4th of July Week

Our "Holiday" started at the beginning of the week, with Chris off of work for the entire week. On Monday afternoon we headed to Alamogordo, to swim and stay at a hotel for the night, so we could get started right away on Tuesday. We woke up to rain and thunderstorms (put a damper on our original plans), so headed to the Space Museum for the morning.
The weather cleared up for us, so we grabbed some lunch and headed out to White Sands. The hotel had some discs to ride down the dunes, so we borrowed a few of those. The boys had a blast! And the weather was just perfect.
After that we headed to the Missle Range (a military base, but you can go in to visit the museum), and we saw some retired missles and the museum.
That night we met Chris's grandpa and his wife for dinner.
The next morning we got up and drove to Carlsbad to visit the Caverns. Caleb was pretty scared of the (somewhat) dark, so I carried him pretty much the whole way. Caden thought they were very cool, for about the first 15 minutes, then just got tired of walking. So, that may be a visit we wait a few more years to do again. But Chris and I enjoyed it, since it had been 11 years since we had been there (and, yes, together!). We went back to the hotel to swim (can you see what the boys enjoyed the most about the trip!), eat dinner, then head back to the Caverns for the bat flight at dusk. It was very cool, and even the boys enjoyed it.
Thursday we got up and drove to Anthony, TX/NM (it is in both states!-just outside of El Paso) to go to Wet N Wild. Something we won't do again. It wasn't very well kept up, and VERY expensive. The boys had a good time, but we would have had just as much fun at one of the local pools with a slide. We learned our lesson.
On the 4th, we went to a BBQ at a friends' house. The boys swam for a little while in their pool, until we saw lightning, then there was a huge rain/thunderstorm. A few people, just a few miles away, got struck by the lightning. It poured for about an hour, then cleared up just in time to do a few fireworks in the street, then we headed to the nearby soccer fields to park and watch the city fireworks.
Sunday we missed church (we all slept until almost 9-unheard of at our house) because we were out so late the night before. But, luckily our church had an afternoon of soft jumping toys, food, an outdoor evening service, then some amazing fireworks.
Oh, and that morning Chris set up our new little pool in the backyard, which the boys are absolutely loving.
So, needless to say, we were all exhausted by Monday (unfortunately for Chris, he had to be back at work).