Just Chilling

And yes, those are 3D movie glasses Christian is wearing. At Lilly's request of course.

:)

The Living Desert Zoo and A Drive Home

 Day Three was our final day in New Mexico. We decided to go to the Living Desert Zoo in Carlsbad. It is basically a desert trail and a bunch of native animals. But it was really pretty and of course Lilly loved the animals.

Giant raven bird... I think.

Now where's that Wiley Coyote?

What?! We don't drink tea!

Lilly wanting to walk. Of course she wants to walk in a sea of cactus!

We also checked out a bear, cougar, wolves, elk, snakes, eagles, a bobcat and more.

Pretty view.

Checking out the Bison.

Picture with Lilly and the lily pads!

After checking out the zoo we started our trip back home. Back in Texas.

"Don't Mess With Texas!"

And of course some dust devils. It looks pretty small in the picture but it was actually pretty large just a little further away. We ended up seeing about 10 on our drive home. They were everywhere!

And of course some pictures of our Silly Lilly from the drive. 

This one is a smile, if you couldn't tell.

And of course we caved and allowed binky for the road trip. (This is actually a picture from the drive there and this binky now resides in the depths of Carlsbad Caverns... whoops. You can blame Lilly for that one. She felt walking through a dark cave was the best time to chuck her binky.)

"Cheese!"

And a binky in the toes.

Day Two: Carlsbad Caverns

We finally made it to the Carlsbad Caverns National Park on day two of our trip. Sadly the park had recently had a fire and a lot of the park looked like this.

First off, the main cave (the only one we went to) is huge. It takes about 1 1/2 hours to just walk the trail around it. And if you are ambitious you can take the natural entrance down to the cave, which is another 1 1/2 round-trip.  Because we knew Lilly wouldn't last that long we took the elevator down.

This is what our first picture looked like. Then we finally figured out how to take some what decent pictures in a dark cave.

 Pretty cool.

A ladder from some of the early explorers going down a hole.

Lilly decided she did not want to be in the kiddie back pack. So she either was carried or walked.

I don't know why this formation didn't have its own plaque and name... I could think of plenty.

Afterwards, Lilly needed some rock candy, of course.

When we came out, it was raining. Pretty much the most rain we had all summer and it was on our tiny vacation.

We also stopped by this little hole in the wall by the side of the road. Apparently it was used for cover by Natives or something like that.

Lilly had started doing this lately. Whenever she climbs up on something she sticks her arms out so proudly with a look that says "Look at me!"

Here she is telling us to "Sit down!" So I tried to sit with her but of course that is NOT what she wanted. She wanted us to sit in the cave. Of course.

Aliens on the outskirts of the park. Maybe we should head to Roswell on our next trip.

p.s. Happy 21 months to our baby girl today. Can't believe in only 3 months she will be 2!

Carlsbad, New Mexico

So as I said last week, we went on a little trip to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.  It is just a short 2.5 hour drive from Lubbock so we headed out.

Lilly was great on the drive even taking an hour long nap. A new friend in our ward is from Carlsbad and told us her parents had an empty house on their ranch that we could stay at. So we did. After stopping by the house and dropping off our stuff we headed out to explore and ended up at a playground.

Lilly trying to be just like her daddy.

Checking out the Pecos River.

Throwing rocks in the river.

Watching the squirrels running around.

And probably Lilly's favorite part of the trip... the horse ride toy. (well, other than seeing the real horses and cows and dogs on the ranch... so this was probably her 2nd favorite.. oh well)

Our friend's mom brought this over for Lilly to play with and she LOVED it. I believe she is neighing in this picture below.

And here is a little video of her on the horse. She loved it.

Next up, Carlsbad Caverns.

p.s. Happy 21 months to our baby girl today. Can't believe in only 3 months she will be 2!