Twinkle Lights Parade & Partying with Work Friends

A few weeks ago was the annual Twinkle Lights Parade in Nob Hill where a bunch of local business and clubs and anyone else who wants to put Christmas lights on their car do a parade down Route 66 in our neighborhood.  There was a pre-k bus with the Grinch...



A few waste and recycling themed trucks...





A line of Jeeps followed by the Albuquerque Impala Club (yes, it's a real thing)...





And some other fun miscellaneous ones...





The NM state bird, the roadrunner, even made an appearance:



It was cute and fun to watch all the kids getting excited about the different displays.  Next year we'll have to get there early to set up chairs and bring some "special" hot chocolate with us to help keep us warm :)

Later that night we went to a party for a friend at work's 40th birthday.  It was a lot of fun hanging out with people outside of work and getting to see their true colors!







As you can see, everyone wore black to help the birthday girl "mourn the passing of her youth."

Eating and Drinking Our Way Through Nob Hill

WARNING: you are about to get very hungry (and also maybe thirsty).





Unfortunately my parents had to leave on Friday afternoon after Thanksgiving, but Aaron and Ashley stuck around for the weekend.  Friday night we took them to one of our favorite New Mexican restaurants, Matanza, that also is conveniently located less than 5 minutes' walk from our house.







Aaron thought the chile rellenos were pretty spicy...



Albuquerque also has a TON of local microbreweries and apparently is trying to get on the map as a destination for great local beer.  I've never really liked beer but have been trying to become more of a beer drinker recently because there are so many fun breweries around.  So we took advantage of having Aaron and Ashley's beer expertise (Josh is a beer expert but only about IPAs, which I definitely do not like) and tried some beers at Tractor Brewing Co (#getplowed).



Apparently I enjoy Scottish ales and brown ales.  Who knew?!  The next day we took them to the Bloody Mary bar that we discovered when Jenny was in town.  That weekend that had added oysters to the spread!




After going for a walk, watching some football, and napping, we were thirsty again, so we went to another close by brewery for a tasting.  I liked the Scottish ale at Bosque Brewing too...



And here's some evidence that we did do a little walking around that did not involve eating and drinking :)



Aaron says "go lobos!"



And earlier in the week, Dad found the tractor outside of Tractor Brewing and had to try it out...



It was great having family visit and showing them why we are having so much fun here in Albuquerque!  Happy fall, y'all!

Hiking in the Snow

Looking back at my blog so far, I've realized that most of what I post about is hiking and eating, so I guess it's safe to say that those are our two favorite pastimes!  That being true, we of course wanted to share this with my family when they were visiting, so we took them on our go-to hike for visitors, Tree Springs Trail.



It was a beautiful, sunny day with lots of snow leftover from the night before and the dogs  had a great time eating it and making yellow snow.





Ashley and I both stayed warm in our fleece-lined LL Bean flannel shirts and played twinsies for the day :)




It was a little chilly and windy at the top, but worth the hike for the great view as usual!

Thanksgiving!

My parents and Ashley and Aaron came to visit for Thanksgiving and it was a great time!  The official turkey frying went well...



And so did the addition of creamed corn to the menu, complete with lots of butter and cream cheese...



Plenty of over eating for all and we made it through it all without a dishwasher (props to Josh and Ashley on that)!



Another post with more from their visit coming soon, I promise :)

Trial Turkey Frying and Halloween

For the past few years we have been deep frying turkeys for Thanksgiving in the GA mountains.  This year, my parents and Aaron and Ashley are making their way to Albuquerque, so we'll be carrying on the tradition here!  So for Josh's birthday, my parents got him a deep frying set up and we decided to do a trial run to make sure that the altitude difference doesn't change things too much.  Bailey was very interested in helping with the turkey...





We learned a few tricks to change for the brine, but the turkey turned out golden and delicious!





We also made a bloomin' onion just for fun :)



The leftover fried turkey was a hit for the Halloween potluck and my office did a "superheroes and villains" theme, which all the kiddos loved.  The one on the far right is my boss dressed as Iron Man (it's hard to see in this picture but he has a glowing circle under his shirt).



And at home we got dressed up and ready to hand out candy.  I was Captain America from my work costume, and everyone else went with their go-to costumes of Minnie Mouse, Batman, and Robin.

Sadly we did not have many trick-or-treaters, but we still had a good time hanging out on the driveway with the dogs and talking with the neighbors.  Also, Addie and Bailey are both possessed by demons, as you can see from their eyes in these pictures.

Maize Maze

Fall is my favorite season, and I was a little worried that I wouldn't get the experiences I was used to here in the southwest.  Luckily we've spent enough time in the mountains to see a lot of fall colors, and the weather is finally starting to get cooler too.  And of course I've gotten to enjoy some pumpkin spice lattes, a crucial part of the fall season regardless of where you live :)  I dragged Josh to a maize maze a few weekends ago, and while I admit that it was a little underwhelming, I'm still glad we went.  The "maize" is not actually a corn field, but still very pretty.







They do a scavenger hunt each year, and this year the theme was colors.  So we learned about things like what types of plants were commonly used by local Native Americans for dyes, why flamingos are pink, and why barns are painted red...





It's definitely more geared toward families with children, but it's always nice spending time outside on a beautiful day!

Goldilocks and the bike trails

We've been getting more into mountain biking recently and so we have done a few hikes in an attempt to find good bike trail options.  Apparently we have a lot of criteria for what makes something a good bike trail... I don't like too many hills or loose rocks, it has to be remote enough and not busy so that we can have the dogs off leash, and we'd like to find one that takes 2-3 hours.  This has been a challenge and unfortunately we really still haven't found the perfect trail.  There is one that we've done a few times that checks most of the boxes but it's just a little too short and only takes about an hour.  Anyway, here is one we tried, Poker Chip Trail.  It was great in terms of length and remoteness, but too many rocks and hills for my taste.  Nice trail for hiking though!





Also some more signs of sea life from a long time ago at 7,000 feet above current day sea level!



We also tried one called Oterro Canyon, which meets all of the criteria except that it was way too crowded.  Josh even went back on a week day and said it was still really busy, too busy to have the dogs off leash and not be worrying about them getting run over by a bike (and causing a crash) the whole time.  But it was another nice hike with some beautiful fall colors.









We also came across this comforting warning sign...



At least now we know what to do if we encounter a cougar!  The fact that it says to keep children within arms reach probably also means we shouldn't have the dogs off leash running a few hundred feet away from us...

Remember the Crest and Faulty Trails, our first hikes here in New Mexico?  We finally revisited the Faulty trail and it looks totally different at this time of year than mid-summer.  I do miss the fall leaves in Georgia but I'm glad to have found so much nice foliage around here too.





So for now I guess we'll have to stick with the shorter bike trail that seems to meet all the other requirements and maybe just do it twice in a row until we find our perfect bowl of porridge.