Philmont - Day 1

The hard drive is finally back in my computer, and althought it's been a few weeks since we've been there I still wanted to share about our week at Philmont, so that we have it documented for our own family history.

The first day we arrived in the afternoon and spent the afternoon moving into these lovely tents that would be our home for the next 6 days. We had two for our family since they aren't the largest things in the world. But at least they had cots with mattresses on them instead of sleeping on the ground. Boy did they heat up during the day though! What a killer.

The girls were in heaven pretending that the tents were their little houses. Savannah kept getting upset because people would keep coming in and leaving things, making a mess or moving things. "This house just keeps getting messy!!" Oh if only we could carry that attitude back home. :)

Isaac was in heaven being able to climb on things, run free, play in the dirt and really be a boy.

The best part of the week was that this mom didn't have to make one meal for 6 days! Yeah! We ate here in the cafeteria, and even though it was cafeteria food it wasn't that bad. Are you kidding. It was amazing. Any food I don't have to make is amazing. What wonderful break. Maybe that was one of the many reasons I left feeling refreshed from the week.

There is a gorgeous villa with beautiful gardens that we explored for the afternoon. (More pictures from it later.) We celebrated Caitlyn's birthday with our friends and some cupcakes. The evening was spent at the program bowl singing campfire songs, seeing opening skits, and being introduced to our week here at Philmont.

We started meeting amazing people.

We made it through the first night sleeping away from home. My kids hit the sack and didn't move until we woke them up the next day. 6 solid nights of that. They were so exhausted by the end of the day. If only that were the case here at home. There's nothing like having the opportunity to be a kid to play hard all day, and fall asleep exhausted at the end of it.

Cemeteries

I have so much to share from our week at Philmont that I decided it might be best if I divided it up over this next week. Our church asked Beau to attend the LDS BSA (Boy Scout) Leadership Conference in New Mexico. This Leadership conference is a family conference and we had the option of attending as a family as well. We thought it was a great opportunity and the cheapest vacation we could get for 6 days - plus everything was taken care of. What better arrangements than that! We were also going to be attending with another family that has kids the same age as ours which we were excited about. We'd be able to learn some great stuff, spend time as a family and get to know this other great family in our neighborhood.

There is nothing like spending 12 hours in a car to bind or tear apart a family. Luckily for us we made it through alive. The trip down we split into two days but did most of the driving the first day. Although it was long, and we stopped plenty of times, we enjoyed new scenery of Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. The kids even survived with no portable DVD player. I think they actually were better because they found other things to do, rather than asking over and over when they would get to watch a movie.

On the way down we stopped in a little tiny town to search out a cemetery. Our friends had some ancestors that came from the area and they wanted to see if they could find any gravesides for them. We had no idea what a neat little place it was. It was located on the top of a hill and as we drove through in rain, puddles and washed out dirt roads, we wound past stucco walls, old churches, and came at last to this tiny little cemetery that had such a native Hispanic feel about it. The rain slowed, so while being attacked by swarms of mosquitoes we search for his family names, enjoyed the cactuses, red earth, fantastic tombstones and a double rainbow in the sky.

I have always loved cemeteries. They are one of my favorite places to roam, sit, and enjoy the peacefulness of them. What other place can you have so much history, stories, lives, and generations in one spot. There is something about them that I can't get enough of. In college if I needed peace away from roommates, or a place to write in my journal, I would hike to the top of the hill and sit amidst the old broken tombstones and wonder about the people while finding rest to my soul.On the way back down we passed this gorgeous adobe church, with it's three crosses. This whole place had such a neat feel of old mission homes and Spanish heritage.

Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. I love everything about this photo.
We drove a littler further and enjoyed an evening of amazing authentic Mexican food in the upstairs of an old Spanish house. What a great way to start of our vacation.