Travis' Baptism

 We had a fun filled few days before and after Travis' big day.  Brian's parents flew in Wed. evening and we enjoyed a couple days with them before Travis' baptism day.  One day we went to the Sculpture Garden just outside of Santa Fe.  There were lots of cool sculptures.  Here's Grandma and Grandpa Anderson with a pirate statue.  After this we toured downtown Santa Fe and saw lots of artwork and indian jewelry.

 Lucas and Travis both had baseball games to show off their skills in front of their grandparents.  Here's Lucas getting ready to field a ball.

 Here's Lucas getting a hit.  Lucas had a double header, it was a long two hours for those kids.

We also took our grandparents out to the trails behind our house and walked along the canyon rim.  Here's a photo of us (minus Angela who was taking the shot).

 Now here's Travis in the middle of a swing during his game.  He has to hit against a pitching machine and it's quite hard for the kids to hit it.

Travis played first base one inning and had a close call play at first base but tie went to the runner.

We then took them up to the huge super volcano up in the mountains near our town.  Here's our kids with their grandparents with the volcano in view behind them.  The huge grassy area is the volcano that hasn't erupted in 50,000 years.  Nothing can grow in this area except grass.  What you see here is only like 1/10th of the size of the whole volcano!

We also stopped at the rock monster nearby.

Then came baptism day.  Our Pippin grandparents arrived Saturday morning for the baptism.  Travis was quite lucky to have both sets of grandparents there for his special day.  The only other time these grandparents had met before was at Brian and Angela's wedding.  Here's Travis before the baptism.

Here's Travis with his dad.  The baptism was a special day for all involved.  Grandma Anderson played the piano for the service, Grandpa Pippin gave the opening prayer, Grandpa Anderson gave the talk on baptism, and Grandma Pippin gave the talk on the Holy Ghost.  Brian had quite the special experience baptizing his son, it reminded him of how old he is and also what a special responsibility he and Angela both have in raising these boys.  Travis really had a neat experience too and thought it felt really good.  He was glad the water was warm.  He seemed to act different throughout the rest of the day and was on his best behavior.

Now with his mom.

And a family photo.

Anderson grandparents and Travis.

Pippin grandparents and Travis.

Travis got his very own set of scriptures for his birthday with his name engraved on the cover.  He was happy about them.

On Sunday Brian's parents left and Angela's parents stayed for a few days to enjoy our kids.  We also took them out to the trails behind our house.

We also took the Pippins to Bandelier National Monument where there are indian ruins and ladders you can climb.  Here's Brian, Lucas, and Marcus in one of the ruins (and Travis  peeking out in the upper left).

The kids enjoyed the challenge of climbing up to get inside these houses.  Even grandma and grandpa climbed up inside.

Here's Travis shadowing Marcus as they both climbed up a ladder.

Marcus enjoyed this maze of rock that the kids can almost get lost in.

Here's Marcus and his dad  peeking out a window.

We also took our grandparents on the free trolley downtown and visited the museum.  This is a funny shot of Lucas.