New Mexico!

Stephen and I took an early 20th anniversary trip to New Mexico!  It's the one state neither of us have been to in that area of the US, so we thought we'd check it out.  I am so glad we did.  It's a very underrated state.  There is so much beauty, great food, unique architecture, and more!  We crammed a lot into a few days and had a blast.

We flew in Albuquerque and arrived at 9:30 AM, and once there, we headed north towards Santa Fe.  We first stopped to eat lunch at a diner off of Route 66. 

lunch

Rio Grande River

We were going to do a hike at a National Park in between ABQ and Santa Fe, but it was closed (I guess from President's Day?  Their website didn't even say they were closed :( )  So we continued on to Santa Fe (which is an hour from ABQ) and did a hike right outside the city.

We went to downtown Santa Fe to explore.  There are a lot of art and pottery stores, which aren't cheap.  We laughed at this small shelf in a pottery store.  ;) Some of the pieces of pottery were over $10k!

A bank!

We went and checked into our VRBO, which was in the burbs but only about 2 miles from downtown Santa Fe.  It had a really cool view!

We went out to dinner that night.  They have a lot of Mexican restaurants but they have a Native American flare to them.

Day 2: We woke up, hit up Starbucks, and then headed north to Angel Fire!  It's an area of New Mexico that has a ski resort, where we went snow tubing.  It was a 2 hour drive up there, and the views were magical.  We were going from more of a desert-type landscape to a snowy mountain landscape.  At Angel Fire, we were less than an hour from Colorado, so it looked more like that!

As we were heading up the mountain towards Angel Fire, it started snowing!!  The flakes were huge and fluffy and it was coming down hard. 

Snow tubing was an absolute blast!

After Angel Fire, we headed down the mountain and went to the lovely town of Taos.  It was under a lot of construction, so we didn't explore the downtown area much.  We did eat at a "farm to table" type restaurant that was delicious.  The view were really pretty!

We headed back to the VRBO and hit up the hot tub for a bit, then headed out to dinner later that night.

The next day, we headed back towards ABQ to catch our flight.  Our flight wasn't until later in the afternoon, but Stephen went to a Starbucks to do some work, so I did some shopping.  Check out the NM version of TJ Maxx!

We got home around 9 PM.  It was a really fun trip!

Taylor- Feeder Basketball

Taylor wrapped up her 8th grade feeder season (the weekend team, not the weekday school team... not confusing at all).  They play a lot more games against 5 different counties, so it's fun to see them play a variety of teams.

They had a great season, playing in 3 tournaments and winning 2, and coming up as runner's up in the third.  I also tried to play photographer for her team, and here are some of the pics I got!

RYZE Tournament:

Champs! RYZE tourney November 2024

Thanksgiving Tournament:

Runner's Up Thanksgiving Tourney

Christmas Tourney:

This was the minute when Taylor sprained her right Tommy John ligament (elbow area).  Did this in the championship game.  Girlfriend was out for over a month from playing basketball.  Such a bummer.

Champs!

Three-peat for the Christmas tourney!