather around the campfire. This is the part of camping I love the most. I love staring into the fire and watching the flames. I love chatting late into the night. I love gazing up and seeing stars. Two more couples joined our group late. Apparently one couple's truck had slid off the road and were stuck for two hours. They honked their horn but we never heard them. Cellphones had no service in this little canyon. So they waited and luckily another couple were coming late and found them and gave them a ride in.

Here we are around the campfire:





When Gordon and went to lay down it was a tight squeeze in the van. The sleeping pads didn't do much to hide the metal rivets where seats fasten to the floor. But I think the worst part was around two or three my cell phone started beeping with the low-battery warning. In the dark I couldn't find the thing. I tried two or three times to search for it without waking the girls. It beeped about every five minutes until six am when it was finally light enough that I found it hiding in a crevice between the passenger seat and the door.

The next morning dawned with beautiful sunshine. The bishop bric made us a hearty breakfast and the primary had games and prizes for the kids. We really loved playing and getting to know better our ward. We want to come next year for the ward campout but hope they choose a weekend a little less wet.



Our unused tent


Lily


Eve


Abigail


Our sleeping quarters


The survivors!

Last Week of Summer: Day 3-5

I'm sorry I'm so slow writing this. Our lives caught up with me. We continued to have fun and on Wednesday we went to the park. Wednesday is "park day" for our ward so we met several friends there which is fun.

Thursday Lily had a friend over to our house to play.

And Friday we went camping! Which is a whole other post.

Last Week of Summer: Day 2

We woke up this morning to a gray drizzly which was disappointing since we were hoping to go to the zoo. The girls have been to the zoo with my Mom when she was here last March. Well, I decided to tempt fate and drive down there anyways, planning on going to Explora if the rain was too much. We picked up one of Lily's friends to join us too. When we got to the zoo it was just misting so we went for it. The trip was a success, we were never rained out. Abigail's favorite animals seem to be flamingos, she was shrieking with delight and saying bird over and over again. Lily's favorite animal seemed to be the polar bear, she kept telling me about it as we were headed in, that it was the coolest exhibit, and to make sure we got there. Eve's favorite animal wasn't the monkey's, but not because of the animals. To see the monkeys you walk across a wooden bridge into the middle of the cages. The bridge freaked her out and I had to carry her across to keep her with the group. She refused to raise her head and even look at the monkeys. She loved watching the elephants and the trains. We didn't go for a ride on the zoo train, but Eve loved seeing them, and begging to ride on them. Lily's friend was great to have along too. She kept Lily on task reminding her that I had asked them to stay on "Abigail speed" and not run ahead. I will not mind having her along with us again.