El Paso Trip: December 12, 2009

Diana picked Emma and I up from the Annex at about 10:00 Saturday morning. This was my last day of three for this very short trip to El Paso, and I wanted to make the most of every single minute.
The sun was brightly shining (again!), so we decided to begin our day over at the Red Playground, which is down the road a little ways and across the street ~ about a five minute walk. You never quite know just what you are going to find at the Red Playground, so there was a lot of happy anticipation ...
I love this picture of Matthew. He has such a sweet little face, doesn't he? By the way, if you think he is a wimpy little kid, think again! He has a will of IRON and if he has his mind made up about something ... just try to dissuade him! I dare you! He was quite pleased to be at the playground and he did climb and jump all over the equipment there, but for this moment, he was showing me the "nice bench."
Emma was climbing on the "roof" of her "house" to show me how sturdy it was. She had me crawl inside and we chatted for a little while in there. Meanwhile, Matthew was in his "house" on the upper deck ...
... and quite pleased to be there too! We were knocking on each others' roofs for awhile, but then Christopher coaxed us to help him build his "volcano."
I don't know if you can see it in this picture, but Chris had a real good time building up the dirt and then we had an explosion and all of the lava came pouring out in little rivers ...
We happened upon a little black beetle bug who Christopher was intent on killing, but I quickly intervened on its behalf (WHO would believe it of me? the avowed insect hater!). I told Christopher that this little bug (it was hardly a half inch long!) wasn't bothering anyone, had no evil intent, couldn't hurt anyone if it tried ... and why didn't we just watch it for a little while and see where it would go and what it would do? That little while turned into at least 20 minutes of Chris making little roads and hillsides, as the bug was walking along, to see if it could climb, etc. In the above picture, Christopher is making a tunnel with his legs for the bug to go under. Matthew is busy talking to it and telling it which way to go! Chris named him Bradley the Black Beetle. The kids thought it was especially funny if Bradley climbed over a little dirt hill and then tumbled down, landing on his back with his legs in the air. He could usually flip himself back over, but sometimes we helped him.
After playing at the Red Playground for about an hour, we walked home and got out our watercolor paints. I had been given permission at church to copy a bunch of nice Bible story pictures to take with me to El Paso for these dear grandchildren. I had about three different pictures of the Christmas story for them to paint ...
All three of them did an incredible job with their paintings! They were SO serious about it and were really really careful. I love watercolors and actually prefer seeing what children will do on a blank piece of paper. But these copied pictures told such a beautiful story and I was right about how much Ems, Chris and Matthew would like them.
Christopher's favorite thing was rinsing his brush out in the cup of water and seeing what the combination of paint would look like ... what color would the water turn?
These three pictures (above) were all painted by Christopher! Didn't he do such a great job?
And here are Matthew's two pictures. He really really likes the black and red paint ...
Emma and I were talking a lot as she painted ~ and she was meticulous about her angel, not wanting any of the colors to mix or the lines to run together ~ so she only got this far. But she has kept all of the unpainted pictures in a drawer in her room so that she can paint them at another time.
I also had a bunch more PENCIL FUN books to share with the kiddos. I remember just loving these when I was a small kid and was so glad to find them at the Christian bookstore.
We read these books as they rubbed their pencils over the pages to reveal the secret pictures. We had a great time reading all of the stories.

We ate a late lunch/early dinner out at the Grand China Buffet and seriously ... it was fabulously delicious food. The kids really like these all-you-can-eat places and they eat really good there. It was just fun to get out of the house for a little while and enjoy a good healthy meal together.

When we returned home, we finished watching the Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Fransisco DVD I had given to the kids for Christmas. They really enjoyed it.

And then Diana gave us a bunch of foam skeleton stickers to make pictures with, so we did that, along with a bunch of other art work for a really long time!

The day had flown by, we had made more happy memories, and now it was time to get ready for bed, have our story and say good-bye. I decided to read the Christmas story out of The Jesus Storybook Bible, because ... I just love the way it is told there. The book was on Emma's bookshelf on her bed. When I took the book off the shelf, there was a tiny spiral notebook inside right at the Christmas story page ... and in that notebook, Emma had been copying word-for-word the Christmas story in quite neat penmanship. She had quite a few pages copied already and told me she had been working on this for a little while to give me as a present. She told me that when she is all finished she will mail that little notebook to me! Isn't she such a sweetheart?

We read the Christmas story. Is there a more beautiful story in all the world? And the children listened, hanging on every single word, their little faces anticipating each event in the story ... the angel Gabriel telling Mary about being chosen by God to bear His Son, the bright shining angels announcing Jesus' birth to the terrified shepherds, the baby King being born in a cattle trough, the wise men following the Light from heaven and bowing before the little holy child ...

We had a precious time together there around the dining room table ... the remembering of it brings tears to my eyes ... and then it was time to tuck the little ones in and head back to the Annex. We had many many hugs and kisses. There were tears too, but sometimes you just have to cry, that's all there is to it!

Jesse drove me back to the Annex. We had a nice talk together. Jesse is getting more involved over at Sunshine Community Church there in El Paso, working on the sound board (is that what it's called?) Diana looked happier than I have seen her for a long time. Her classes have gone well this semester. She got an A in her Biology class, and solid B's in her other two classes. I can't remember having a nicer time together with her. And did I tell you? Diana's parents and her brother are all traveling to El Paso for Christmas. How wonderful! They have not had the opportunity to visit there yet, so I know everyone is looking forward to that.

As for me, I'm marking off the days until mid-March when we head back to Texas ...