More visitors!

And we love having them and showing off all of our favorite spots!  Josh took Ashley and Leonard up to the Sandia Peak and Tree Springs Trail to enjoy the views.

We didn't take a lot more pics but of course we took her to all of the fun restaurants too.  Ashley left Sunday morning and then we went with Leonard to our first Isotopes baseball game!

Girl's Weekend

Josh went to visit the Golia's in San Antonio for a Master's watching extravaganza a couple of weekends ago.  He took Bailey along for the trip, so Addie and I got to spend some time together alone just like old times!



We did a lot of relaxing and cooking a few meals that Josh doesn't like, but we also went for a nice new hike in the foothills of the west side of the mountains.







I think Addie enjoyed having her mama to herself again for a change, but we were both happy to have Josh and Bailey back home :)

Reunited and it feels so good

Spring has been beautiful here in Albuquerque and we have been so lucky to have friends and family visiting to enjoy it with us!  At the end of March, my best friend from PA school, Becca, and her husband Forest, came to visit.  After spending two and a half years in school with Becca, seeing her almost every day and spending countless hours at Starbucks studying, I definitely have missed her face!  On their first day we went to this crazy exhibit in Santa Fe called MeowWolf.



It's an "immersive art experience" that is pretty interesting and a fun way to spend an afternoon, but really hard to describe.  Basically there's all these different rooms with weird, intricate details to look at and a lot them that you touch and play with and they light up and make noises.  Here's a sampling of some of the random creatures we found:











Definitely a little weird, but a fun place to explore!



Becca and Forest are big rock climbers, so the next day they went exploring and did some bouldering.







And of course, we had to do some hiking at one of our favorite spots.





It was a little windy at the top...



What a wonderful long weekend!

D2 comes to town!

We'd been giving Leonard/Dad/D2 a hard time because he hadn't come to visit us in Albuquerque, so he finally got sick of listening to us and came to see us!  We went on a new hike while he was here that is about 2 hours south of town called the Fourth of July Trail.  There's also a campground there, so maybe we'll have to plan to visit overnight sometime!



The hike goes up into the Manzano Mountains about 3.5 miles over 1300 feet elevation change.





There was a really cool meadow at the top that I somehow forgot to take a picture of but would be a really great overnight spot.  Apparently some people have also seen wild cows grazing there according to our hiking book!  We had 4 dogs with us, so we must have scared them all off.



A little past the meadow we made it to the top and the views were breathtaking!



Addie was pretty exhausted from the hike up, so she found a good spot for a snooze while we ate our lunch.



It was a great new hike and we will definitely be returning!



Of course we also took Leonard to all of our favorite eating and drinking spots, including the famed Bloody Mary bar and some deliciously spicy New Mexican food.  He was also here to help Josh and I celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary!



We spent the day skiing in Santa Fe and it was a perfect way to enjoy and reminisce.





We had a great time showing him why we are loving New Mexico!  Thanks for visiting D2 :)

Culinary Adventures

Every year the fiery foods show comes to visit Albuquerque and hundreds of vendors from all over the country set up booths so you can get a taste of their spiciest and most flavorful goods.  We went with some co-workers of mine and all of us, even the New Mexico native, were sweating and dreaming of tall glasses of milk by the time we were through!



A collection of goodies from the show:



And I'm trying my hand at urban gardening, starting with this cute little ornamental pepper plant!  Completely edible, according to the guy who sold it to me :)



Also trying to grow cilantro and mint, since we use cilantro a lot for cooking and I just love mint everything.  Any bets on how long until I kill the first one?



In the spirit of continuing our culinary adventures, we went to participate in Albuquerque Restaurant Week at one of our favorite local spots, Nob Hill Bar and Grill.  We enjoyed a 3 course meal with roasted poblano bisque (not pictured), dry aged ribeye, proscuitto wrapped sea scallops, tres leches cake, and some beer and moscow mules.  And then we rolled down the hill back home.

Breckenridge with the Camps (Part 2)

One of the days in Breckenridge, we decided to take a little break from skiing and go snowmobiling!  We went up to the Georgia Pass, where apparently some gold miners from Georgia came to search in the Colorado hills.



We got to see some beautiful views from the top of the Continental Divide and we were actually only about a peak away from one of the hikes we had done in September.





Leonard and his kids...



Barbara and about a third of her kids...



The Golias:



And of course Leighton had to get a few snow angels in on top of the world!



Snowmobiling was great, but next time we might have to opt for the dog sled rides instead; look how  cute they are!  Do you think they'd let us add our own crazy running dog to the pack for the day?