Palo Duro Canyon

We headed out on our big roadtrip Friday morning, the 22nd.  Anton was loaded up in the Jeep with his 3 buddies and all their gear.

One of our many pitstops...

We made to Palo Duro Canyon Friday evening.  It's just south of Amarillo.  Everything is flat, and then the earth opens up to a beautiful canyon.

The boys at their campsite.  Tony, Anton, Anna and I stayed at this very same site the last time we all roadtripped together - 5 years ago when Anna was 9 months old.  I could remember having a big blanket layed out for her here trying to keep her from crawling off the edge and eating the rocks.

They joined us at our site for a bit after some mountain biking.  Tony went with them too, but he had come back sooner.  I think it's pretty cool that my 50-something husband can bike faster than a group of 18 year old boys :).

We built little fire that night to make smores.

I saw this deer.

The girls love hanging out in the tent!

Earlier in the day when the boys were riding, I made the girls go for a hike with me.

My cute little hikers!  They actually complained and wanted to go back.  I kept telling them "just a little more, then we'll turn around".  I think they mainly didn't like that it was so hot.  They did enjoy a lot of things along the way, like the big rocks and little flowers.

They look like they're having a good time!

This was right after we turned around.  They liked the little bridge and weren't scared crossing it at all.  They were cracking me up on the way back.  Emma had a deep voice trying to sound like a man I guess, saying "this way or that way" at every turn.  Anna would confirm the right direction and off they would charge.

I think this was dusk that night.  It did cool off a little.

The girls love just playing around the campsite.There were a couple of these little posts that they liked perching on. 

Tony made his little rope swing.  It provides for hours of entertainment!

On Saturday, we spent the hot afternoon at a little cafe/gift shop in the canyon.  We let the girls have ice cream.

The boys got some too.

The girls picked some flowers for me the next morning.

One of the boys got a flat, and Anna helped Tony fix it.

Back to the cafe on Saturday... Anton was downloading/watching all his GoPro videos.  The girls were fascinated.  My pictures are a little out of order from downloading from 2 different cameras...

After the cafe, it was still dreadfully hot, so we headed up to the visitors center at the top of the canyon.  The girls fell asleep.  I forgot to make sure Emma went to the bathroom before we got in the car... oops!

Smores are yummy!

So are pancakes!!  I think I was riding my bike when this was happening.  It was dreadfully hot there in the afternoons, but there are really great mountain bike trails there.  I had lots of fun riding!!

My cute little campers!!!!

We headed out around lunchtime Sunday and headed for Colorado.  Here's Junior's spot in the van.  You can tell he's real excited about riding in a car.  At least he enjoys the destinations!!

I love America!!!  There's so many awesome places here, and I'm so thankful for the freedom to enjoy it all!

Goodbye and Hello!

GOODBYE...

Before I was married with children, I had another life. I worked at KBR downtown for 5 years and had a really nice group of single friends (I did lots of other cool things when I was single which I will blog about in a few days, but it's not relevant to this post :). We used to go out on the town and do lots of fun stuff together. One by one, we all started getting married and having kids. I was the last. :) One of these KBR friends just moved to London a couple of weeks ago. We had a little reunion down at Memorial Park to say goodbye to Ken and Susan and Sydney and Matthew the Saturday before they left. Tony runs into Ken so now and then at work, they were even on the same flight back from London a few days before the party. Anyway, it was really fun to spend some time with my old friends and their cute kids. We got there a little early so we played at a playground for a few minutes.

My friend Allison...

We met at Beck's Prime, a little restaurant by the driving range.  The girls found some little toy golf clubs out back.

Here's everyone's kids.  Emma wasn't into the group shot...

And the grown ups... We pray lots of blessings for Ken and Susan and their kids for career and family life in London!

HELLO TEXAS TECH!!  The next morning Tony and Anton flew out to Lubbock for orientation.

They ran into Mr. Biel, one of Anton's old band directors at KHPS.  He went to TTU and lives in Lubbock now.

I guess there's a giant chess set on campus.  Anton now has his TTU student ID and a class schedule for the fall with freshman electrical engineering classes!!