Our trip to Louisianna

We had a wonderful time in Louisianna with Ellee and Geoffrey and Merik and Gavin. Below is a slideshow with some of the pictures we took. I only did about 5 different layouts before deciding on this one. And then when I got it all finished and saved, I realized I had left out one very important picture! This one! I don't know how I did that. But with all the figuring and refiguring and moving around, it got left out! This was taken on Sunday, after church. Their ward is great. It even has a 15-18 member choir! Stanley had fun greeting people as they came in! He couldn't resist! Anyway, let's backtrack to the beginning. We left Tuesday and went by way of Kearny to pick up some green chili burros! They are really good (thanks Bro. Reed for sharing) and we wanted to pick some up to take to Ellee and Geoffrey cuz they don't have "real" mexican food in Louisianna! We spent the night in Pecos (pronounced Pay-cus) at a little hotel with a very comfortable king size bed! We would have loved to stay a little longer in Pecos to see the Judge Roy Bean Museum, but didn't have time this time! We might go back to see it some day! We arrived at our motel about 5:00 that night and went over to Ellee's and brought presents! We were excited to see everyone again! We got the turkey ready and put it in the roaster to cook all night. Thanksgiving day we woke up to thick fog! It was pretty cool! Ellee was busy preparing everything when we got there and we sat down to eat about 12:30. It was very good! We went back to the motel for a nap and went back over for pie. Oh! Before we went back to the motel we wanted to find some dry ice and tried several places before seeing a gas station with $1.07 gas! We pulled in (not really needing gas) to see if they had dry ice and find out what was going on and they told us they were having a gas war with the station across the street, they were getting ready to change it back and we were last in line! So we went and got 7 gal. It was pretty funny! And Great! We only wish our tank was more empty to get more! Friday we woke up to thunder and rain. Ellee and Geoffrey went out on a date while we watched the boys and then Ellee made delicious potato soup for dinner. It was perfect for a wet, rainy, chilly day! Saturday we went to the Red River Boardwalk and parked outside the Bass Pro Shop. I don't know what was going on, but people were coming from everywhere - they were even parking out in the grass. We've never seen so many people in camo outfits! They have the coolest yet weirdest Christmas tree there at the front door as you go in! I've never seen a tree decorated with animals and deer heads and a bear for the star! They also have alligators outside in a little pond. Cool stuff! We walked around outside and took pictures and ate lunch and then we loaded up the boys in our car and Ellee and Geoffrey went to see another movie while we went home. They brought home bar-b-que for dinner that was pretty good - almost as good as Waldo's here in town. Waldo's sauce is better. Sunday we went to church and enjoyed their meetings very much. Two gave good talks (one was the Bishop) in church and the choir sang. We went to our motel afterwards and had a nap (something we haven't done in 4 years!) then went back over to Ellee's for dinner. She made some Jumbalie (sp?) basically rice with seasoning, sausage and left over turkey. It was very good. Ellee took great care of us while we were there. We had fun with the boys and enjoyed everyone's company while we were there. We hated to leave, but had to get home to the real world. We decided to go a different way home, going up through Artesia, NM which I later learned was part of the Chisum ranch (for all you John Wayne fans, you know what that is) and up through a tall mountain pass (8700 feet) and down to Alamagordo (3500 feet) and White Sands. We decided to go to the White Sands Missle Museum there on the base. It was pretty interesting to see all the artifacts and rockets and instruments. Then we got back on the highway at Las Cruces and headed for home. We had a safe journey even through the eternal construction in Tucson! The boys kept the house and did a good job. Everything was clean when we got home - can't say that now that I've unloaded everything! But I'm working on getting it back in shape - putting stuff away! It's good to be home, but we miss Ellee and her family! Thanks for a great time - we enjoyed it very much!