This was our family trip to Luna, minus two, (we missed Steph and Danielle) where we celebrated the 24th of July! In the pictures we have the Helgesens, Jack, Lindzi, Alyssa, Hadlee, and Loryn. The Gropps, Cory, me and Emma. The Derricks, Grandma and Grandpa along with Shawn, Brad and also Justin!

We celebrated some early birthdays, Emma and Justin. Both born on Aug 5th, crazy huh?

They both got a cup cake with a candle and we sang happy birthday!

This is a small look at the nice cabin we all stayed at. It had 3 bed rooms, 2 bath and 2 sort a family rooms with pull out couches and kitchen and laundry room.

This is a picture of us at the rodeo. They announced there was only about 5 thousand people there. We were participating in the egg toss! Cory and Shawn were a team. Then Jack and Loryn. Hadlee and Alyssa and then Lindzi and I. Brad was suppose to be with Jack after he and Loryn broke their egg but he tossed it and broke it before Jack was there to catch it! Oops!

At the Church they had a bar B Q with games for the little kids. Someone brought a dunk tank! Alyssa and Hadlee both did it and Brad was a pro at throwing the ball and dunking people! I never got a picture of him doing it but saw him dunk at least 5 other kids. I did get a picture of Loryn dunking Hadlee! Classic!

We also did Grandpa's favorite thing to do, go rock hunting on Saddle Mountain. All the kids cried on the way up, saying it was too hard and that the bushes were poky. Once we actually got to the top of the mountain and started hunting they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. Julie found the biggest rock, called bitenite and had the biggest spill coming off the mountain! So much for rocks being a firm foundation, hu Julie! These are the happy no cuts or scraps before pictures. We were so out a shape getting back to the car was our biggest goal so there is no after picture.

On Sunday we went to the reunion. We ate some good food and then started the auction. One of the first things to sell was a nice CD player. It only took a couple seconds for Justin to realize it was his CD player and had to fight to buy it back! Grandpa bought a lot of stuff and then it started to rain. It was about this time that a baby doll was being sold. It was Emma's!! She saw it and reached both hands out for it so her daddy kindly bought it back for 4 dollars! Lindzi and Jack bought some stuff, Lindzi was waiting for the pickles I brought that I had canned and she did end up getting them. Its kind of a tradition to sell something of the newest additions to the family's stuff as a kind of welcome to the family joke! It was fun and then Cory and I had to leave so we could drive a few hours and have time to set up our campsite before it got dark.

We went to the Gila National Park a couple hours away and in a light rain and fading light set up our new tent that we didn't know how to set up. You all know how that probably went but we got it up and the inside was not that wet! We spent that whole night listening and seeing the thunder and lightning and hoping that our tent didn't get rained out!

The next day we drove to Carlsbad Caverns and took a 2 1/2 hour hike down the natural cave entrance into the massive 14 football field length cave. It was really cold and wet down there. Cory took some pictures on our phone so someday I might try to get those off but until then just use your imaginations! It was really pretty and fun to make the hike. Emma did pretty good but once she really started crying loud and hard and Cory and I were pretty embarrassed because before we started down the park ranger told us that our voices travel far and so we need whisper when we talked to each other and so I am sure everyone in the caverns heard her when she cried!! But later we did run into a family that had a loud baby too so we felt a little better after that!

After the Caverns we spent the last night of our trip in the Guadalupe National Park. There I decided on a campsite that was about 2 miles from the car (at least Cory thought so) and camped there for the night. It was the best site despite the long travel to get to it because it had soft gravel and dirt on it unlike the rest of the sites that were packed so hard they felt like you were sleeping on one big rock. Before we went to bed Cory noticed 2 deer about 20 yards from the tent and Emma proceeded to talk to them in "baby talk" and tried to get them to come on over for a visit. After a "goodnight sleep", yeah right, we drove rest of the way to Waco.

All in all it was a fun and successful trip. Thanks for reading about our little family trip. Love to all.