We are currently in San Antonio TX. We arrived mid October and have had a wonderful time visiting different places and meeting new people. We had the opportunity to spend a short time with other DMD teams who were here in the area in the Fall. As a group we did many things like attending a San Antonio Spurs game, our first professional basketball game, went on field trips together like visiting the San Antonio Zoo, the Witte museum, the Aztec theater, a boat ride on Riverwalk and visited local restaurants.

 The boss had us fly up and stay in Arizona for Thanksgiving at the Grand Canyon. It was a wonderful treat, way beyond my wildest expectations. I think there were ten other DMD families there total with lots of fun and fellowship for everyone with so many kids, so many adults and so much laughter! It was an incredibly memorable experience for us. Enjoying the majestic Grand Canyon, train rides with singing cowboys and train robbers, two hand touch football games, Christmas shopping in whimsical Williams, AZ all made for an extremely memorable experience. On the way back to TX, we managed to squeeze in a visit to the Hoover Dam with some DMD friends. The next day we visited dh's cousin Ralph and his wife Colleen in Las Vegas. They hadn't seen mu husband in 20 years.(Seems to be a common number with him!)  Colleen is a great cook and Ralph kept us fascinated with his ranch animals and stories from his many careers. They were so sweet and such fun. Wish we could have visited longer.

 Back in TX, we found some neat churches here in San Antonio to visit and to top it off the grandparents from NY flew in before Christmas and stayed here at the campground. We had a great time and we've missed them terribly. We flew home for Christmas for a short visit and then came back to camper life in San Antonio, where the tortillas are wonderful, the people are friendly and the weather nicer than back home, to say the least. Getting back into the home school routine was difficult but somehow with God’s help we are managing. We went back to the zoo one Sunday only to have a lesson in the survival of the fittest where we witnessed a hyena devouring a squirrel right before our eyes. The squirrel had the misfortune to fall into the hyenas’ area and well, it was a gruesome sight with no leftovers if you catch my drift. My husband turned it into quite the science lesson. We won’t be forgetting that visit.

 We also managed to squeeze in a visit with dh’s old high school buddy, Mitch and his sweet family who live in Austin. We had a lovely visit with them. It was fun listening to all the mischief those two got into as teens and seeing their old high school yearbook. We all shared a lot of laughs that day. Hopefully we’ll get to see them one more time before we head out to our next destination.