Johnson Family Reunion

We had a blast seeing all Seths Family. We enjoyed volleyball, swimming, paintball, games, and goodtimes in Brians Head Utah. We miss our family and the mountains so much!

Grand Canyon National Park

So while the views were amazing I have this little phobia of heights. I was kind of spazing out the whole time especially when got kids started leaning of the edge of the railings!

White Sands National Monument

After Carlsbad we made our way to White Sands National Monument. The sand there is gypsum very white and even on the hottest days it doesnt burn your feet. The kids loved it and we brought a good amount of sand back with us. After White Sands I was not about to sleep in the car with sand in certain crevices so we rented a motel for the night. It was nice and I got some much needed rest.

Our first Stop Carlsbad Caverns!

As you pass through the Chihuahuan Desert and Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico and west Texas—filled with prickly pear, chollas, sotols and agaves—you might never guess there are more than 300 known caves beneath the surface. The park contains 116 of these caves, formed when sulfuric acid dissolved the surrounding limestone, creating some of the largest caves in North America. If you ever get that chance I would highly recommend taking a trip to Carlsbad caverns. Plan on spending at least 3-4 hours there especially if you have young kids like us. The caves our huge and awe inspiring.

To Utah we go

We were very optimistic leaving San Antonio. We had a cooler full of goodies, a dvd player and a v-smile set up for the kids not to mention a couple of books on tape for the adults. We packed up the car and turned the key to start the engine and found our battery was dead. (Thanks kids for leaving the lights on all day and night) Thank goodness we have a friend in the community and he quickly put our dead battery to rights. After that set back we were on our way to gas up and get something to eat. But this simple little task did not go as easily as planned. Kade had eaten a whole bag of carrots earlier that day and his poor little face and ears swelled up not to mention the eczema. So we poured a little benadryl into his system. In addition to that because of all the raw foliage Kade ate he had not a little but a big accident. Yes, we got to enjoy cleaning that up at the gas station. Our next calamity happened when Seth decided we could make it to the next town to fill up for gas, when low and behold there wasn't a gas station in sight. So yes we ran out of gas at 2 in the morning. Luckily we had somehow made it to a Christian Camp on the river and in the morning they put enough gas into our tank to get us to our Destination of Carlsbad Caverns. The trip got a little better after that although we did experience flash flooding in the New Mexico mountains and we almost hit 2 big buck in Utah.