Best 3 weeks ever!

Our daughter has a trending tagline she attaches to most everything she really enjoys. She enjoys plenty of things...so we hear "this was the best day ever" at a weekly rate along with plenty of other "best" occasions. Well, our entire family must have the best 3 weeks coming up that I can recall in recent memory (although I am known to be much like Trinity). Here is the breakdown that is consuming our minds, hearts, and emotion just in case all the previous 2012 posts have been skimmed or missed entirely:

**Beginning in 72 hours - reunite with Crystal & kids after 2 months of daily reminders on why I love having a family and how much I miss them

**Flying to Florida (albeit for only a 24hr period) to see all the family again as we leave the kids behind

**We leave the kids behind (>insert slight sarcasm)

**Paperwork and persistent prayer come to fruition for our China trip

**Crystal and I get our first international date night in Beijing

**Crystal and I hope to enjoy our 2nd international date night (awake & less jet lagged) in Beijing

**God provides an answered prayer with a new son

**A bigger family reunites to finally make our new house(which has been awesome) a home

**God wants to ensure we are never too comfortable, so he has provided us a puppy (chocolate lab) as the cherry on top a day after returning to ensure our home stays a bit CRAZY.

Words can't describe the excitement and anticipation for these next, "best weeks ever." After this year, we will take God's CALLING and life's "crazy" anytime...what an awesome ride it has been! We will be blogging from China onto our adoption-only blog (link this page, top right). See everyone on the flip side!! I really have tried to keep the "!" to a minimum...but !!!! I !!!!!!!! am un!!able !!!! to !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Tyson

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Fun while it lasted

The blog has been quiet lately and that is because I am off at training once again and we are no longer enjoying all the wonderful family moments like those spent in New Mexico. I really enjoy the job transition though and am having a great time learning yet another aircraft. So...thankfully, the time is going relatively quickly and we should FINALLY get settled into our house as a family of five soon after picking up Nathan on that quick little detour to China. We are all counting the days and keeping God in our hearts to help stay connected. Meant to post this picture before, but we had a fun evening watching the solar eclipse during our final days in New Mexico. Hope to get more updates and pictures going soon. Miss you all! -Tyson

 

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The White Sands

We finally made it out to the White Sands National Monument and wow, it was a blast!! Despite having been to this area on multiple occasions, I have never ventured to the sands due to the feeling of having been over-exposed to sand over all the years of Florida beach visits. The white gypsum sand here however was as unique as I have read/heard. I believe the pictures speak for themselves...needless to say, the coolest sandbox you can imagine with miles and miles to admire and enjoy. Now, anxiously awaiting to see the Avengers!! Life is good.

 

Caves, Springs, & Canyons!

We have been getting plenty of photo opportunities with all the recent adventures around the mountains of eastern New Mexico.  Here are a few of our favorites...they encompass a trip to Carlsbad Caverns, Bluff Springs, and Fresnal Canyon.  I took a trip to the Caverns back in 2005 with a few friends while near the area for work, so it was great to bring Crystal and the kids back there.  The caves are just massive and it is amazing to see how God formed this rock so beautifully underneath the desert.  While near 100 degrees outside, the cave provided us with a cool 56 degrees to take shelter in.

  Massive entrance into the caverns...also doubles as a bat exit at night.

 The kids looking back up to the daylight before it disappears completely.

Our next trip was to a little spring here in the Lincoln National Forest called Bluff Springs.  We enjoyed meandering alongside the babbling brook through most of the afternoon (while doubling as a clean-up field trip after taking away as much trash as we could find).  Way too peaceful of a place, perfect picnic spot.

Our final destination on yet another day was to finally get back to the valley of Fresnal Canyon.  We had seen it on a earlier trip, but did not have the time (nor strength) to hike all the way down the canyon wall and more importantly, back out.  This time, we dedicated the day to it and what a cool hike!!  There was a stream running through the narrow valley making numerous waterfall jumps and curves.  We were constantly crossing the stream on a rock paths we found and the kids had an absolute blast.

 It took a bit of sliding along crumbling rock to make it down the steep embankment...but eventually Crystal gave me a smile to show me how much she loved it (maybe a bit of sarcasm here).

 Jack and Crystal were just alike in their graceful stream crossing technique!

 One of the several waterfalls created along the rock-filled valley floor.

The last and largest waterfall we discovered before the hike back out and up.  These mountains are proving more interesting to explore than I orginally anticipated.  Obviously, we are all enjoying it with every day here being a perfect 70 degrees without a cloud to spot.  Miss everyone back home though as always!!  Love ya'll.

Mexican Canyon

We are all enjoying the company of one another again and have already mapped out plenty of things to do since we are not here very long.  Thankfully, we have begun exploring some of the more interesting places near Alamogordo to include Mexican Canyon Trestle.  This old train trestle has been recently restored, but was built back in 1899 and used through 1947!!  The 65 degree clear sky provided perfect hiking weather to find critters while experiencing a new, desert-type environment high above the White Sands of SE New Mexico.

 This guy was actually caught by Trinity...by far the coolest wild lizard I have seen captured!

 The trestle view after a 1.2 mile hike.

 Another great view just down the street from Mexican Canyon.

  We started down towards the valley (as seen above), but quickly realized we should stop after our 3+ mile earlier hike to the trestle at 8600.'  Looking forward to this descent into the valley soon though!  

Family again...

