Settled in El Paso- March

Many people have asked us how life is in El Paso.  This post aims to highlight our new norm and some adventures we've taken in the El Paso area.

We live in the desert but enjoy mountains still!  There actually is a mountain range that divides the city into the West and East side.  We live in the northeast corner of El Paso.

We are settled in our new house! MOST of the boxes have been unpacked and we really like the way it is set up.  Our master bedroom is so huge we made one half of it the reading room.

We even have a popcorn (apricot) tree in our backyard.

We love all the space we have to play in our yard!  It is one of our favorite parts of our new house.

We have a nice covered cement porch area that makes it enjoyable to be outside any time of day.

Playing on the porch! As you can see we had to get the sprinkler system up and running to get the grass looking better.

Everyone likes to be outside, babies included!  Since it is springtime, the weather has been absolutely perfect!

Our neighbors' cat likes to come visit us sometimes.

This is our dining room area.  The front living/dining room have very high ceilings.  This lets in tons of natural light.  We like it a lot.

These next two pictures are pictures of two sides of the master bedroom upstairs.  All four bedrooms are upstairs.  The babies share and Andrew and Sylvia each get their own.

A princess and a knight.

We have been exploring fun things to do in El Paso because Tyler has not started work yet.  Here we are hiking the Aztec Caves trail.

It was only two-ish miles up to the caves, a gradual uphill until the end where it got pretty steep.  But we all made it!! The kids did great, the babies even napped.  Andrew looks pooped out in this picture.

We had a great view!!  There were two sections of the caves and didn't go deep into the mountain, they were just two big rooms.

Taking a break in the caves!

Heading down was probably harder than going up because the loose rocks made it a bit treacherous during the steep parts.  Christian made it in the selfie!

I love this picture.

Another fun thing we have discovered here in El Paso is the zoo!  The kids loved it so much we got a year pass which paid for itself after the third visit.  Here are pictures from our many zoo trips.

Meerkat family

Arguably, the best parts of the zoo are the splash pad and playground!

The playground is designed to look like a giant tree house and the kids spend most of their time here!

Feeding the babes while the big kids play.

This zoo even has Andrew's favorite animal, the giraffe.

Having fun at the zoo!

The twins are good sports and hang out in their double stroller a lot when we go places.

Parrots!

The kids also love the meerkats.  They are always doing something silly.

This zoo isn't the biggest one we've been to, but it is definitely one of our favorites!

Another one of my favorite pictures- Andrew was walking around next to Daddy with his hands in his pockets, just like Tyler.

White Sands is an hour's drive north.  Tyler's old mission companion lives up in that area so we drove up to meet him and his family and explore White Sands.  They hadn't seen each other in twelve years but had kept in touch through Facebook.

Mommy with two baby carriers.

Our friends brought sleds to ride down the hills.

It was very windy up on the ridges but down in the mini valleys, the weather was perfect!  It was a great day and tons of fun with new friends.  We all got tired out from climbing up and down the dunes.

We've also found some nearby hiking areas.  Christian is all ready for a hike!

Normally Mommy carries Melody in the moby wrap because she is lighter than Christian.

The babies like to sleep during our hikes.

This hiking area is just a few minutes away at the edge of the neighborhood, and it leads right toward the mountains.  We haven't hiked it as far as the trail goes, so we haven't quite made it up the mountains.  But the kids had fun sliding down until we realized it wore holes in both their pants.

We joined the nearby YMCA and Rachel has been attending Zumba classes regularly.  We also enrolled the kids in swim lessons at the YMCA.  It was two days a week for four weeks.  This is a picture of Sylvia on the way to swim lessons.

We saw them improve a lot!  They learned how to get out of the pool in the deep end, how to float on their backs and gained confidence by swimming and jumping in without life jackets.

We also found two museums close to our house.  One is the Border Patrol Museum and Archaeology Museum.  The picture below was us in a recreation of a Native American dwelling.  The kids enjoyed it except for the recreations that had people mannequins, not to mention the slightly violent mammoth hunting replica.

We love our new ward here too!  It is fun making new friends and helping out where we can.  Rachel is a temporary Primary chorister and Tyler is the Sunday School President.  Tyler took a picture of Andrew's first talk.  He got one sentence out before nerves got the better of him.  Mommy had to give the rest of his talk for him.

Family picture taken after church.  We share our building with a Spanish branch.  Our first Sunday we accidentally had the times wrong and attended the Spanish branch's Sacrament meeting.  At least Rachel understood what was said!

After debating about having Andrew attend Pre-k for a couple of months, we decided to enroll him in the Elementary school only two blocks away from our house.  As it turns out, the process of getting him in school was very fast and he was able to start afternoon Pre-k.  Andrew loves going to school and even made some great friends already.  We got into a good routine of drop-off and pickup.  While he was at school Sylvia and the babies napped.  Here is a picture of pickup time (Sylvia is in charge of bringing the popsicles as an after school snack because its hot) and a picture of Andrew playing in his classroom taken by Mommy during a special Mother's Day visit.

We love El Paso!  It is beginning to feel like home!