Another Long Gap in Blogging

    Hello everyone. I am sorry it has been so long since I have posted. Life is busy now. We spend a lot of time traveling and with our grandchildren. That's probably a strange concept to most of you because until the last post you didn't even know we had any. So I will try to catch you up and keep you caught up this time.

    So we now have eight grandchildren. Our youngest daughter just had our second granddaughter a year ago. Yes, that means six grandsons. We see three of our grandchildren more than others because they live next door to us. We try to spend a lot of time with them all but with one grandson in Florida and the other grandchildren in Sierra Blanca it can be a bit hard. We get to Sierra Blanca much more often. 

   Last year we went to Florida and took care of our grandson, Killian, for the week while his parents went to Cabo, Mexico. He is so much fun and full of energy. He really loves his Papa. 

    We would like to go see him for Christmas this year but we aren't sure about the time off work yet as Stephen is starting a new job. We have not spent a holiday with our oldest son since he moved out of state when he was 18. I don't believe that his wedding counts. He really misses that family holiday feel he remembers from his childhood. 

(More like the food I bet.)

    Stephen had a heart attack about a year ago and he is now on blood pressure medication. He should have been taking it long ago but he had a terrible doctor. She kept telling him he had high blood pressure and he would ask if he needed to be on medication. She said, "No, just lose some weight." His family history alone should have screamed blood pressure medication. His Grandfather had a heart attack in his 40s and his Dad has had heart problems since his 40s and has had numerous heart surgeries and now has a pace maker. 

    Now enjoying life is more important than ever and working is starting to take a backseat to our priorities. We are working on paying off all of our debt so we can just be free. Stephen decided to buy into a time share. Eek right? It actually hasn't been too bad. We keep the best benefits and use them more and we get more out of it. It's also not one of those things where you sign up for a specific time and only can use it for that week at a specific resort. We can use it at thousands of locations and we can even share it with friends and family. We put our friends in a five star resort for a wedding gift. It cost us absolutely nothing. We can use a program we pay a little extra for to get huge discounts at other places so we have put our children up during travels at a moments notice. It's great. Last month we went to New Orleans, Louisiana and stayed in the French Quarter. It cost us less than $200 for the entire stay and that was food and travel expense for five days.

    

Bourbon Street in the French Quarter New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans was pretty bare due to the coronavirus. I'm not sure how everyone feels about Covid-19 and everyone just seems to want to talk about the politics of it all. I know there are all kinds of thoughts on the subject but I just say get out and enjoy the world because some day it will be a million times worse. I think this is probably one of the worst years on record... terrible wildfires, more acts of violence in families due to being confined in one place together, a high hurricane record, violence in the streets, people out of work and unable to provide for their families and all the racial separation and destruction of property. Do we no longer care about each other as a human race? Do we not have empathy for children no matter their color? We are becoming a world of division and destruction. 

 

Beautiful Holly Beach before Hurricane Laura 

       Just across the Texas/Louisiana border is Holly Beach. It's such a pretty place especially in the early mornings. We enjoyed a stroll on the beach just a few days before Hurricane Laura moved in. I am not sure what it looks like now but I know the eye came very close to this treasured spot. 

      Just a few days after returning to Texas I was working at a city run shelter in San Antonio with the American Red Cross. It was so sad to hear all the stories of people in the shelter who lost their homes and had no idea where their families were. (Not actually a shelter...due to Covid-19 everyone was in Hotel rooms) 

      It was so hard to not be able to comfort them with hugs like we always did before. Everyone had to wear masks and social distance. Children don't understand these things. It's so hard on them. The shelters were run by the City so we were actually just there to provide food for the people staying there. My shelter (Hotel) closed so I am now working on other things but I know due to Hurricane Sally I will most likely be back again this week. 

      We have been spending a lot of time outdoors and with our grandchildren. We are an outside kind of family. Stephen has been teaching our oldest granddaughter how to fly fish. She is getting so good and holds the rod just like her Papa. She is six years old. We are teaching all of them to fish but she was really interested in fly fishing. We are both good at teaching all sorts of things so we encourage the kids to learn whatever they can and try to show them new things. 

                                                      

     

          My oldest grandson is interested in all types of rocks, minerals and crystals so any time we go anywhere I look for things I can bring back to him. Now some of the other grandchildren are looking for rocks for him too. They want him to have a nice collection. Sometimes Chase (pictured above left) will find a piece of quartz or a nice stone and he will say, "This one's mine." That means he's not sharing. 

         We are hoping next week to get out to Sierra Blanca to see my parents, daughter, son-in-law and other grandchildren. I haven't seen them since July. We have been stuccoing the house out there so we have to complete that. We are just waiting for it to cool off a bit. Now is going to be great weather out there. 

