Second Stop: Dallas area

Just outside of Amarillo, we saw something I needed to stop at.

Cadillac Ranch:

Where vandalism is encouraged

Fostering delinquents:

Don't you dare boy!

I couldn't stop taking pictures. 

The colors were too wonderful. 

And so were the people.

Another casualty of Covid = David's chest hair

The Iris Village

Weird soda.

David: mustard

Iris: cucumber

Sarah: pickle

Elijah: PB&J

We made a stop for a few days in Ponder to visit David's cousin and my childhood friend, Emilee.

Playing king of the ottoman:

Water Park
I saw a kid with a 2 foot long rat tail. It was spectacular!

Elijah found some new BFFs. 

He has since overtaken my phone and sends multiple messages to his new friends in Ponder. 

They have even had a few late night movie watching parties on FaceTime.

Not to be outdone by Iris' friends. 

One morning I woke up with 298 tests on my phone from Iris' friends.

     Emilee told me that Sybil told her again (as she did when Emilee came to visit in AZ in Jan), "You sound like my GG." This is one of the highest compliments possible.
    On the morning we left, I went for a solo run and ran past Denton County Cowboy Church. Perfect ending.

First Stop: Santa Fe

One last cousins outing before we took off:

We did our zoom church meeting and listened to cousin David's homecoming speech 

as we headed north to Santa Fe. It made me think about my homecoming. My testimony of the gospel is no different than when I was on a mission, and not even a whole lot different than when I was a child. But it's like my wrinkles, more visible: habits wearing into the dermis of my life.

All agreed that I was a failure as a family historian because I didn't catch a pic of 2 unabashed little mooning butts in the air in front of the "welcome to New Mexico" sign. Those girls had no shame as they faced the highway, not even bothering to search for a bush.

Elijah found an exact replica of the event in his Nilla box.

Sarah braided the kids' hair beautifully

and handsomely:

We happened upon the Mormon Battalion monument in the middle of nowhere:

Santa Fe: The oldest capital in the US

Overgrown, abandoned courtyard garden

A socially responsable statue

Vacant streets

Rewind to Memorial Day

Happy Fathers' Day!
We are in Nola. Elijah and Claire are still asleep. Sybil is hanging with GG and Iris is in the shower.
So, time to catch up with life.

Memorial Day wasn't as big this year. There are just a few left in my grandpa's generation. It's getting more difficult for them to get around and with pandemic precautions still hovering, the Memorial Day group was significantly smaller.

The Nick and Sybil great-grandkids at their graves.

Happy Father's Day to David. I'm not good at getting sappy, but he's pretty great.
He bought himself a new road bike to celebrate his fatherhood.
And I didn't balk too much at the cost.
Oh, and happy 17th anniversary!

Juneteenth in Texas

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of their skin,
or his background, or his religion.
People must learn to hate,
and if they learn to hate,
they can be taught to love,
for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."
Nelson Mandela

A few days ago we met David's childhood friends for lunch. Sybil asked if Dominique and Jamie were her dad's brothers. They all said yes. Dominique and Jamie are black.
The word "colorblind" is a politically loaded word. Nobody could be or should be colorblind. Only little kids have that unique pleasure.
There will be no riots in the celestial kingdom. There will be justice and equality and love. Only those who have worked for those will enter.

Cousin fun

So much to catch up on! 

Looking back at the pictures, the best words to sum it all up are "cousin fun." 

I know I should arrange these pictures better, but that Sunday nap is calling my name.

Real time update: We just came back from sacrament meeting at my sister's house. The whole family was there for cousin David's mission homecoming. His Spanish is impressive. 

The testimonies borne were wonderful. They agreed that David's mission had changed the family.

Claire is on a call with one of David's clients on how to become a multi-millionaire. 

Elijah, Iris, Sybil and Sarah (our friend from Mexico who will be staying with us for the summer) are playing Life.

Sarah has joined us at exactly the wrong time. We we are at the tail end of a week of curfew because of riots and looting at a mall that's a few miles from our house. And of course there's the pandemic with most things still closed. And we are about to head to New Orleans, which is in the middle of an active hurricane season!

[The napping desire overtook me and the rest of this was written while the girl cousins are in the other room playing. The boys are spending the night in Gilbert]

I feel like these pics are from another age...so long ago, but actually within the last month.

Girl time with cousins and Claire's best buddy, Lucy. 

Lucy usually goes to France for the summer, but is able to spend more time with Claire this summer due to travel restrictions.

Cousins painting

Claire got a drum set for her bday, which I may regret at some point.

Cousin drum lesson:

Cousin wrestling

Cousin nail-painting

Cousin doll playing

Cousin cooking

Claire made GG's mother's famous praline recipe with my mom and Esie.

Cousin board games

Poker and Risk have been games of choice.

Cousin biking

Bike park:

BMX wipe-outs.

One of those knees is mine. Yes, I BMXed too. Elijah dared me to go on the see-saw. 

Disaster ensued.

The dog enjoys the fresh meat. 

Horse camp.

We took a time out from a Harry Potter movie (Claire is halfway through the audiobooks so we have started the movies again) to see the space station fly across the sky.

The kids found a bird egg outside and made a little nest for it.

Some stores require masks:

This bad-quality pic is us going meet David at Tortas Paquime for salchicha breakfast burritos.

With the amount of biking and exercising David has been doing lately, I suspect he will soon qualify for the Olympics.

David got a fancy new bike named "black beauty" which means Elijah got the hand-me-down:

The day Sarah flew in, we decided to go tubing down the Salt River. This is the first time I we had done it. Tube rentals are $20, so we bought a bunch of $2 tubes and went by ourselves--about 15 of us. The scenery was beautiful (minus the polluted water) but the water was freezing, especially with the setting sun.

And Claire is 12!!!! 

I need to do a special post for her because she is absolutely wonderful!

I want to be Claire when I grow up.

Her friends threw her a party complete with decorating, games, and lots of kids from church and cousins, of course.

On the actual day of her bday she chose to eat pupusas, of course.