Well, this blog has been quiet for some time now and that has been due to our family living apart from one another for a few weeks due to some training I am attending.  Thankfully, that time is over!!  Needless to say, we are all excited to be getting together again in a couple of days.  Time away from Crystal & the kids is never enjoyable and it certainly gets harder with each trip I take.  Expect a bit more news in the coming weeks now that we can get exploring again!  In the mean time, we have updated the photo link on the right side of the page since the apple gallery service is going away this summer (boo).  So, we have migrated to a flickr album.

I did manage to view the "Trinity site" during one of only 2 open houses they host each year.  It was a very empty environment and unbelievable to think about the nuclear age taking birth on that particular spot over 65 years ago.

The actual drop location (from a stand) marked with the monument.

Looking West to East...the shelter, a bomb mock-up, and the Trinity monument.

Getting out to Explore

Many things have happened since the last post in terms of setting up our new home. The entire house is just about in order (w/exception of the Garage) along with the walls having marvelous decorative things attached to them now.  It all came together quite nicely...so we have been able to start exploring our surroundings.  Here are a few of our notable outings thus far:

The kids enjoyed their first rodeo and blended right in!  We plan to get them involved with the 4H organization here (if you don't know what that is, we didn't either until a week ago).  It does all types of country stuff (horses, agriculture, shooting...etc.) while building all the cool character stuff kids need.  I think of it as a country version of boy/girl scouts.

This was our first "scouting" trip into the Black Hills and included a far off look at Mount Rushmore.  We also saw wild deer, bison, and many prairie dogs.  All I can say is...this place is going to be FUN!  Also of note, the bottom picture is Trinity's first attempt at a picture with the "big camera" raw & unedited.  I may actually get in some pictures now with her able to snap shots like that.

1st hike and it happened to be a birthday event for yours truly.  As you can tell from these pictures, I don't think I can recall a better one.  The character rich, old-fashioned, and delicious German restaurant located in the middle of the hills isn't even captured...or the homemade key lime pie made for dinner!  A great reminder of the wonderful blessing I have in such awesome kids and a one-of-a-kind angel for my wife.  Above is the natural cave we explored along with some first exposure to ice (below).

Caught these two back in the forest and shortly after, a snowball fight broke out...thankfully my telephoto lens permitted me to capture the action for a distance.

About 3 hours later in 30 degree weather with some occasional snow, we summited Little Devil's Tower.  What a cool hike!!  The rocks here a absolutely amazing and it's like searching for shells on a beach.  Here though, instead of shells, you find fools gold, granite flakes, all types of quartz, and many others that we have yet to identify.  Again...this place is going to be FUN!

Lastly, a sample of the local wildlife to include deer and the illusive snow angels.  We also had some great news just today that we officially have a LID date for the adoption.  This is a big deal in the adoption process and something Crystal will surely expand upon soon in that blog.  For now, I have to get ready to learn another job and aircraft beginning tomorrow.  God Bless.

 

Move Complete!

Well...after a couple of crazy weeks and my fini-fini flight, we are now living in South Dakota. The move actually went really great with minimal stress.  This is our 7th move in about 10 years with the Air Force, so all the tips & tricks to moving came back as we prepared for the packers back in FL.  The packers took a couple of days and then our friendly mover, Greg, arrived with his large truck that Jack enjoyed.  The fellow Hammock residents did not enjoy the truck blocking over half the road for an entire day...so they would speed around it angrily and look at us as if we were doing something wrong.  Well, the movers were concerned and did not want become a BMW hood ornament, so they called the cops. Yes, all normal things in the Florida fast life. 

After our moving fun was finished, we had a great couple of days staying with our good friends, the Millers. God blessed our families with some great fellowship along with some much needed help as our Ford Explorer developed a radiator leak the day before we were supposed to depart. Thankfully, Cook Whitehead Ford really helped us out and installed a new radiator in three hours upon me calling that Saturday afternoon. We then departed Sunday. 

This is the first move we have towed anything...certainly the first move where we each towed something!  So, feeling like big rig truckers complete with radios to talk to one another, we left Florida to the landscapes of South Dakota over 1700 miles away. I had the Titan with 22' RV while Crystal had the Explorer with 8' long enclosed trailer. The trip was not bad other than a terrible thunderstorm at night that we survived while driving through one lane highway construction areas. Thanks Little Rock, that was fun.  We stayed in Enid our second night and Trinity was excited to see her birth place, even if the drive through town only lasted 10 minutes. We discovered the house she grew up in for her first year had been converted into a garage...I knew that house was small, but it was a bit of a shock to see our old address gone.  After exploring a bizarre turtle graveyard of some sort at the campground, we were off to the plains.

Going up through Kansas and Nebraska was actually quite beautiful to us, which made us feel good about our future home....since we knew there would be much in common. Snow and ice began showing up in Kansas and our final night camping in Nebraska brought lows of 13 degrees. I had hoped the heat of our furnace would keep our holding tanks from freezing...not so much. Thankfully some warmer temps later in South Dakota resolved this problem without too many issues (enough said on that bit of unpleasantness). Lessons are fun to learn. Anyhow, we finally arrived to our home...wow, it's pretty cool, to much to capture with words at this moment.

I have written more than I thought I would already, so I will save more for later. However, I will say that we love our new place despite having been moved in through blizzard conditions with winds constantly at 20-30 mph. Check out the video below for a brief look at the winds:

The vistas are incredible and the 6+ acres of peace we reside on blankets our family in a tranquility not yet experienced.  More updates to come, thanks for all the prayers!!  Crystal will also be updating our adoption blog with the latest info soon....  

 View from the edge of our back yard up to the house (middle) and barn in the lower left.  Kids are midway up and resemble ants.

Blessed with sunrise views out the front deck with sunset views off the back deck.