         We had also been there in May for my youngest granddaughters' first birthday. She is adorable. I can't wait to get out to see them. We are going to take my oldest grandson for the summer next year. He is an inside game type of kid so we will see how much crying, begging and pleading he does. We are taking him camping and no electronics are allowed. It will be good for him to really explore the world around him. 

                                                                                                                                                                   

    In the meantime, I am missing their cute little faces. Addison is adorable. When we told Luna she would no longer be the only granddaughter we were on our way back from a camping trip with her. It was just her Papa and I with her and she cried all the way home (2 hours). It was a very hard thing for her. She kept saying, "I'm the only granddaughter."

     They have not met but I know she will love her little cousin. Until then I keep showing her pictures and telling her all about her so she will be ready when they meet. 

      Addison is afraid of us since we never see her so it's so hard to get her to come to us. By the time she gets used to us we are leaving again. (sad face) Someday we will retire at our property there and we will be around her more but that is probably when she will be a teenager who doesn't need us to teach her a thing because she will already know it all. 

       She is going to be well taken care of. She has three older brothers. She will grow up tough and well protected. If she needs to protect herself she can after being beat up by her older brothers for the first few years of her life I am sure she will learn some moves of her own. 

  
        Matthew is already protecting her (at least he was when I saw them last). I think he looks more like her than any of her other brothers. They have the same eyes and cute noses. He is the middle brother and loves to wear beanies. Each of them, even at such young ages, have their own personalities. I love to see how that develops into something great. Matthew hardly talked the first few years of his life. I guess he just had nothing to say. Most of my grandbabies are talkers so I guess he just felt they should say what they needed to and he would talk when something important came up, like food.

 

         They all keep their parents on their toes. My youngest daughter has four children and three of them are boys. She stays busy. 

         My oldest son and youngest daughter are twins but they raise their children in such different ways. Of course, my son only has one child so it's easier to chase him around than four. My oldest daughter and her husband have chosen not to have children. They may change their mind someday but with the world getting worse I understand the concerns they have. I have granddogs though and they love me. Maybe I will get some pictures of them to show you later. 

         Since we moved here we have built a tiny house and are living the tiny house life. Our house in Sierra Blanca is also a tiny house and is off the grid but this house isn't. It is a cute cozy little place and we enjoy it. We did make it a bit larger than originally planned.

          Our dogs also have a tiny house with a tiny yard of their own for when they are not in the house visiting with us. Their house has an air conditioner since we are in south Texas where temperatures reach over 115 degrees. They are spoiled but all of the kids are grown and out on their own so we need to make someone or something rotten. 

This post is getting a bit long and I don't want to bore you after not posting for so long. Please watch for posts to come and to see lots of pictures of my journey please visit my Instagram page at Instagram.com/myphototraveljournal

       

 

          

Long Awaited Update and Getting Back on Track

    Well, it has been a very long time since I posted to my blog. A lot of things have happened since I last posted. I will try to catch you up with everything and then I will focus on keeping you up to date.
    Here are some quick highlights... Since I last wrote we have had some adventures. We stayed in Northern New Mexico for a couple years where I actually started and owned my own newspaper. We now have seven grandchildren. My parents have moved to Sierra Blanca along with my daughter, her husband and their three children. I have two grandchildren in school, one in kindergarten the other in Pre-K. We are currently living near San Antonio, Texas where Stephen is building a water plant. He now has a class A water license and his B waste water license. Stephen's parents have left Sierra Blanca to return to their home town. My oldest daughter and her husband have also left Sierra Blanca and live near us. My oldest son is living in Florida where he has been through one hurricane and narrowly missed by another. He is getting married in November. I spend most of my time volunteering for the American Red Cross. I am still doing photography. I mostly shoot weddings now.
    We are planning on getting back to Sierra Blanca to live soon. In the meantime, we travel out to our property as often as we can and we continue to work on improvements there. A few months ago we closed in the screened porch. I will blog about all of these things so you can get caught up!

Youth Archery Camp

    E.A. Archery held a youth archery camp for kids. We worked with the local 4-H to give the kids a great learning experience. We had over 20 participants in our rural area. The kids ranged from ages 3 to 16 and were mostly girls. The camp started off with a history lesson, allowing the kids to see the importance that archery has had in the lives of our forefathers and even today. They also learned about bow safety and the components of bows and arrows. Students learned to identify their dominant eye for better performance and they received one on one instruction.
    Border Patrol agent Garrett Dunning (also one of our staff shooters) was there to assist in teaching. We all had a part. I got the privilege of teaching the history of archery. They all earned a certificate for completing the course and the top shooters were awarded T-Shirts.
     The kids really enjoyed it and it was a great experience for us as well. We are thinking this will be a great camp to do each year. We would also like to create a youth survival camp as well.

