Our Vacation...

The reason that we haven't posted in a while is because we have been on a mini vacation for the last 5 days. We were lucky enough to have our friends Edward and Melissa invite us to a fun-filled couple days in White's City. It will be a very memorable experience for many different reasons but the best part was Carlsbad Cavern.

On Wednesday night we got to see the mass flight of the bats coming out for their daily dinner. We saw hundreds of thousands of bats fly out of the natural entrance at the same time. When the majority of people left, we all went closer to the natural entrance to get a better view and we almost got hit by a couple bats that strayed from the group; we were that close. You can see the natural entrance in some of the pictures below.

We came back the next morning to see the Cavern and we decided to take the natural entrance route. We took an almost vertical path down the cave and were definitely tested on our leg endurance (Diana is still sore!). Here is the view looking up out through the natural entrance.

Here are some of my favorite pictures in the Cavern. Sorry about the quality but being 800 feet below the surface doesn't help with photography.

Do you see the man's face below?


Other than the Cavern, we will always remember our experience at the only local restaurant, the Velvet Garter. On Thursday night, we went to eat at 6 PM and didn't get out until almost 9 PM. It took us almost 45 minutes to be acknowledged and an hour to be seated (I had to ask if we could seat ourselves). Let's just say that the waitress/manager was not that friendly. But I guess it doesn't matter what they do, they are the only restaurant there. It's a good thing that the morning restaurant (in the same building) had excellent waitresses. Here is a picture at the Velvet Garter saloon. We were glad that the not-so-young waitresses didn't actually wear garters and the only velvet was on the walls.

The other part of our vacation was the Parker Reunion. On Friday we drove 3 1/2 hours back to Las Cruces to drop of Edward and Melissa and immediately drove 2 1/2 more hours to Montosa. There wasn't a great turnout but we had a lot of fun. As always there were cards played (I won't say who won), and a lot of food eaten. It was nice seeing a lot of familiar faces again.

With all the driving and running around, Diana was just a little bit tired. Here is a picture of the ride home.

It was a fun 5 days that we needed before we soon have to go to work. Thanks Ed and Mel for inviting us, thanks Mom and Dad for taking care of our poultry, and thanks Mel and Jon and Mark and Tammie for taking care of our dogs.

Woodworking...

One of the incentives of moving back closer to family is that we live 1 mile from Dad's shop. I really enjoy building things with wood and now that we are closer, I can do it a lot more often. In fact, I have been working in Dad's shop for the last 4 days.

I really got back into it with a project for a man from the church. He needed 48 frame holders and I was the lucky one to build them. I have never built so many things in my life. I did the calculation and in total I made 720 total cuts. If you know of anyone that needs one, tell them to look somewhere else; I don't think I will make another one ever again.

Between building the 48 picture frames, I got to build some outdoor furniture for our evolving yard. At first I made a bench but that wasn't enough for a certain wife. I then built two chairs and that again wasn't enough. I finally built a side table and a foot rest; but of course that will not be enough. My next project will be a picnic table. We are sure enjoying the nice evenings outside with all of our animals.

Old video of mom and dad...

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Cheep Cheep...

As soon as Diana and I moved to Houston, we missed having chickens immediately. Now that we are back and have land, one of the first things we did was start a new flock. We currently have 1 adult goose, 2 baby geese, 4 bantam chickens (with feathers on their feet), 2 hens (1 might be a rooster) and 6 pullets. When we brought the babies home, our other babies were quite interested.

Here is one of the pullets. She is definitely going to be a hen and give us tons and tons of eggs.

Here is a picture that shows the size differential between the pullets and the geese. This is our female goose whose name is Hillary. (The male goose is named Barack).

Our adult goose, Isabella, sure does not like new things in her chicken coop. She is going to be the boss.
Here are two of the bantam chickens. They are a little bit smaller when they grow up and they are the ones that have feathers on their feet. These could either be roosters or hens.

Here are our two hens. We got our first egg yesterday!

Mother and Daughter...

Diana's mother came to visit us last week and we had a great time with her. It is awesome to be closer to her. Here are a couple pictures of Diana and her mom during her visit.

Grandmother's House...

Everybody is happy to be closer....even Daisy!

Baby Blog...

Diana and I really wanted something to keep our memories of these 9 months of pregnancy. Since Diana doesn't like doing journals, we decided to keep a blog of our experiences. This way we can share our exciting experiences with our family and friends and also have something to look back on in the future. Who knows, this might be the only time Diana is pregnant. We wanted to keep it separate of our personal blog so you most likely won't see any more baby stuff on this blog. If you want to know what's going on with the pregnancy and "Baby Queso," you can look at http://babyqueso.blogspot.com/ or click on the "Baby Queso" on the top right.

Spider Ranch...

If you haven't noticed yet, our title to the blog has changed. The new title, "The Daves' @ Spider Ranch," does fit nicely. If you don't know, my parents, Diana, and I named where we live Spider Ranch almost 2 years ago. There has always been countless numbers of spiders in our house, under our house, and everywhere else you look. They are usually the Daddy Long-Leg type of spiders which makes it not so bad to live with. That changed when we moved back.

We found a new type of spider that lives on Spider Ranch. A couple days after we moved, I went to clean out the chicken coop and I found a spider that I would rather not see. You know that I am deathly afraid of spiders and you can tell by the "cup" it is under that it is not a small spider.

I was brave enough (yes, Diana and myself were surprised) to get the tarantula in the bucket and I took it to the back of our property and let it go. A couple of days later, this is what I found in the chicken coop:
You might not see it right at first, but that black thing on the trashcan is another tarantula! We don't know if it is the same one who found its way back or a new one but we were definitely not happy! To make sure it didn't come back again, I walked it a mile down the road and then released it. If it finds its way back, I might have to move.

I thought this was a cool picture with our goose, Isabella, our chicken, Righty, and the tarantula (sorry we did not name the spider!).

3 months...

I know that it is late but here is Diana's picture at 3 months. She is now into her 2nd trimester and getting bigger every week. It has really gotten noticeably bigger in the last two weeks. She got to hear the baby's heartbeat on Monday and said it was the coolest thing she has ever heard. I wish I was there. I will get to hear to heatbeat in about a week.

Funny story about her big belly...Whenever someone asks about her belly, she says it is so big because of the "cheese." We have started to call the baby "cheese." I think that "cheese" is gender neutral, no?

(She looks bigger in person!)

The Move from Houston

We were lucky to have my mother come to Houston to help Diana and I move back to New Mexico. Before we started our 15 hour trek, we decided to take my mom to Galveston. The weather could not have been better, the waves were 3-4 feet tall, and the water was like bath water. We had a great time knowing that we wouldn't see that much water in a long time.




Here is our last picture in the front of our house in Missouri City. It was a great house that will carry many memories for us. Moving from that house to the house on Spider Ranch will be a struggle but it will pay off in the end.

This is what Daisy and Tay looked like the entire 2-day trip to New Mexico. I have never seen them sleep more.

We are so glad to be back in New Mexico. Diana and I will always be New Mexicans. (Don't worry Dad, they didn't brainwash us over there in Texas.)

We are back!

We finally got the internet installed today so you should start seeing more posts!

Sorry for the delay...