In the spring of 2013 we found ourselves really missing my second son and his family who are stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. It is a brief sixteen hour drive from here to El Paso and surprisingly, it is the same distance from there to here in Utah. Searching for a solution, we decided that Cortez, Colorado was as close to the middle as we could get. Some investigation found Mesa Verde which is a park with amazing cliff dwellings. This picture was taken by the park ranger that we ran into on our way down to this ruins. The fun part of this picture is who you do not see but were actually there. There were two pregnant ladies in this picture and we have since welcome a wonderful little grandson and a delightful little granddaughter.

There are many cool aspects of this photo. Little Sydney tucked inside of Stetsens' coat is a doll and being kept warm. Kelton is being funny and posing for his police photo. Darren is trying to remain incognito and all are just trying not to freeze. for me the most interesting aspect of this photo is that even though we drove hundreds of miles and hiked down to ruins that are thousands of years old and perhaps a little six month old girl may be what draws your attention first. To the random observer, this is just a picture of a family visiting a park but in our redneck world, this is a family outing that required much sacrifice to get there and then was filled with life long lasting memories.