Our last day in El Paso ...

Grandpa Jones and I shared some special time with Matthew again today while Ems and Chris were at school. We colored. We built huge towers with megablocks. We enjoyed a nice lunch together. We played more games of Memory. I think all of us enjoyed every little minute of our time together.

Chris and Emma came home from school and with having to do homework with Emma and then get ready for her ballet class, the afternoon flew by too quickly. I was so happy to be able to see Emma dressed up in her ballet practice outfit, meet her instructor(s) and peek through the window of her class as she worked out. Tonight, all of the little girls in her class were trying on their beautiful ballet costumes for the Christmas pageant of the Nutcracker. Emma was so excited to show hers to Diana and Grandpa and and I. I took a few quick shots of her running in the hallway with her pretty yellow ballerina dress, but all of them blurred! I'm hoping Diana's pictures turned out!

We had fun eating dinner at Wendy's and then returned home to have the children get cleaned up for bed. We did a little more art work together, and then Emma and I did her reading homework together. She has a lot of reading to do every night for a first grader. I don't remember having it this rough when I was her age! We got all ready for bed, did her reading, and then cuddled for awhile and talked about how sad we were that this was our last day together.

We helped tuck everyone in ... a few times actually ... lots of hugs and kisses, prayer, some laughter ... but mostly a lot of sad little faces. Sad doesn't begin to describe my heart at this moment. It doesn't get any easier, no matter how many times we come to Texas or the grandchildren come home to us ... I guess that's just the way it is. I'll try to add in our pictures in the next few days so that you can see these beautiful little ones. Jesse should return home to his family in the next 3-4 weeks ~ knowing that helps me feel a tiny bit better.

A quiet day at home ...

Monday came too quickly! Emma and Christopher returned to school for the day, and Grandpa and I arrived over at Diana's late morning to spend some time with just her and Matthew. Diana had a few errands to run, so Grandpa and I had a rare opportunity to actually spend some one-on-one time with Matthew. Being the baby of the family has its disadvantages as well as advantages ... but the downside is that your older siblings are always around, crowding out any special attention you might otherwise get!

Grandpa and I made the most of our time today with this littlest Pahman and got to know him a little bit better. We colored with him. We read books to him. Grandpa played a computer game with him. I played a memory game with him (which he enjoyed hugely ... especially when he beat me!). The time went quickly by. I'm thankful we have a few hours tomorrow to spend with him this way too.

Grandpa Jones and the kiddos, playing an educational computer game!

Christopher and Emma came home from school and we decided to just continue with some of our art projects. Emma had homework to do and was able to get it all done rather quickly. All of the kids really like to sit around their kitchen table and do almost any kind of art work you give them to do. We did thumbprint pictures for a very long time. I just love to do these kinds of pictures with little kids. They have the smallest thumbs! We made thumbprint pictures of pigs, dinosaurs, pirates, pumpkins, skelatons, fish, birds, etc.

After a yummy mac & cheese and hotdog dinner, we got all of our playdough toys out and spent a really enjoyable hour and a half making everything from turtles to snakes to puppy dogs! I wasn't sure what we would do with the children today, but I'm glad we got to do these activities with them, tuck them into bed, pray with them and love on them. They are three beautiful little children!

What is more fun than playing with a bunch of playdough?!

The other side of the mountain ...

La Union Maze (and pumpkin patch)

Ft. Bliss sits at the base of the Franklin Mountains. They are not tremendously high mountains, but I think they are very beautiful. They cast shadows around the base. The sun sets behind them. Sometimes they are gray, sometimes purple ... their colors change with the day. Last July when Grandpa Jones and I flew into El Paso to say good-bye to Jesse before his deployment, he picked us up at the airport (which is less than a mile from their house) and instead of taking us right there, he drove us up one side of the mountain and down the other side. I loved it! I love heights. The views are stunning from up there.

I keep forgetting that El Paso is a border town ... Juarez (Mexico) is within sight, and New Mexico isn't far away either. After our disappointment in not finding a pumpkin patch yesterday, Diana looked around at sites in New Mexico and found one, only about 25+ miles from the base ... on the other side of the mountain! We were going to go to La Union Maze in Anthony, New Mexico! The kids were so excited! As we drove up the side of the mountain, we sang the little song: "The bear went over the mountain." It was only about a 35 minute drive to the pumpkin patch in New Mexico ... and it seems like almost everybody in the border region had the very same destination in mind! Whew ... it was SO crowded! We were able to use Di and Jesse's military discount to get in and saved ourselves $2 per ticket.

The giant and very fast tube slide!

Christopher loved it!

There was a giant tube slide the kids enjoyed for awhile. There were three gigantic corn mazes to explore. We only did one of them because after waiting an hour to purchase our tickets in the blazing hot sun, we were tired before we ever got through the gate! We actually did rest awhile under a large tent while the children watched and fed the rabbits. There was a nice hayride that took us out to the pumpkin patch. Wow, what a rugged piece of country this is! Right back to the old West! But it was a beautiful pumpkin patch with the mountains in the background, surrounded by cotton fields and as well as jalapeno peppers growing everywhere, and dusty, dry pathways throughout.

