El Paso trip: December 4

I've been home from El Paso for four days now. I can't believe it has taken me this long to post these pictures and chronicle the time I spent with Jesse's family last week ... but I've had a nasty cold and sore throat that kind of put me off! I'm determined to write our little story tonight because I have so much yet to do to prepare for Christmas ... so it's now or never.
My flights to El Paso were totally without incident. When we took off from Grand Rapids, the skies were cloudy and remained that way as we flew across the country until just about ... to the mountains! I was so glad the clouds cleared away so that I could finally see ground and mountains!
I landed on time at the El Paso airport, very excited to greet Jesse and the little kids ...
This is a not-very-good picture of them standing by the beautiful tree inside the airport. It was about 60 degrees outside at 5:00 p.m. El Paso time ... I was dressed in layers of sweaters and jackets, etc. ... but it felt weird to see this beautiful Christmas tree in such mild weather. We enjoyed many hugs at the airport and then had to hightail it out of there ~ some guy was absolutely begging us to get in line and have our picture taken with Santa Clause right there at the airport. The line was about a mile long. The picture was supposed to be free ... but we had other things to do!
I shipped Christmas packages ahead of me to El Paso, but also birthday presents for Chris. We decided to open Chris's birthday presents Saturday night but wait until Sunday to celebrate our early Christmas together. I had a few special things for all of the children in my suitcase, just to ease the pain of waiting.
So Chris opened up his LEGO Toy Story 3 Army jeep and Army guys ...
... along with a LEGO Buzz Lightyear and Woody with a pullback race car.
Since we had a LEGO expert right on hand, we let Jesse put the models together for us.
Aren't they cute? I've always loved LEGOs and think they are one of the best toys ever made.
I also brought a Snakes and Ladders game that was really a 48-piece puzzle that you had to assemble before you could play the game. We had a great time doing both!
Christopher was really pleased with his LEGOs. We had a nice time Saturday night just catching up on news, playing games, reading stories, etc. I was keenly aware that Sunday was going to be the only day of my trip where I actually had the entire day to spend with the kids ... they would have to return to school on Monday!