Pic from party

Brooke (and Lily's) Birthday

We arrived just in time to celebrate Brooke and Lily's birthday. They are Mitch's sisters on his dad's side. The kids seemed to like the 24 foot inflateable water slide called the "Jaws" the best.  (Will add pic later.) We've all had fun!

The Jaws of Death

The 24 foot "Jaws." Yes, Mitch and I went down it. It was really fun! We got to be kids again right along with Brooke and Lily! Thanks you two for letting us celebrate with you!

First Day on Road Trip

Here are more picture from the Caverns. We didn't get to see the bats leave that night while at the mouth of the cave, we just got to see them from the parking lot, due to bad weather. There were thousands that came from the cave and yet, on our hike down we didn't see any. Those caverns are so large. Yet not the biggest in the world. Wow. We took the self guided audio tour, which was interesting, and good for us so we could go at our own pace. I recommend it really.

Our Summer Road Trip Begins

So I failed at getting the blog updated while Mitch was at officer training, but now we both have the goal to "post as we go" on this road trip of ours. We'll be making a big circle around the western U.S. We started out on Thursday at 2:30am and that day made it to the Carlsbad caverns in New Mexico. The picture above is from The Gila Valley area of Arizona. We were there at sunrise. The scene was very amazing. Unfortunately the massive bug population forced us to take picture from inside the car and so not too many turned out that good. Beautiful place, I recommend the trip! We are now in San Antonio visiting Mitch's Dad's family.

We passed The Gila Valley Temple just as the sun came over the mountains. I had to wake up Mitch to see it, but he was glad. :) We even got to see EAC (Eastern Arizona College). A place we've heard a lot about but never saw. It was smaller than we thought.


We made our way to the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico next and made it just in time to take the Natural opening down to the famous "Big Room". It was very impressive. It's hard to imagine that much empty space is below a mountain.

Baby Keirgan

July 26. Little Keirgan joins the family. He's perfect and healthy and Alyeska let us steal him away as much as we could before we left on our road trip. She sends me my "daily Keirgan pictures" so I don't forget how cute he is. Can't wait to see him when we get back!

Keeping cool on the ice with family at James' birthday party.