My Pretty Wife

Wow, my wife is so beautiful. I don't think she'd post this so I get the honors today. (There is a new blog post below with Wesley's blessing photos). Sunday after the baby blessing we all drove to a beach south of Melbourne, FL for some family photos. It was near sunset and beautiful.

Sometimes Blogs make life seam idyllic. Not so, boys eat sand, girls get cranky, dads go bald. Joy is the lucky one, she looks immune to aging doesn't she?
I think of all our day trips from Grandma's house, Allie enjoyed our trips to the beach the most. She played and played and we always had a hard time talking her back into the car-- I think we'll spend more time at the beach next time we go.
Monday night Joy and I took Wes in a sling and drove back to this same beach while Grandma stayed with Luke and Allie. I left the camera on purpose and we walked forever along the beach until we hit a pier and turned around. As we walked we watched the lights of a cruise ship disappear as it sailed along the coast and over the horizon. It was dark and a bit cool so Wes snuggled in and never made a peep - what a great date! (Have we said thank you enough Grandma?)

Wesley Banks Payne

We blessed Wesley in Grandpa Payne's home. Uncle Taylor and Bishop Richardson assisted in the blessing. Wesley and his grandfather share the same middle name Banks. Grandpa was named after Dr. Banks Austin who was the family doctor in Lordsburg, NM. Both Grandpa Payne and Wesley are miracles and we are blessed to have them in our lives.

Air Condition

I have to interupt our regularly scheduled "Week in Florida" to show you what the kids and I went to this morning. This is absolutely amazing! I couldn't help but think about Vic and Molly. The dance company is from Argentina and the dancing with a harness- Molly would be great out there!

Saturday in Florida

Saturday morning we went to visit Gus. You can't go to the ranch without seeing Gus the 10 ft alligator they caught in the groves bugging the people working there. Lindsay, was that you? Gus now "lives" in the Carroll House, the ranch's visitor center. Funny how Luke is the only one with the appropriate expression here.

Right next to the Carroll House is the nature trail through the jungle to the Pennywash Creek (that is the official name but it has always been called and known as the Penny Wah) where Taylor built the platform for his Eagle project.
Amazing tree roots! Notice anything else?

That afternoon we had a potluck lunch below the Live Oak tree- a Low Country Boil. YUMMY! It was so good and really fun and relaxing. What I wish you could see is the enormity of the tree. The branches that go across the photo (no begining, no end) belong to one tree. It is such a beautiful tree and provides so much shade. It is called a Live Oak because the leaves stay green year round. You will also notice all the Spanish Moss hanging from the branches. It is so beautiful! Sitting there, relaxing under the tree, eating the Low Country Boil- that was when I had the strongest urge to start talking with a southern accent.
In the evening we went to Campbells to ride a horse. I was so excited for Allie and Luke to get to do this. Luke used to bring us every book we had that had a picture of a horse in it so we would read it to him. (Now it's all cars... cars, cars, cars.)

One happy boy!

And Allie LOVED it too.
Mom had to have a turn.

After the horse Luke found a pink Barbie bike. Honestly I don't know which he was more excited about! We took turns holding the back of his seat and pushing him around (and breaking our backs). At one point I had to grab the handle bars to stear him in the right direction. He was about to hit a tree. He was NOT happy about that! He immediately pushed my hand away. That was when he realized I was holding on to the back of the bike. He was not happy about that either and started pushing me away. And then he fell over. Then he was really mad at me because I pushed him off the bike. He really thought he was riding it on his own. It was so funny. We could not stop laughing!

Back to Florida- Friday

Jason, Taylor and Krista went shooting Friday morning. Allie, Luke, Wesley and I went and played in the "backyard" (think HUGE fields, grass, room to run, play ground equipment just across the ditch, live creatures of various sizes- a whole new world). It was so fun to hang out with Grandma.

