Here we go a-spelunking

We went spelunking.....















It was a great day today. After omelettes (Fr. sp.) for breakfast we took long ride through beautiful scenery and we went to Carlsbad N.M.


The kids were great on the trip because we had CDs to watch. They were totally blown away with the caves.




After we got home the kids had nachos for dinner ("Grandad, you make the best nachos"), we were preparing our dinner as they sang this lovely????? melody about telephones.

The World Famous El Paso Zoo and The Cross-eyed Moose

The kids got up really early yesterday and drove 2 hours to the zoo in El Paso. They met with a new friend Nathan and had a few hours of fun looking at the animals and then went once more to Peter Piper Pizza. They have visited three of the 12 PPPs in ELP!

Here's Col eating breakfast before the trip....




Colin, Anna and Nathan on a tiger...


.
Giraffes doing a sexy dance...




And the sea lion show....



The Cross-eyed Moose is where we enjoyed Sunday morning breakfast.

Col ate a monster breakfast. Anna mimicked the moose.








Colin explained how you should pick up a crawdaddy......

Osha Trail Revisited, this time with Grandkids

We have enjoyed this hike many times over the years we spent living in El Paso.

Today we packed a picnic lunch and headed out of town. The trail is a mere 2 minutes drive from the village!

The kids loved it and there were zero complaints and very few yarls. The only low point was when someone dropped half her BBQ sandwich onto the dirty trail. We used the 5 second rule and wiped off the muddy side. Nah, just kidding,

Here it is in pictures and video.

Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast this morning was well received. Not only did we have good food but the meal was celebrated by two separate Sonic Booms. Of course, this time we knew what the noise and shake was all about.

Here is a vid of the kids enjoying the meal. We are going on a hike this morning. The route is yet to be decided; we may revisit Osha or we may go to Sunspot where there is an observatory.





And after breakfast the kids played for a while.....



Then we went on our picnic lunch trail walk to Sunspot N.M. -where there are lots of telescopes- but as you will see we got rained/hailed out. But it was fun.

Horseback Riding Adventures

We drove to Ruidoso to Grindstone Stables. On the way we felt and heard a big 'boom-boom' on the side/roof of the car. "What was that?"
Nana said. "Dunno, I didn't see anything" said I........
Turns out that 15 mins later when we arrived at the stables they were talking about the sonic boom which we too had experienced.

Anyway we all got fitted out for horses and went up the mountain about 500 feet by a lake and we saw a deer who was apparently guarding her fawn from a coyote. We saw her on guard and got the rest of the story from the lead cowboy. He reported it back to Kevin 30 mins later so I guess it was true....

Here are the pics and the vids....

Day Two----IMAX and Space Museum, plus Hot Tub

We went 'downtown' to thriving Alamogordo where there is an IMAX theater and the Space Museum. We rushed thru the 4 floors of the museum because we had reserved two hours of for scheduled shows at the IMAX and wanted to be on time .
Here are some snaps of the museum.












The IMAX was really good with the first hour explaining our position and status in the universe, then the second hour was a terrific account of the troubles encountered with the Hubble telescope after it was launched in 1990 and the arduous task of making repairs using large lenses not unlike contact lenses to repair the faulty mirror.

Big Day in Cloudcroft

The Martins are here, well, two of them are.

We picked up Colin and Anna in El Paso yesterday and after eating lunch drove back to Cloudcroft.
The kids love it here and having a good time so far. Lots of activities are planned for the next two weeks so I will have blog fodder for a while.
Here we are meeting them at the airport...


And then we went to lunch at Nana's brand new restaurant...

More Peter Piper fun....

Arriving at the cabin in Cloudcroft,


Anna pops the bag.