 

 

(sorry I have not posted for so long, this is the post I started way back when.)

One Day Youth Archery Camp

  On Saturday E.A. Archery will be having a youth archery camp. We are very excited to do this for the kids in our community and believe it will teach them a lot. Our program will consist of safety, procedure, finding the dominant eye, form and stance, a hot dog lunch, and a shooting competition. This will be the first time we have offered a youth shoot so we are hoping that it will be a lot of fun for the kids. There will be awards handed out after the shoot.
   E.A. Archery will also be attending the ATA show in Nashville next January. This is an exciting thing for our company since we are really just getting started. We will be introducing our newest models at the show. We have some very cool new bows coming out.

 

This bow was just completed for competition shooting. It is headed to the U.K. 

Please stop by my blog for more pictures after the youth shoot!

Labor Day Weekend

    We had friends come in from what we used to call "back home" and they wanted to do some hiking and exploring in the area so we spent the weekend with them. It was dark by the time they got here and we met them in town at my daughter's house. (BTW forgot to tell you that I finally convinced my daughter and her husband to move here. I may have also forgot to mention that my other daughter had her baby so I am now a Grandma.)  Anyway, we took Nick, Stephanie and their daughter Elena out to our house away from the lights of town. Nick was hanging his head out the window looking up at the stars in amazement all the way down our dirt road. He said he had never seen so many stars before. Once we got to the house they could see the milky way as bright as could be so Stephanie tried to capture it on her camera. They were excited to be so far away from all the Austin area hustle and bustle.
    The following morning we got our packs together and headed for the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. We stopped often to take pictures along the way and once we arrived it was already beginning to get hot. We decided to hike into the mountains and camp at Pine Top. I had hurt my back a week or so before so the hike was kind of hard... about 3000 foot climb over 4 miles. At one point I had to give my pack to Stephen so he could carry it. I felt bad but just couldn't do it. It took us several hours to get to the top but the view was amazing.

 

Starting our hiking adventure

Devil's Gate

A beautiful view from above!

  

    We reached Pine Top and set up camp. The sky was amazing and we could see more stars than ever. It was a very dark night with just a partial moon. We saw numerous shooting stars. It started to get cool and we all headed into our tents for the night. Temps got in the low 60s to high 50s. Elena must have been spending her first night in the wilderness because every once in a while you would hear a tiny "I'm scared." coming from her tent. I just kept assuring her that there was nothing there in the dark that wasn't there in the light. I told her to quietly count to 100 and then back to one. I tried lots of things but she was just scared. She finally fell asleep. At about 5 am I heard something outside. We had put our trash and packs up in the trees to keep animals out of them but something was in the trash. I woke Stephen up in case it was a mountain lion. We were surprised to find that it was a mule deer. Since we were up we had a granola bar and packed up so we could hike down in the cool of the day.

Mule Deer

   Our hike down allowed us to see the trails and switchbacks that had brought us to the mountain top. It would be a difficult climb back down with our packs. Luckily, we were lighter than when we first started out since we had already consumed most of the water we carried up. 

Switchbacks

 

   At one point we stopped to rest and I heard a really weird sound. First I thought it was a plane in the distance but it started to rumble and sound very strange. Then it felt like a small tremble and I heard a rumbling sound. I walked to the corner and tried to look around the corner of the trail. As a stepped around the wall I looked up and saw a herd of Auodad coming right at me.  I didn't know if I should take pictures or run. I wasn't sure if they would knock me off the mountain. I stood still and one male stopped in my path, staring me down as if he were threatening and then the others jumped from the mountain passing behind him one by one as he stood guard. As the last one passed over my path he turned and ran after them.

   As we finished our hike we saw one last deer which ran off behind some brush when I tried to capture it. The hike was tough but I made it all the way down with my pack. We headed to the visitor center so Elena could earn her Junior Rangers patch. She had completed a workbook and identified several animals. She earned her patch. After a break we headed to New Mexico to Carlsbad to go into the caverns. We decided to take the elevator down and then hike up since the wait for elevators was very long coming back up. We didn't realize that the hike up was at 90% humidity and almost 1000 feet up in 1.2 miles. It was tough and especially at the end of our mountain hike but I am stronger for the weekend I spent hiking and I never gave up!

 

 

Elena and her dad, Nick ... lol!

 

We finished the night with a viewing of the bats exiting the cave!