Oh the boys and their toys.
The "smoking gun"... And now... the main reason we went to Florida in March (besides the fact that we had to go before Luke turned 2)... THE RODEO! Have you ever been to one?! It is so much fun and so exciting- especially when you know one of the cowboys. We were so impressed and proud of him! Yep- that's our Uncle Taylor out there! They had a professional announcer for the rodeo, the weather was perfect, there was a huge crowd and the energy was electric. They played all this great cowboy/rodeo music that made everything real excit'n! I had to giggle though. When Grandpa said the opening prayer to begin the main portion of the rodeo that evening, the announcer played some partriotic music in the background.




Another highlight from the rodeo was the barrel racing. This little girl who had barely turned 3 just days before and looking so tiny on that huge horse did the barrel race (you race your horse around 3 barrels and back). She was so cute! They also had mutt'nbusting (Jason says it's one word) where little kids rode on the back of sheep and tried to hang on. One little kid had on a crash helmet. It was so fun to watch. The funniest thing for me was the pig chase. There were 10 or 15 pigs and what seemed like a 1000 kids. Allie had been talking about it all week she was so excited. And to see those pigs running and squeeling and all those kids chasing them, it was hilarious. You of course saw the disappointing results in the photo Jason posted earlier. Luke had a great time and poor Allie- she really thought she was going to catch a pig.

Happy Easter

We are staying super busy around here, just thought you might enjoy a few holiday pics. Joy will add the play by play tonight... We're off for an evening walk -Jason

Oh Fair New Mexico...

Luke at the rodeo. Wish we had a tripod. We'll get back to our day by day postings of our trip when we catch our breath.

Allie shows how we feel to not be on vacation anymore. This is a photo Krista snapped at the Rodeo following the baby pig chase. I think Allie really thought she would catch one and was talking about it all that day. She was pretty mad at the other kids for "not letting her catch one." Dad took them over to some kids who caught one and tried to get Allie to touch it which seemed to cure her.

When the sun is shining and you have a good sweater on, 41 degrees is really not too bad. But yesterday, leaving Florida's 80 degrees and landing in Albuquerque and being told it was 41 degrees... it was a cold slap in the face. They only lost one of our things, Luke's car seat. Maybe his car seat decided it would rather stay in FL too.

Thursday: Fishing & Beach Day

Jay, the shot below should make you jealous. And for the rest of you, just think about what you were doing Thursday.

I know- you are looking at these photos and thinking "Wow, I want to save that as my screen saver!" Oh alright we give you permission (just let us know which one you chose).

Some of you were probably buried up to you neck with work Thursday.
Hope you were able to dig out.

Too many photos... so here's Wed.'s slideshow

Gatorland

You know how you look out the window as you drive through mountains out west, hoping to see by chance a deer or something on the side of the road? And you see a squirrel and you get excited?! Well driving down the roads here in Florida we watch out the window for alligators. Taylor is great at spotting them but I (Joy) am getting better. What a different world it is. We went to Gatorland on Wednesday. It was really fun and of course there are a LOT of alligators to see. They have an alligator wrestling show and jumping contest (the alligators jump out of the water for some chickens) as well as snakes and turtles and such. I think the alligators at the jumping show must not have been that hungry because they didn't jump that high. They were HUGE and FAT so many they are tired of chicken. Can you imagine ever saying (somewhat bored) "oh... look... another alligator... whoopee". Ok, maybe I never quite got used to it because I still think they are amazing animals but the kids seemed less excited toward the end and certainly our southern boy Taylor wasn't too impressed.

We're Here!

We made it! We had a great flight and the kids did great. They were completely facinated by the tiny cars, houses and trees down below. They had suckers for take-off (to help them pop their ears) but they didn't even seem to care for landing- looking out the window was too exciting. So here are a couple of shots from grandma's house. It is so nice to be outside and see limitless places to run and play. Stay tuned- we hope to keep more photos coming throughout the week.