White Sand National Monument

Yesterday we drove the the White Sands National Monument. By far one of the funnest/coolest places I've ever been, and I've been to some fairly cool places in my time i.e. The Eiffel Tour, London Bridge (and a few others).

The sand basin was formed by gypsum desposites millions of years ago, or something to that affect. All the sand is piled high so what you do is buy a sled and slide down the drifts of sand like you would in the snow. Haylie loved it, and I thought it was super fun too! Everything was so white I felt like it was snow. It didn't help that it was FREEZING. I mean freezing, it snowed on the way back and the wind was whipping all around. We should have dressed warmer, but we didn't think it was going to be that cold. In fact, last night when Tom took Wedge out it was snowing at our place! This is El Paso, I didn't think we were going to get snow. This morning when I walked out side there was snow all over the Franklin Mountains! Yikes.

We had a blast, and it was one of the first days Tom has had off in awhile. What a fun family adventure!

The Things Tom built

Because I have expensive tastes and we currently don't have the pocket book to match Tom has become a carpenter.

Haylie has graduated to a twin bed. She kept falling off of her toddler bed mattress. I looked and looked for a modern kids bed that was affordable and it wasn't out there. All of the beds I liked had a price tag of 900-2,000, for a kids bed! Come on, it's just wood and a non-toxic finish! So I had Tom make a replica of one of the beds I loved. He did a pretty fantastic job. I should have posted a picture of the actual frame, because it's impressive. It's hasn't been stained and sealed yet because I've had a hard time finding a non-toxic stain here in El Paso and I have to special order one. I'll post the pictures of the finished product once it's all done.

The other thing Tom built was our media console. Once again I fell in love with one I found at Room and Board in NYC. Couldn't afford it, and since it's just wood, Tom decided he could make it. It houses all of our cables, DVD stuff, XBox360, Wii, Playstation3, and even has enough room for Haylie and Huck to go inside one of the cabinets and have small party. The picture doesn't show how big it really is...Nine feet! It's huge! It took Tom and another Dentist in the ward to move it into the house.

It sure is nice to have a handy husband.

I'm not going to bother trying to give an update. I will simply give list a few of the most important events...in no particular order.
1. We moved to El Paso, Texas,
2. Huck turned 1
3. We bought a dog. The mini schnauzer is named Wedge Antilles, after the Rebel Alliance Starfighter pilot in Star Wars.
4. We bought our first house

Here are some pictures, also in no particular order!