Christmas in Portales

On Christmas Day we drove from Albuquerque to Portales (about 4 hours). There was, not surprisingly, very little traffic. We had wisely gassed up the evening before since about the only place open for gas in Albuquerque was the Flying J. (I'm told that they actually ran out of gas the next day.) The truck stop in Santa Rosa was also open, but not much else, so we sailed straight on through to Joyce's house.

It was fun to be with Joyce and her family. The kids got to open more presents that evening from us and from their aunts. The 'He Man' video and toy from Aunt Julie turned out to be one of the biggest hits--once they watched the video. None of the kids knew who He Man was at first.

Aunt Ruth made each of the girls a notebook to practice their letters and over the next couple of days they did just that--and learned that when dry erase markers get wet, they don't work.

The day after Christmas we checked out the after Christmas sales in Clovis and on Saturday we all worked together to put up the trampoline the family got. Despite some trepidation about getting on, Syndl was actually the first one up and bouncing. They didn't get much time on the trampoline because it was very cold, but I'm sure that it will get good use in the future.