New Mexico Weekend

Emma had a 3 day weekend and with no snow near us, we headed to New Mexico to do some skiing and explore a new state.
On the first day there, we headed to Taos. Ian and I explored the town while Dan and Emma got in some skiing.

At the resort

Mountains and Snow!

Emma ended up getting her own ski instructor

Having fun

Coming down the hill
On Saturday, we visited the local Indian Pueblo on our way back to Santa Fe

Ian finds a drum

The Pueblo Church

More of the Pueblo
In Santa Fe, we grabbed a quick Snack


Frito Pie
On Sunday, we headed to Albuquerque and with a little time before our flight, visited the Petroglyph National Monument. Emma had to draw some pictographs for school around Thanksgiving, so she was excited to see the ancient writing and climb the volcanic rock hills.

One of the many pictographs we saw

Ian did a great job climbing, but got a little help on the tricky parts.

The view from the top

Cute climber


More pictures
We also got our fill of Mexican food! Yum! Overall we had a great weekend exploring a new place.

Our Little Rock Climber

A few weeks ago, Emma had a birthday party and one of our local bounce house places. She loved the bounce houses and the obstacle course, but she liked climbing the rock wall the most....

Ready to climb

Half way there

Almost to the top!

Las Vegas

After Christmas, Nana and B-pa treated us to a few days away and Dan and I went to explore Las Vegas kid free... We had tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld and the Cirque de Soleil show "O" and both were excellent. During the two days we were there, we explored different hotels to check out the over the top opulence of it all.

We stayed at the Bellagio. The holiday decorations were pretty amazing.

Including skating penguins that were seemed very popular to the crowds

We walked over to New York New York and rode the roller coaster

and went to the shark reef at Mandalay Bay

This was the view from our room. At night, we had a perfect view of the fountain shows.
We had a great kid free time and have officially marked Las Vegas off our list of places to visit.

Christmas 2011

We had a wonderful, relaxing time celebrating Christmas at home this year. Nana and B-pa flew in on Christmas eve and we went to our church's Christmas eve service, then we had a fondue dinner at home and the kids put out cookies for Santa and went to bed. Santa's elves only had one big present to put together this Christmas, so it was a pretty early night for us, also.
On Christmas morning, Emma and Ian woke up to see if Santa had visited...

Coming down the stairs

Emma was really excited about her new scooter

and she pointed out Ian's present, a train table!

Then it was time for stockings

The stockings are empty so time for breakfast

Nana and Emma read one of her new books from her stocking while "the chef" prepares breakfast

Dan is the pancake maker in our house, so the first present that he got to open were pancake making accessories from the kids.

Now we can have jungle animal pancakes

After breakfast it was time for presents!

Ian got lots of new additions to his train table, which he had to try out immediately

Emma loved her Rapunzel tower from cousin Erin

and her Little Miss Muffin
We spent most of the morning opening presents and then had a relaxing afternoon playing with new toys and watching new movies followed by a yummy Christmas dinner.

A few more fun holiday pictures; Ian dressed as Santa

Enjoying a candy cane
After Christmas, Dan went to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl and brought back some fun treats...


It was a great holiday, but it is always nice to get back into our normal routine.