Hiking

One of our favorite things to do is hiking as a family.  In El Paso the ideal hiking season is Fall/Winter.  This blog post is a collection of pictures from many Saturday hiking trips.

At one location there is a cement reservoir at the beginning.  It's fun to climb up and slide down.

We carry the twins are our backs with either the hiking backpack or baby carrier.

Andrew and Sylvia are great hikers!  We call them our little mountain lions.

We have even gone on some moderately difficult hikes and were always impressed by the kids.

Daddy and Christian.

We have hiked many trails all a part of Franklin Mountain State Park.

It's a beautiful mountain range complete with cacti and other desert flora and luckily we haven't run into any rattlesnakes or scorpions.

This was at the top of one of the more steep hikes.  We made it!

Sometimes the twins like to get out of their carriers to walk around too!

On our way up the side of the mountain.

We've done this trail a couple of times now but it is challenging up near the top.

Andrew doesn't need any help.

He did it!  He definitely looks like a mountain lion in this picture.

Sylvia looks proud of herself too!

We asked another hiker to take our picture.

This is the view from the top, you can see the trail and parking lot down below.

We love spending time in Nature!

The twins are so cute.  Maybe next year they won't need to be carried anymore.

I love this picture because of the sun's rays.  The kids are about the cross the bridge.

Here we are at Aztec caves.  The lighting isn't great but it's cool to see the landscape below and behind us.

Another shot from inside looking outside of the caves.  The caves don't go down into the mountain, this is taken from as deep as they go.  We always take a little break and have a snack in the caves.

Sometimes Sylvia needs Daddy's help going down the steep parts.  Mommy thinks going down is always the hardest part because of the steepness and loose rocks.  But Daddy is always there to help everyone!

Saturday hikes can be tiring but they are always worth it.

We've been hiking mountains together as a family since Rachel was just pregnant with Andrew.

Looks like we've raised quite the hikers!

It is fun to live in another place we can keep up this fun family pastime!

Vancouver Funeral

Tyler's Grandma Carson passed away at age 90 on September 19, 2018. He flew back to Vancouver, Washington to attend the funeral in October. 

Here is a view of mount on the trip from the Portland Airport to Grandma Carson's house

All of Tyler's immediate family were able to attend the funeral, in addition to all of his aunts, uncles, and most of his cousins from the Carson side of the family. While everyone was obviously sad that we wouldn't see Grandma Carson anymore in this life, we were all happy to see each other after so many years and celebrated Grandma Carson's life by reminiscing on all the fond memories we have of her. 

Tyler's family sang the hymn, "Nearer My God, to Thee" at the funeral service which took place at the local Methodist Church where Grandma attended. Here they are during one of their rehearsals.

Grandma Carson was buried in the cemetery next to her husband, Forrest Carson, who had died from an accident in 1971 and her youngest son Robert Carson, who died in 2014 from health problems. Here is a picture of all the surviving Carson children at the graveside service: Joyce, Linda, Kent, Marty, Greg, and Joe.

It was a very sweet service and Tyler had a chance to meet a lot of the friends Grandma Carson had from church. Tyler's dad even put together a slide show which was shown during the service highlighting some of the events from Grandma Carson's life

There was a wonderful turnout of friends and family to celebrate Dorothy's life. 

Here are some pictures that were on display at the funeral. These must have been taken before the youngest son, Robert, was born:

Grandma Carson's photo from her senior yearbook.

Tyler's other grandparents lived a short drive away so he was able to visit them during that trip also. Tyler's entire immediate family was able to attend the Portland Temple with Grandma and Grandpa Christensen.

After going to the temple the family went out to dinner at a nearby restaurant.

Grandma and Grandpa Christensen moved into an assisted living center some years ago. Grandma's health had been declining in recent years but they had a very nice set up in their home.

Tyler was very glad to have the opportunity to see his only surviving Grandparents last October. (Grandma Christensen died in Early February and Tyler wasn't able to attend her funeral because he deployed to Afghanistan that same weekend.) 

While it was a sad, somber event which triggered this impromptu family reunion for Tyler and his family, they made some very happy memories during their time in Vancouver/Portland. 

Thanksgiving

For this Thanksgiving post I wanted to start with sharing some of our family pictures we had taken in November.

Andrew is so handsome, but he likes to be called cute still.

I love this smiling one.

Sylvia is so precious!

Our Mel Mel girl.

She did not show her personality for the camera as much as the other kids.

Sweet buddy boy Christian!

Those suspenders are my favorite.

The twins with Daddy.

Our family picture we ended up using for our 2018 Christmas card.

So thankful for you!

We got to join Andrew for a Thanksgiving lunch!

The all the kids enjoyed the turkey, stuffing, beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, and small slice of pumpkin pie.

Grateful for these cuties!

I love moments like this.  One day we had lunch at Sam's club after shopping.  You can see how excited they are for their pizza and slushies.  Believe it or not Andrew can eat that entire mega slice himself.

I'm also grateful for the sweet moments with the kids.  Even bedtime for the twins.  They love reading books and this picture of Daddy reading to them is so cute.

For Thanksgiving dinner we invited our friends the Calls to join us.  They have four kids about our kids' ages and they had fun playing together.  Here Andrew is helping me ahead of time.  He was good at adding the marshmallows to the sweet potatoes.

Here is a pic of some of the food and the dessert table.  Instead of a turkey we cooked several Cornish games hens.  We had pumpkin pie, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and walnuts, and a chocolate pie with mini chocolate chips on top.  We had a lot of food and good company!

Another evening over Thanksgiving break we went for a hike together.

The kids like the steep part.

Christian just wants to run!

Melody likes to be snuggled with Mommy.

We love our desert home.

There was a beautiful sunset as we were finishing our hike.

Feeling so grateful!

What a happy Thanksgiving!!!