Vacation to the Mountains - Day 3

After we hiked Bandelier we drove on to South Fork, Colorado where we were going to spend several days at the house of our close family friend, Carolyn Stickland. Her place is wonderful! It is a lovely home surrounded by beautiful mountains and right by the Rio Grand River. On day three we again enjoyed the outdoors! While Anson was taking his morning nap, Ollie and my dad enjoyed a few games of horseshoes. Genevieve and I enjoyed watching and walking around outside. After lunch we headed out for another hike. We first drove to the river and walked along the railroad tracks that bordered the water. We then went to Million Reservoir and enjoyed the gorgeous scenery and hike!

Vacation to the Mountains - Day 2

Our second day we got up early, ate breakfast at the hotel, then headed to Bandelier National Monument, which is about thirty minutes outside of Santa Fe near Los Alamos. Bandelier is an ancient cliff dwelling where Native Americans once lived. It contains a number of ancestral pueblo homes, kivas (ceremonial structures), rock paintings and petroglyphs. We were so excited go on a hike! We miss living so close to the mountains to be able to do stuff like this all the time! It was a great adventure!

Vacation to the Mountains - Day 1

We were fortunate to be able to go on a family vacation to New Mexico and Colorado with my parents before Ollie started work (unfortunately Robert couldn't make it b/c of work). So we went on our first long road trip with the kids. We first drove to Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is an eleven hour drive. We left at around 5 am so the kids could sleep for a few hours. Then we stopped in Vernon, TX for a breakfast of donuts, bananas and milk. The kids loved the special treat. Then we drove for several hours. The kids read books, slept and watched a movie. We stopped for lunch in Santa Rosa, NM at a little park with a pond that we walked around to get out some energy before hitting the road again. We arrived in Santa Fe about 4 o'clock. The kids did great in the car all day. We were initially worried, but now we feel like we can do more road trips with the kids. We checked in to the hotel and went for a swim in the pool which the kids enjoyed. My parents arrived in Santa Fe about 5:30 and we headed to one of our favorite spots for some good new mexican food, Blue Corn Cafe. Being that it had been an extremely long day we all went to bed early.