Last Saturday, we drove a couple hours north for the kids' first visit to Bandelier National Monument. Basically, it's a canyon filled with petroglyphs, cliff dwellings, and ruins from the ancestral Pueblo people that lived in this area until about 500 years ago.

Seeing the old kivas and remains of mortar homes is cool, but the definite highlight is climbing into the dwellings built into the base of the canyon wall.



By midday it was too hot to enjoy more hiking, so we headed back for some lunch and a stop in Santa Fe.

I really wanted to check out the international folk art festival, but was outvoted in favor of the children's museum.(Probably just as well since the art up there is generally not in our budget!) 

Once again, the face painting station was Greta's favorite, and she dedicated some serious time and effort to perfecting her look.


And after she ran out of her own skin to write on, she moved on to the rest of us...


Funny how it's so nice to get out of town every now and then, even if it's just for a day :).

We've been extra lucky to be visited by both sets of parents/grandparents over the last couple of weekends! 

First up were Shawn's parents... We enjoyed a wonderful long weekend of games, time outside, eating (Shawn and I even snuck in a date night at a nice restaurant while Grandma and Grandpa suffered through Chuck E Cheese!), and just catching up. Our big outing for the visit was a kayak trip down the mighty Rio Grande. It was a ton of fun, and nobody had to worry about drowning (you can pretty much stand up at any point the water is so shallow). The time went fast, but we did capture a few photos of the festivities.

Thank you so much for coming down and spoiling the kids and us, Mike and Kathy!! We're all really happy knowing that we'll see you again soon :).

This past weekend we took a little road trip down south for the kids' first visit to White Sands National Monument.

We made an overnight of it, with visits to local train and space museums...



...but the definite highlight was that white, white sand under the big New Mexico sky.










One of my favorite places in the state, and maybe in the world. It's in the middle of nowhere, but if you ever get a chance to go - it's magic.

Pretty self-explanatory, but here have been some highlights of our month so far...

Valentine's Day.

New Mexico Lobos men's basketball game.

Skiing with friends.

Hiking.

It's balloon fiesta time!! Or at least it was a couple of weeks ago...

 
This year was extra special because my mom came down for the entire thing, and even stayed with the kids in Albuquerque while Shawn and I snuck away for a few days up the middle.
 
The Darth Vader balloon was here again, surrounded by its usual cast of Star Wars characters.
 
We also spotted the bees, a princess, her carriage, and Elvis the balloon amid the pack at the morning launch.
 
Despite the cold start, it was a beautiful day for ballooning and we returned to the park at dusk for some glowing action.
 
 
 
We had several days of school and the usual ho-hum, then Shawn and I flew to Las Vegas for a few days of debauchery while "Grandma Sue", Liam, and Greta had their own fun here. We returned just in time to join in at the pumpkin patch and corn maze.
 
 
Thank you so very much for coming down, Mom/Grandma, and making the fiesta and fall break fantastic! The kids have already been asking when you're coming again :0)

It would hardly be a proper start to the fall season without some fair food, so this weekend (between a birthday party, swimming, bike riding, and a baby shower) we made our annual visit to "Expo New Mexico".

We like to arrive right at opening, when the day is cool and the crowds are light.

 
Greta has been wondering for awhile if any of the horses at the fair would have horns, so we bee-lined straight to the pony ride to find out.
 
Luckily Liam is not too big to enjoy a pony ride himself.
 
Greta was just as thrilled to be on a regular (non-unicorn) pony, and used the opportunity to practice up on her trick riding (note the hand-in-air).
 
Next it was time for a little face painting.
 
And Liam's turn on the big tractor. I'm pretty sure we have this same picture from every year but his very first (when we were living in Oregon during fair time).
 
After that, things got serious between eating, petting animals, and watching the model trains, and my hands were too dirty for anymore pictures :0).