Running through one of the many corn mazes
Since there were so many people there today,
we had to keep the kids pretty close to us!
We didn't want anyone lost in these mazes!

This is a cotton plant. This flower turns into
a bulb of cotton!

This is a pumpkin plant ... this small yellow
flower turns into a ... PUMPKIN!

Feeding these bunnies gave the kids
so much JOY!

Matthew, posing very nicely for me!

The children picked out very tiny pumpkins (not big enough to carve, but just right to paint) and we carried them back to the hay wagon. There were really long lines for every activity and the kids were really exhausted from being in the hot sun. I think their favorite part of the afternoon was feeding and watching the cute bunnies. I love to watch the tenderness of children with animals, don't you? I love their fascination with every little creature.

An almost pumpkin patch, and a ranch ...

Edit: Some pictures have now been inserted ~ 10/20/08

Last night I was checking my e-mail and I received one from our daughter-in-law, Rachel, telling me about a pumpkin patch not too terribly far from Ft. Bliss ~ maybe a 45 minute drive! When Grandpa Jones and I were in San Antonio, Rachel had told us about a website that she often uses to find children's activities ... go city kids dotcom ... and then you type in whatever city you need to find stuff to do with kids. We tried that for El Paso and didn't come up with much that we had not already done in the past two visits here. But Rachel looked further and discovered a pumpkin patch at Williams River Farms that boasted pumpkin painting, corn mazes, hay rides and other wonderful fall activities! Thank you Rachel! Grandpa Jones found out that this little farm was only 7 miles further down the interstate we were going to take to Indian Bluff Ranch today ~ excellent! Two fun activities in one afternoon ... what could be better?

We told Di and the children about it as soon as we arrived at the house this morning. Everyone was SO excited. We decided to do some art projects at home first, eat a nice lunch, and then take off for the pumpkin patch and ranch.

We had a great time with our art projects. Since the children had asked several times about their Grandma and Grandpa Hand, as well as their Grandpa Pahman and Uncle Shane, we decided to make them some sticker pictures. Before I left for our trip, I paid a visit to Michael's and got a bunch of foam stickers from the clearance rack. We made beautiful snowmen pictures with them. Hopefully, I'll post those pictures soon. I asked Emma who her two pictures were for and gave her a bunch of choices. She decided one should go to her daddy, so she put that one on his desk; and then the other one she made especially for her Uncle Shane. Christopher decided one of his pictures was for Grandpa Hand and the other one for his Grandpa Pahman. Matthew wanted his picture to be given to his Grandma Hand. We're going to hopefully make more pictures tomorrow and add these to the ones we made today.

Emma showing me her picture she made for Uncle Shane

We took off for the pumpkin patch at about 2:00 this afternoon. We followed the directions very carefully. These back roads in Texas are not well marked (a total understatement), but we finally arrived at the address noted on the internet (on Hole in the Wall Road ~ I'm NOT kidding!) but the fence was locked and gated and there was not a single soul in sight! Oh my. Such sadness sank down on our little troup ... further down the road we asked about Williams River Farms and were told it had closed down!

Just outside Indian Bluff Ranch

Thankfully, Indian Bluff Ranch was just another 15 minutes away. We went here with the kids last September and had a really good afternoon there ... and they remembered it. It's a pretty rugged place, out in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Which reminds me ... as we were driving along looking for the pumpkin patch that wasn't, Emma kept asking me where we were. I kept telling her we were out in the middle of nowhere ... which for some reason she and Christopher found amusing.

Anyway, we saw HUGE ostriches, sweet little rabbits, goats, rattle snakes, deer, duck, buffalo, llama, long horns, little donkeys ... not quite as up close and personal as on the Safari we took in Austin with Sabrina and the kids ... but still, pretty close. Wait until you see the pictures of Christopher. In almost all of the pictures, he has his little nose pinched closed with his fingers. He has NO tolerance for stinky smells ... remember the pictures I took of him this past summer out at the strawberry farm with the little petting zoo? He cracks me up. Actually, though, I have a similar intolerance!

We met a couple of horses: Comanche and Flash. We watched the worker feeding them and stayed for awhile to pet them. Diana gets along extremely well with animals of all kinds, and so really enjoyed all of this.

Oh! We did get to enjoy a maze afterall ... an Indian Maze ... and we let the children lead us through it to see if they could find their way out. They couldn't! And since I am totally directionally challenged, no one followed me at all! We finally found our way out quite by accident.

There is a wonderful playground there at the ranch called Fort Apache, patterned after what a real fort would have looked like back in the day. The kiddos ran and climbed and pretended and made friends ... and got hot and tired and completely exhausted there! I thought the day turned out tremendously well, even with being disappointed about the pumpkin patch.

We ate some fast food for dinner and then went home for baths and bedtime. While Emma was in the shower, the boys and I did some little stickers books together. Christopher worked on a shark book and Matthew did an animal sticker book. And then while Chris and Matthew were bathing, I gave Emma a little sticker book I found for her entitled, "Everyone Loves Emma" ~ it's like a little paper doll with sticker clothes that you can change on and off.

Diana thinks that if I try to load pictures on my blog while over at her house, I may have better success. So perhaps Monday while Ems and Chris are at school, I will give it a try. I hope it works because you will just love these pictures ...