We drove out today with our sleds to slide down the dunes.

We had an early Christmas Eve Dinner with Steph's mom and brother and then headed to Old Mesilla for Christmas songs and luminarias on the plaza.

There were lots of people and lots of candles, and occasionally a flare of light as someone bumped a luminaria and the bag lit on fire.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

We took a day trip to El Paso, Texas today.  We went to the El Paso Saddle Blanket Company, Lin's Buffet (famous for all the wrong reasons, though we didn't find out till later.  The food was really good), the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Cultural Center (museum was closed, manager went for tacos we were told by a vendor), Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Mission, the El Paso History Museum, the El Paso Museum of Science, a Korean grocery, Chico's Taco's and finally a Posada at St. Anthony's Seminary.  All-in-all, not a bad day for 7 people in one car and Opal is just two months old.

Here is the statue outside the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Cultural Center.

Coral found "100 years of El Paso Royalty gowns"

Here are the girls under their respective cradleboards and then the girls being goofy.  Opal has sure grown up in the last week or so.

We are finally settled in enough that we could go get a Christmas tree.

We looked at every tree on the lot, smelled them, compared them, argued with the salesman.   Maybe we are starting to savor life's little events (one can always hope).

Success!  Coral was upset because Stephanie told here that the tree didn't mean that Christmas was tonight.

We changed our blog name, our old naming scheme just wasn't going to work anymore.

Introducing "FALLING ROCKS."  We did a full revamp ...

Just when we thought that life was calming down Opal decided to mix things up a little. She was a little flu-y and Steph took her to the clinic. The doctor told her to keep an eye on her and if it got worse to bring her back to Crownpoint. (Matt, Ruby and Coral were in Las Cruces getting the house ready)

Long story short, at 4 am the next morning Opal and Steph were on a Medivac flight from Crownpoint to the Presbyterian pediatric unit in Albuquerque. All is well now, but we are hoping this is the last crisis we have for a while.

Feeling better

This is a much nicer bed than she has at home.

Pooped and ready to go home.

In other news, we are all moved. We got all our stuff out of storage and can't, for the life of us, figure out where all this junk came from.

We had Thanksgiving with Steph's Aunts this year. Thanks Grandma Nina for hosting.

Here is Coral and her cousin Fallera.

Coral put on her mother's glasses and started to be a little ham.

We went to visit Stephanie's grandparents in Ojo Encino today.

Here are the girls with their great-grandfather Nali George (Stephanie's dad's dad).

and their Nali Rose (Coral was being shy and refused to sit with her sisters).

Here is Nali Rose getting to know her youngest great-grandchild.

Finally as we were leaving Coral gave her great-grandmother a hug.

Ruby had a special chore today. She helped her uncle move grandma's outhouse.

We went to the Thanksgiving program at the elementary school today.

We made a compilation video of the highlights.

First is the color guard.

Then the pledge of allegiance in Navajo.

Then the kindergarten class does their interpretation of the first Thanksgiving, where the pilgrims arrive in the year 1620 to the Pueblo Pintado in a steamer ship and are saved by hunger with the gift of fry bread. It was pretty cute.

Then the 3rd graders sing "Home on the Range"

Finally Grandma Emma's Dine Club does a traditional song and dance.

Opal slept through the whole program.

Nali Dot had a special request while they were visiting, to do a tour of Canyon de Chelly.

So Sunday afternoon, Nali Dot, Nali Dale, Ruby, Coral and Matt headed to Chinle, Arizona to spend the night and get up the next morning for our tour.

Here is Spider Rock, which is an important site in Navajo mythology.

Here are the girls ready to take off in the tour jeep.

Some of the Anisazi pictographs.

These images are Navajo and Hopi, petroglyphs of Sapniards on the left and clan symbols on the right, thought to be territorial markers.

Some of the Anisazi ruins

This was our guide. He didn't even have to look to see were he was and could answer all the questions before they were finished being asked.

We got the back seat of the jeep and probably annoyed the rest of the tour group with our constant chatting.

Coral and Ruby's favorite part of the whole tour was playing in the cottonwood leaves. This is probably the first time they have been around piles of leaves, guess somethings we take for granted when the kids don't.

Giant cow pictograph. I guess every neighborhood has one of those people.