Ashby Clan: May - June

May -
Braden turned one! We went to the zoo and played in the pool in our back yard.

June -
We had a great 1st annual Horne reunion at Mesa Verde National park. We sure had a good time together and were happy that our children had a chance to get to know each other better. For those who missed this vacation, we hope you can make the next one in the year 2011!

July -
4th of July was a fun event with our church here in Texas. Savanna participated in a bike parade and we all had a good time watching the fire works.

Nathan turned 32 years old (the govener of Texas sent him a certificate congradulating him on his 40th birthday. We thought that was so great, we hung it up in our kitchen). For his birthday, we traveled an hour north into New Mexico and swam in the Rio Grande. We had a GRANDE time. The water was perfect, the weather was perfect (105 degrees). We stayed about 4 hours and played near the damn, walked in the river (shallow for the most part) and had a good time. Nathan sure knows how to have fun on his birthday.:)

Braden learned how to walk! Now we get to chase him everywhere.

Joshua has started using the "potty" and is a full time underwear-wearer! We give much of the credit to Josh, but some to Little Einsteins, his heroes and motivators.

Savanna has officially discarded her life jacket at the swimming pool and can swim on her own now. She is doing a beautiful job.

Nathan and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary (2 days early) in El Paso and Fabens, Texas. We love our children, however, spending 9 hours, alone, not chasing children, has it's benefits. That is the first time that we have spent that much time alone together since Braden has been born and the last time was when Savanna was about 9 months old when we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary in Pittsburgh, PA. We had a great time yesterday and ate some AWESOME steak at the Cattleman's Steakhouse on a ranch out in nowhere.

Order of Pictures: July, June, and May

Holly and Nathan - Celebration of 7th Anniversary

Celebrating Nathan's 32nd birthday at the FABULOUS Rio Grande in New Mexico. We are forever fans.

Braden standing; Joshua in the background

We love our turtle. We roped him to a tree so that the river would not carry our kids away forever. He gave us, and others, some good, lazy rides.

Nathan can handle them all. He is amazing.

Nancy, at Nathan's work, made him a very yummy chocolate cake. It was our 2nd breakfast.

4th of July Celebration at the Rosemont Chapel, El Paso. Good times.

Whenever there is a party, Savanna puts on her party (aka Princess) clothes. She is so precious.

What a happy dude.

We will all remember this little guy and his "safe monkey" on his back. That monkey saved his life I believe a few times. Uncle Dan took if off and dared Josh to go close to the edge. It was then that Josh was more cautious of his actions. Cool.

Lydia - Savanna - Katie - - what cute cousins!

Preston is adorable

We are all ready to go on our cold hike through the ice cave.

We hiked up to see the old volcano with Preston, Dan and Denai. I don't know what our kids would have done without Dan and Denai - Savanna and Josh were really done with hiking and wanted to be carried the whole time. When it was time for this picture, they wanted nothing to do with it and all I could do was laugh. Preston is getting a good laugh in, too, I see.

Hiking the steep ladders of the Mesa Verde ruins.

Dan, Denai and Preston Horne

We felt the cold, all right, but only for a few minutes. It was a pretty hot day and it was neat to see this cave full of ice. We wished we could have explored more and hiked around, but at least we got to see it.